Siyaset Bilimi ve Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü Koleksiyonu

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11779/1939

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Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
  • Other
    Good News From Vienna Is a Relief To Ankara
    (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2015) Kibaroğlu, Mustafa; Sazak, Selim C.
    After months of harrowing negotiations, the nuclear talks in Vienna have finally succeeded, marking the most significant accord between Iran and major world powers since Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979. Absent from the festivities, however, was one country that worked hard to bring this day forth—Turkey.
  • Other
    Nuclear Weapons: Not Taboo Enough
    (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2015) Kibaroğlu, Mustafa
    I wish I could argue that the world had properly absorbed the lessons of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Unfortunately, I must argue the opposite. Why? First and foremost, large numbers of people around the world believe that dropping the atomic bombs—regardless of how catastrophic the consequences were for the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—saved lives, perhaps millions of them, by bringing World War II to a prompt conclusion. But history doesn't substantiate this point of view. Japan had already lost much ground in the Asia-Pacific region. Europe's fascist regimes had fallen; the war had ended in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East; and Japan was left to fight its enemies alone. Under such circumstances the Japanese Empire couldn't have prolonged the war much longer in any case.
  • Other
    How Plutonium Undermines the Hibakusha
    (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2015) Kibaroğlu, Mustafa
    Akira Kawasaki wrote in Round One that the noble disarmament efforts of the Hibakusha—survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—"have often been ignored" outside Japan. Indeed, the Hibakusha's message has "sometimes been misinterpreted so badly" that it has "been portrayed as an incentive for nations to develop nuclear weapons in the name of deterrence."
  • Other
    Turkey’s Nuclear Contradictions
    (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2015) Kibaroğlu, Mustafa
    My Round Two essay, which argued that Japan's stockpile of plutonium undercuts the disarmament message of the Hibakusha, seems to have been the inspiration for my colleague Akira Kawasaki to discuss "the double standards inherent in Japan's nuclear policies." Here in Round Three, I'll reciprocate by discussing the nuclear double standards of my own nation, Turkey.
  • Other
    Disarmament While the Chance Remains
    (2017) Kibaroğlu, Mustafa
    Here’s the question I can’t help but ask as I read through this roundtable, including some readers’ responses to it: What’s so wrong with discussing a nuclear weapon ban treaty? This seemingly simple question can be understood in at least two ways. First, it’s a reaction to certain critics of the ban treaty initiative who believe that the initiative has little chance of forcing disarmament and therefore is a futile waste of time. Well, when you get right down to it, does anyone use his or her time in the most effective way possible, at all times, throughout life? Probably not! So how come engaging in intellectual discussion about a nuclear weapon ban treaty is an especially egregious waste of time?
  • Other
    To Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Strip Away Their Handsome Mask
    (2016) Kibaroğlu, Mustafa
    The golden age of deterrence has reached its end. Nuclear weapons, once a star player on the international stage, no longer enjoy a place in the limelight.To be sure, some policy makers still ascribe to nuclear weapons the same prestige that, during the Cold War, they gained because of their unmatched destructive power and the leverage they provided nuclear weapon states in the international arena. But the Cold War environment, in which nuclear weapons in the hands of two superpowers played a vital role in maintaining strategic stability, doesn’t exist anymore. Nor is it likely to be replicated in the future—despite certain parallels between US-Soviet relations during the Cold War and present-day US-Russia relations. Meanwhile, it is painfully obvious that nuclear deterrence is useless against apocalyptic terrorist organizations motivated by religious extremism. If such a group acquired and used a nuclear weapon, there would be no “return address” toward which retaliation could be directed. And apocalyptic terrorists probably don’t fear destruction in the first place.
  • Other
    Reality: Humanity Can’t Indefinitely Avoid Using Nuclear Weapons
    (2017) Kibaroğlu, Mustafa
    A Bulletin reader named Ryan Alt argues in the comments to this roundtable that “it is very difficult to imagine [a nuclear weapon] ban [treaty] as anything more than wishful thinking.” Another reader, Keith B. Rosenberg, writes that one should “[n]ever make a treaty that will not be adhered to”—essentially, that the ban treaty is too idealistic to be feasible. I’ll argue the opposite—that realistically appraising nuclear weapons and their dangers demands the negotiation of a ban treaty. What is overly idealistic is to believe that humanity, if it possesses nuclear weapons indefinitely, will indefinitely manage to avoid nuclear war.