Nuclear Test Ban: Converting Political Visions to Reality - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ola Dahlman studied at Lund University, the Royal Institute of Technology and the Defence Collage in Stockholm, He spent his research career at the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOA) as a scientist anda research director working mainly on CTBT verification. Dahlman then served as the 1 director of two FOA Laboratories and finally, for six years, as the deputy director general of FOA. After retiringfrom FOA i spent a year as a visiting scientist at the EU Joint Research Centre at ISPRA, Italy,working on the concept of resilience. Parallel to his work at FOA I served as an expert to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs engaged ininternational negotiations, primarily on a nuclear test ban. He chaired for 15 years the Group ofScientific Experts at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and for 10 years the CompeCTBTO Working group on verification in Vienna. He chaired the CTBTO InternationalScientific Study project and its conference in 2009, which essentially was a large-scale S&Tprocess. Further, he worked for a short time at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europein Vienna on Container Security and also co-chaired a three year Strategic Study onBioterrorism with European and Russian bio-experts. Dahlman has co-authored four books; Detect and Deter: Can Countries Verify the Nuclear Test Ban?Springer 2011, Nuclear Test Ban: Converting Political Visions to Reality Springer, 2009, Container Security. A Proposal for a Comprehensive Code of Conduct. National Defense University FortMcNair Washington, 2005, and Monitoring Underground Nuclear Explosions, Elsevier, 1977.

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The book gives a broad presentation in laymen's language of the creation and the implementation of the treaty prohibiting nuclear test explosions (Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty: CTBT), one of the key guarantors of nuclear non-proliferation. The writers, who personally guided this work for more than 25 years, give a unique insight into the challenging international work to establish a complex technological system with global coverage in a political environment.

Extensive nuclear testing has occurred and this is comprehensively reviewed, as are the arguments in favour of a test ban and efforts to implement one. The Conference on Disarmament in Geneva witnessed unprecedented efforts by scientists from around the world to form a common understanding of how to verify a test ban treaty and develop a prototype global verification system; work that was significant in building confidence at the height of the Cold War. The political negotiations and Treaty itself are briefly analysed, but the main part of the book is devoted to more than a decade of effort by the Preparatory Commission for the CTBT Organization to implement the treaty and its verification system: the most comprehensive verification system ever created, with a global coverage connecting more than 300 monitoring stations and an intrusive on-site inspection regime.

The first, most promising test results are also presented. An essential element of the book is its assessment of the experience gained through many years of political, managerial and technical activity. Such lessons, if well learned, can benefit the negotiations of future international treaties where verification is crucial, such as in arms control, disarmament or the environment.

Audience:
This book will be of interest to professionals in political, diplomatic and military areas,  and to politicians and their staffs. Scientists and graduate students in political science and researchers at institutions in security related fields and at NGOs will find valuable information in this book.