Books of Note

Eliminating Nuclear Weapons: The Role of Missile Defense

Tom Sauer, Columbia University Press, 2011, 155 pp.

Tom Sauer’s short but comprehensive volume analyzes the interaction between the goals of eliminating nuclear weapons and having a missile defense system to protect against any illicit nuclear-armed ballistic missiles that may appear. Judging nuclear deterrence unsustainable, Sauer assumes ultimate elimination of nuclear arsenals worldwide and does not dwell on the near-term difficulty of further reducing strategic offensive arsenals in an environment of unconstrained strategic missile defenses. He suggests that policy choices on missile defense will help determine whether global nuclear disarmament will be able to prevent nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. Key to Sauer’s overall analysis is his contention that the actual technical capabilities of the current generation of missile defenses have been greatly exaggerated and that it is “extremely doubtful” a reliable missile shield could be built over the next couple of decades. He ranks the desirability of three possible configurations of missile defenses for achieving a stable and effective ban on nuclear weapons: Best would be a regime banning all defensive as well as offensive ballistic missiles; second best would be limiting missile defenses to theater systems; and third would be sharing large-scale strategic missile defense systems with all major powers. Sauer contends that other scenarios for missile defenses, including the current trajectory of U.S. programs, will lead to new arms races in defensive and offensive weapons.—GREG THIELMANN

Deterrence: Its Past and Future

George P. Shultz, Sidney D. Drell, and James E. Goodby, eds., Hoover Institution Press, 2011, 230 pp.

This two-part book discusses the evolving role of deterrence and its utility against emerging international security threats. Part I is a compilation of summaries of papers presented at a conference on deterrence held in November 2010 at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Remarks delivered at the conference by former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), and Admiral Michael Mullen also are included in the volume. The summaries touch on a variety of issues, including the feasibility and challenges of preventing states from reconstituting nuclear arsenals after the elimination of nuclear weapons, the debate over de-alerting nuclear forces, and the need to reassess conventional thinking on nuclear deterrence in a multipolar environment in which nonstate actors challenge national security. In Part II, Steve Andreasen and Michael Gerson analyze how states with nuclear weapons (China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, and the United Kingdom), NATO, and Iran perceive the broader international security environment, view the role that nuclear weapons play in deterrence, and think about the abolition of nuclear weapons. The two authors focus on how these viewpoints are known and understood in the United States. The purpose of this approach, according to Andreasen and Gerson, is to prevent misinterpretation of other states’ views on the role and utility of deterrence. —KELSEY DAVENPORT