Part One: Imperial Ambitions Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, each and every U.S. president has threatened nuclear war at some point during their presidency. Join us as we speak with leading nuclear specialist and peace campaigner Joseph Gerson about how the United States has used nuclear weapons to bolster its imperial ambitions --- and how the United States uses them today to preserve its global empire. That's today on Voices of Our World. Part Two: Imperial Ambitions (II) In a speech delivered at world conference against atomic & hydrogen bombs in Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Japan on august 3, 2007, Joseph Gerson said the following: "my argument is not that U.S. use and threatened use of nuclear weapons have always succeeded. Instead, successive U.S. presidents, their most senior advisers, and many in the pentagon have believed that U.S. use of nuclear weapons has achieved U.S. goals in the past. Furthermore, these presidents have repeatedly replicated this ostensibly successful model. In fact, the U.S. commitment to nuclear dominance and its practice of threatening nuclear attacks have, in fact, been counterproductive, increasing the dangers of nuclear war in yet another way: spurring nuclear weapons proliferation. No nation will long tolerate what it experiences as an unjust imbalance of power. It was primarily for this reason that the Soviet Union and China, North Korea, and quite probably Iran opted for nuclear weapons." We now continue our interview with leading nuclear specialist and peace campaigner Joseph Gerson about his newest book Empire and the Bomb.

Part One: Imperial Ambitions Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, each and every U.S. president has threatened nuclear war at some point during their presidency. Join us as we speak with leading nuclear specialist and peace campaigner Joseph Gerson about how the United States has used nuclear weapons to bolster its imperial ambitions --- and how the United States uses them today to preserve its global empire. That's today on Voices of Our World. Part Two: Imperial Ambitions (II) In a speech delivered at world conference against atomic & hydrogen bombs in Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Japan on august 3, 2007, Joseph Gerson said the following: "my argument is not that U.S. use and threatened use of nuclear weapons have always succeeded. Instead, successive U.S. presidents, their most senior advisers, and many in the pentagon have believed that U.S. use of nuclear weapons has achieved U.S. goals in the past. Furthermore, these presidents have repeatedly replicated this ostensibly successful model. In fact, the U.S. commitment to nuclear dominance and its practice of threatening nuclear attacks have, in fact, been counterproductive, increasing the dangers of nuclear war in yet another way: spurring nuclear weapons proliferation. No nation will long tolerate what it experiences as an unjust imbalance of power. It was primarily for this reason that the Soviet Union and China, North Korea, and quite probably Iran opted for nuclear weapons." We now continue our interview with leading nuclear specialist and peace campaigner Joseph Gerson about his newest book Empire and the Bomb.