This oddly disjointed inquiry into the world of nuclear terrorism
contains sporadic nuggets of wisdom.Jenkins (Unconquerable Nation,
2006, etc.) combines his knowledge of terrorism with private
briefings from intelligence officials to provide an earnest,
meandering historical take on the difficulty terrorists face in
going nuclear. An insightful chapter describes obstacles to
procuring authentic enriched plutonium or uranium in the "world of
shadows" that is the nuclear black market. Preceding it, a chapter
about the restraints terrorists impose on themselves ends with the
chilling comment, "Over time...the constraints erode." The author's
main point is that groups like al-Qaeda succeed in terrorizing us
not by actually detonating nuclear devices, but by threatening do
so. Jenkins convincingly shows that Russia's nuclear arsenal is
well protected and there is no evidence that al-Qaeda has been
successful in obtaining Russian-made suitcase bombs or the
imaginary superdetonator, red mercury. But al-Qaeda does not need
to possess a nuclear bomb, the author argues. The fear of a nuclear
attack, fueled by the savvy al-Qaeda publicity machine and a
sensationalist, story-driven media industry, is more effectively
debilitating. The U.S. government has been inadvertently complicit
with the terrorists, Jenkins avers, by promoting a message of fear
since 9/11. However, the author contributes to the sensationalism
with a poorly sketched chapter positing a nuclear detonation in
Manhattan that casts the reader as president and asks how "you"
will react. The author aims to convey the limited range of options
available when the perpetrators are unknown, but instead provides
an amateurish story outline barely suitable for tabloid television,
with an unprepared president surrounded by unsure, non-technical
advisors. Ultimately his cop-out conclusion is that "we cannot do
more than guess" at the answer to the question posed by the book's
title.Educational but uneven. (Kirkus Reviews)
According to a British intelligence report leaked to the press in
2007, al Qaeda operatives are planning a large-scale attack "on par
with Hiroshima and Nagasaki." How likely is it that terrorists will
develop the capability of such an attack? No one understands the
nature of the threat posed by nuclear terrorism better than Brian
Michael Jenkins--one of the world's most renowned experts on
terrorism. For more than thirty years, he has been advising the
military, government, and prestigious think tanks on the dangers of
escalating terrorism.
Jenkins goes beyond what the experts know about terrorists'
efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, nuclear black markets,
"suitcase bombs," and mysterious substances like red mercury to
examine how terrorists themselves think about such weapons. He
offers many insights into such vital questions as:
- Do terrorists see nuclear weapons as instruments of coercion or
of pure destruction? - Are those we label religious fanatics
constrained by political and strategic calculations?
- If a nuclear attack took place on American soil, what
life-and-death decisions would the president be forced to make? He
puts the reader in the position of the president to convey the
immediacy of making decisions--and the perilous repercussions of
each critical decision.
Jenkins notes that terrorists have become increasingly adept at
creating an atmosphere of nuclear terror. In fact, al Qaeda may
have succeeded in becoming the world's first terrorist nuclear
power without possessing a single nuclear weapon. The psychological
effects of nuclear terror are fueled by American culture, which
churns out novels and movies in which every conceivable horror
scenario is played out. Political factions on both the right and
the left also view nuclear terrorism as fodder to support their own
arguments. In such an atmosphere, it is difficult for the average
citizen to separate real from imagined dangers. Jenkins's informed
and seasoned analysis will give all Americans a levelheaded
understanding of the real situation and teach us how not to yield
to nuclear terror.
General
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