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Nuclear disarmament has been a matter of great policy concern for Russia as it was for the former Soviet Union. To recall briefly, super power rivalry between the former Soviet Union and the United States was deeply entrenched even in the field of nuclear issue for about five decades as a form of offensive and defensive policy instrument. Fully realizing and acknowledging the high risk involved in the event of a nuclear war for themselves and for the world as a whole, both the superpowers were sensible and responsible enough to avoid such an eventuality. As more countries joined the nuclear race subsequently, there was growing realization of the need to launch the campaign for nuclear disarmament on a global scale. In this background an effort has been made in this chapter to understand and analyze Russia’s perspectives and initiatives on the issue of nuclear disarmament.

Walter Lippmann in his 1922 classic “Public Opinion” noted that “the news media are a primary source of those pictures in our heads about the larger world of public affairs, a world that for most citizens is “out of reach, out of sight, out of mind.” Indeed, among the different roles that the mass media performs is one of an information provider and interpreter of world events and policy decisions. The power of the mass media to mould public opinion on issues of national and international significance is well documented. Our knowledge and priorities about public affairs are based on what the media decides to feed us with. In this context, the present chapter seeks to analyze the crucial role essayed by the mass media in ensuring human security by promoting favorable public opinion toward the cause of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. S. Rashid Naim enunciates in “Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia” that a nuclear attack between India and Pakistan even limiting itself to military targets would cause approximately 577,000 deaths in Pakistan and 604,000 deaths in India apart from substantial number of injuries and destruction of property. The knowledge about this impending havoc should reach the grassroots level and this can be accomplished only by the mass media. With global efforts being channelized toward nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, the media and its trend-setting abilities can be harnessed to enlighten the average public about the disasters of a nuclear war. As the role of the mass media becomes more prominent in managing conflicts all over the world, the time is ripe to utilize its immense powers to dilute the level of possible nuclear clashes. A more proactive role of the media is envisioned through the establishment of a “global communication center” dedicated to the publication and broadcast of information advocating the cause of total nuclear disarmament. This center will be the locus of information dissemination and advocacy directed toward nations that possess nuclear weapons and those that are likely to get their hands on them in the near future. While the mass media is certainly not the only actor in the process of nuclear disarmament, it can be a decisive force for nations to choose between “atom for peace” or “atom for war.”

The Nuclear Non‐Proliferation Treaty (NPT), signed in 1968, is a treaty of three main agreements concerning both nuclear weapons states and non‐nuclear weapons states, with the ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament. A number of safeguards and inspections conducted by the IAEA have been set up to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and until about the time of the Persian Gulf War, the monitoring and inspection regime had been successful. Since the beginning of the 1990s however, the system has been seriously shaken with the non‐compliance of a number of countries and the relevance and effectiveness of the NPT are greatly put into question. A number of tools, however, are at the disposal of the international community to deal with arms control; it is a question of cooperation, effective use of these tools and choice of direction.

The post-Cold War period allowed the U.S. nuclear legacy of ecocide to be declassified and made public. The policy of nuclear secrecy, evident in Russia (see Mironova et al., this volume), was not merely an eastern practice. Western nuclear releases were kept equally under wraps. In England, for example, the Windscale disaster was not fully disclosed until 1987.¹ Likewise, releases from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, in Washington State, and other U.S. nuclear sites were kept undercover until the same period. The irony was that Americans learned of many of the nuclear skeletons in their closet around the time that Russians learned of theirs (see Mironova et al., this volume). It would appear that glasnost was contagious.

This paper hypothesizes that in respect of developing nuclear energy, utilizing one process, on one occasion, and with only the development of nuclear energy as the “policy problem” on which consultations are based will not be successful; a more successful model occurs over the long term, utilizes an iterative process of engagement, and multiple framing of related energy issues (in addition to the development of nuclear energy). The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper reviews and analyzes the framing of issues and chosen mechanisms of public consultations employed by the Government of Saskatchewan in relation to the nuclear energy future for Saskatchewan. These mechanisms are reviewed based on the perceptions and comments made by members of the public within the consultations which were recorded, coded and analysed, as well as a series of semi-structured qualitative interviews with key personnel involved in the consultation process. The three mechanisms of public participation employed by the Government of Saskatchewan are analyzed and evaluated and a model developed to facilitate the analysis.

Alternative measures of successful participation are useful. The framing of issues, the time frame of analysis, and quality of communication flows are all determinative of success. The utilization of a combination of participatory mechanisms is also beneficial. An optimal strategy of public consultations respecting energy is developed based on interviews with key personnel in the policy field.

This research is based only on the perceptions of participants expressed within the participatory processes and key personnel in the energy policy field of Saskatchewan.

This paper offers a model linking several policy considerations useful to future energy policy public consultations.

Nuclear proliferation has become a global phenomenon since 1945. A debate has emerged about whether the nuclear nonproliferation regime is sufficient to contain nuclear proliferation. Nuclear proliferation regime has confronted new challenges in recent times. Developments stemming from the demise of the former USSR have raised few serious problems: a previously acknowledged nuclear weapon state had been subjected to political disintegration. This was a period of nuclear transformation which required long-term cooperation between Russia and the United States. This period of transition was facilitated by the foresight of policymakers from both sides of the former cold war divide and by the frameworks of arms control and disarmament agreements then in place. Ensuring nuclear stability during this period was possible because of agreements like the NPT and START.

However, the other side of the story is that in January 2000, the Russian Government released its new nuclear policy in a document entitled: “Concept of National Security” which was ratified by Presidential decree on April 21, 2000. The document was updated version of policy statements made in 1993 and 1997, and indicated a heightened sense of conflict with NATO and the United States on nuclear issues, and an increased reliance on nuclear weapons. Russia rejected to adhere to the “no-first-use” of nuclear weapons policy.

Russia’s nuclear policy under Putin entered a period of new realism. Russia was presented as an alternative pole to the West which gave way to new arms race. Therefore the initiative toward nuclear disarmament would most likely be largely cosmetic in nature. This chapter attempts to present a theoretical framework on Russia’s nuclear disarmament policy since early 1990s.

The chapter presents an analysis of the decision-making process of leaders on issues of nuclear armament and nuclear disarmament, through four case studies. The first, pertaining armament, is South Africa, with a focus on Pieter Willem Botha, former prime minister and president of South Africa. The second deals with former Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi’s nuclear armament decision. The third case study investigates the decision of former president of South Africa, F. W. De Klerk, on nuclear disarmament. The fourth and final case study uncovers Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s nuclear disarmament decision.

Using the Applied Decision Analysis (ADA) method historical decisions have been analyzed in this chapter for the purpose of identifying each leader’s ‘decision code’. Specifically, were these decisions based on rational calculations or were they influenced more by cognitive decision processes?

By revealing a ‘decision code’ using a reverse engineering of the decision processes, I conclude that the three leaders placed high importance on security and geopolitics. By analyzing different dimensions and processes that impacted their decision processes, it is evident that while armament decision utilizes the poliheuristic decision rule, disarmament decisions abide by rational calculations.

The conclusion of the Cold War's U.S.‐Soviet superpower rivalry may have ended the threat of a global nuclear military confrontation involving these powers. It did not, however, result in the termination of international regional conflicts or of military threats to U.S. national security. The collapse of a world political and strategic system ostensibly polarized between two ideologically contrasting superpowers has resulted in the emergence of numerous threats to regional and global order.