Nuclear alliances are high stakes partnerships with the potential to enhance security, goodwill, scientific and technical innovation, and economic well-being; or, they risk a state's very existence, generate social and political unrest, and fracture frameworks for international cooperation and jeopardize global reputations. Now entering its eighth decade, the Anglo-American nuclear alliance is the oldest and most complex in the world. Sharing Nuclear Secrets is the first comprehensive single-volume study of the Anglo-American nuclear relationship, illuminating both its fragility and durability. It has waxed and waned based on the preferences of presidents and prime ministers, weathered war scares, overcome isolationist impulses and imperial decline, persisted despite public antipathy, and has survived and been strengthened by scientific rivalries. Trust and ambiguity are entangled at the core of the Anglo-American nuclear relationship. The interplay between trust and ambiguity has influenced the way the nuclear partnership has been institutionalized at bureaucratic and technical levels, but also the ways in which political actors and private citizens have maintained the relationship through periods of crisis, moments of triumph, and through decades of cultural reckoning with nuclear weapons. From the days of the Manhattan Project, through the crisis of Suez and criticism of Dr. Strangelove, to the end of the Cold War, and into present day circumstances brought about by the JCPOA, AUKUS, and Russian nuclear threats over Ukraine, Sharing Nuclear Secrets reveals that ambiguity is key to keeping the balance between sentiment and interests and the corresponding equilibrium between trust and mistrust in the special relationship.
1: Introduction 2: The Wartime Period, 1939-1945: Laying the Foundations 3: A Breakdown and Partial Rebirth of Nuclear Trust, 1945-1952 4: Progress and Suspicions, 1952-1956 5: Re-building Nuclear Trust, 1956-1958 6: Nuclear Trust Challenged, 1958-1963 7: 'Independent' Deterrence, the MLF and the Future of Polaris, 1963-1969 8: Polaris Improvement: Realism (dis)unity and détente, 1969-1974 9: Evolving Deterrence Requirements: Chevaline, SALT II, and European Security, 1974-1979 10: Trident and the Death of Détente, 1979-1982 11: Alliance Nuclear Modernisation and SDI Dilemmas, 1982-1989 12: After the Cold War: Special Still More, 1990-2016 13: Continuities and 'Pebbles in the Shoe', 2016-2022 14: Conclusion
John Baylis is currently an Emeritus Professor at Swansea University. He has taught at Liverpool University and later at Aberystwyth University, where he was Professor of International Politics and Dean of Social Sciences. Before retiring he was Head of the Department of Politics and International Relations and Pro-Vice Chancellor at Swansea University. He obtained his Master's Degree and PhD from Aberystwith University and his D.Litt from Swansea University. He spent two periods teaching in the United States at the University of Virginia and Brigham Young University. He is a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, the Academy of Social Sciences and the Royal Historical Society. Anthony Eames is the Director of Scholarly Initiatives at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, and also a professorial lecturer in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He earned his PhD in history from Georgetown University and holds a master's degree from King's College London. In addition to his monographs, Eames' scholarship has appeared in Technology & Culture, Journal of Military History, Mediterranean Quarterly, and other publications. He has spoken widely on nuclear and national security issues in both the United States and United Kingdom.
