Togzhan Kassenova – författare

Atomic Steppe tells the untold true story of how the obscure country of Kazakhstan said no to the most powerful weapons in human history. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the marginalized Central Asian republic suddenly found itself with the world's fourth largest nuclear arsenal on its territory. Would it give up these fire-ready weapons—or try to become a Central Asian North Korea?This book takes us inside Kazakhstan's extraordinary and little-known nuclear history from the Soviet period to the present. For Soviet officials, Kazakhstan's steppe was not an ecological marvel or beloved homeland, but an empty patch of dirt ideal for nuclear testing. Two-headed lambs were just the beginning of the resulting public health disaster for Kazakhstan—compounded, when the Soviet Union collapsed, by the daunting burden of becoming an overnight nuclear power.Equipped with intimate personal perspective and untapped archival resources, Togzhan Kassenova introduces us to the engineers turned diplomats, villagers turned activists, and scientists turned pacifists who worked toward disarmament. With thousands of nuclear weapons still present around the world, the story of how Kazakhs gave up their nuclear inheritance holds urgent lessons for global security.

Atomic Steppe tells the untold true story of how the obscure country of Kazakhstan said no to the most powerful weapons in human history. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the marginalized Central Asian republic suddenly found itself with the world's fourth largest nuclear arsenal on its territory. Would it give up these fire-ready weapons—or try to become a Central Asian North Korea?This book takes us inside Kazakhstan's extraordinary and little-known nuclear history from the Soviet period to the present. For Soviet officials, Kazakhstan's steppe was not an ecological marvel or beloved homeland, but an empty patch of dirt ideal for nuclear testing. Two-headed lambs were just the beginning of the resulting public health disaster for Kazakhstan—compounded, when the Soviet Union collapsed, by the daunting burden of becoming an overnight nuclear power.Equipped with intimate personal perspective and untapped archival resources, Togzhan Kassenova introduces us to the engineers turned diplomats, villagers turned activists, and scientists turned pacifists who worked toward disarmament. With thousands of nuclear weapons still present around the world, the story of how Kazakhs gave up their nuclear inheritance holds urgent lessons for global security.

Atomic Steppe tells the untold true story of how the obscure country of Kazakhstan said no to the most powerful weapons in human history. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the marginalized Central Asian republic suddenly found itself with the world's fourth largest nuclear arsenal on its territory. Would it give up these fire-ready weapons—or try to become a Central Asian North Korea?This book takes us inside Kazakhstan's extraordinary and little-known nuclear history from the Soviet period to the present. For Soviet officials, Kazakhstan's steppe was not an ecological marvel or beloved homeland, but an empty patch of dirt ideal for nuclear testing. Two-headed lambs were just the beginning of the resulting public health disaster for Kazakhstan—compounded, when the Soviet Union collapsed, by the daunting burden of becoming an overnight nuclear power.Equipped with intimate personal perspective and untapped archival resources, Togzhan Kassenova introduces us to the engineers turned diplomats, villagers turned activists, and scientists turned pacifists who worked toward disarmament. With thousands of nuclear weapons still present around the world, the story of how Kazakhs gave up their nuclear inheritance holds urgent lessons for global security.

Banks and the Bomb is the first book of its kind to analyze how global financial institutions act as inadvertent facilitators of weapons of mass destruction proliferation. Every day, banks around the world process millions of wire transfers for industrial goods—vacuum pumps, frequency converters, and centrifuge components. Most transfers are entirely legitimate. Some are not. Proliferators cannot buy a ready-made nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon on the commercial market, but they can buy dual-use goods and technologies to build one, and they use global banks to make the payments. This is proliferation financing—and no bank is immune from exploitation by illicit actors. Drawing on numerous case studies, interviews with government officials and financial sector professionals, and the authors' work with governments and banks across the globe, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the challenge of proliferation financing and insights into what financial institutions and governments can do to reduce the risks. This is a vital, groundbreaking book for students, scholars, financial sector professionals, and policymakers.

Banks and the Bomb is the first book of its kind to analyze how global financial institutions act as inadvertent facilitators of weapons of mass destruction proliferation. Every day, banks around the world process millions of wire transfers for industrial goods – vacuum pumps, frequency converters, and centrifuge components. Most transfers are entirely legitimate. Some are not. Proliferators cannot buy a ready-made nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon on the commercial market, but they can buy dual-use goods and technologies to build one, and they use global banks to make the payments. This is proliferation financing – and no bank is immune from exploitation by illicit actors. Drawing on numerous case studies, interviews with government officials and financial sector professionals, and the authors' work with governments and banks across the globe, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the challenge of proliferation financing and insights into what financial institutions and governments can do to reduce the risks. This is a vital, groundbreaking book for students, scholars, financial sector professionals, and policymakers.