Henry Sokolski has written an excellent, short book about what he sees as our not so peaceful nuclear future. While short in length, it covers a lot of ground, and because it is extensively footnoted, it can lead readers to the broader literature. The book provides a good picture of the growing stockpiles of separated plutonium and the stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, as well as the likely expansion of nuclear power programs in additional countries. When reading the book, my thoughts turned to the Per Bak book, How Nature Works, and the concept of self-organized criticality and its descriptions of computer simulations and experiments leading to avalanches in sandpiles. This may be a useful way of thinking about the possible consequences for nuclear weapon proliferation as the stockpiles of fi ssile material grow.

The monographs in this book were all commissioned as part of a year-long project sponsored by the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC), the U.S. Air Force's Institute for National Security Studies, and the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute. They were written to help three working groups develop strategies to curb the threat posed by North Korea's strategic weapons programs. Central to these groups' efforts was competitive strategies analysis. As detailed in an earlier Strategic Studies Institute volume, Prevailing in a Well-Armed World, this approach requires analysts to examine four sets of questions. Stephen Bradner in his monograph, "North Korea's Strategy" (Chapter 2 of this volume), examines the first three sets of questions. These concern what one's strategic assumptions and goals are, who the likely key third actors are, and what strategies would make the most sense for each party to pursue.

Although the present book never intended to be quite so timely, Beyond Nunn-Lugar: Curbing the Next Wave of Weapons Proliferation Threats from Russia is one book that, coming so soon after the events of September 11, 2001, and shortly before President Bush's Russian summit, should find a ready audience. The essays in the book were originally commissioned by the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) as part of a year-long study on the future of U.S.-Russian nonproliferation cooperation. What makes the book different from other studies of U.S.-Russian cooperation is its reliance on competitive strategies.1 Originally devised as a business management tool and subsequently used by the Pentagon to guide its military planning against the Soviet Union, the analytical approach based on competitive strategies requires analysts to evaluate long-term trends, 10 to 20 years out.

In 2009, the President of the United States spotlighted nuclear terrorism as one of the top threats to international security and launched an international effort to identify, secure, and dispose of global stocks of weapons-usable nuclear materials-namely highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium. Since that time, three nuclear security summits have been held, along with scores of studies and workshops (official and unofficial), drawing sustained high-level attention to the threat posed by these materials. However, little attention has been given to incidences where sensitive nuclear materials actually went missing. This volume seeks to correct this deficiency, examining incidences of material unaccounted for (MUF) arising from U.S. and South African nuclear weapons programs, plutonium gone missing from Japanese and British civilian production facilities, and a theft of highly enriched uranium from a U.S. military contractor in the 1960s that was used to help fuel Israel's nuclear weapons program.

At the height of the Cultural Revolution a Chinese long-range nuclear missile is fired within the country, and the nuclear warhead it is carrying detonates. A French nuclear device is exploded in Algeria during a coup there. The Soviet empire has collapsed, and shots are fired at a Russian crowd intent on rushing a nuclear weapons-laden plane straining to remove a stash of nuclear weapons to a safer locale. Pakistani civilian governments are routinely pushed aside by a powerful, nuclear-armed military that observers worry might yet itself fall prey to a faction willing to seize a portion of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. This volume reveals previously unknown details on each case and teases out what is to be learned. This book is ideal not only for policymakers and analysts, but for historians and teachers as well.

Nearly 40 years after the concept of finite deterrence was popularized by the Johnson administration, nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) thinking appears to be in decline. The United States has rejected the notion that threatening population centers with nuclear attacks is a legitimate way to assure deterrence. Most recently, it withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an agreement based on MAD. American opposition to MAD also is reflected in the Bush administration's desire to develop smaller, more accurate nuclear weapons that would reduce the number of innocent civilians killed in a nuclear strike. Still, MAD is influential in a number of ways. First, other countries, like China, have not abandoned the idea that holding their adversaries' cities at risk is necessary to assure their own strategic security. Nor have U.S. and allied security officials and experts fully abandoned the idea.

This volume was completed just before Pakistani President Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in November 2007. The political turmoil that followed raised concerns that Pakistan's nuclear assets might be vulnerable to diversion or misuse. This book, which consists of research that the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) commissioned and vetted in 2006 and 2007, details precisely what these worries might be. Dr. Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Dr. Peter Lavoy, now the National Intelligence Officer for Southwest Asia at the National Intelligence Council, were instrumental in the selection of authors as well as producing original research. Thanks is also due to Ali Naqvi and Tamara Mitchell of NPEC's staff who helped organize the workshop at which the book's contents were discussed and who helped prepare the book manuscript. Finally, special thanks is due to Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr., Ms. Marianne Cowling, and Ms. Rita Rummel...

This book, completed just before Pakistani President Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in November 2007, reflects research that the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center commissioned over the last 2 years. It tries to characterize specific nuclear problems that the ruling Pakistani government faces with the aim of establishing a base line set of challenges for remedial action. Its point of departure is to consider what nuclear challenges Pakistan will face if moderate forces remain in control of the government and no hot war breaks out against India.

Unfortunately, a nuclear terrorist act is only one-and hardly the most probable-of several frightening security threats Pakistan now faces or poses. We know that traditional acts of terrorism and conventional military crises in Southwest Asia have nearly escalated into wars and, more recently, even threatened Indian and Pakistani nuclear use. Certainly, the war jitters that attended the recent terrorist attacks against Mumbai highlighted the nexus between conventional terrorism and war. For several weeks, the key worry in Washington was that India and Pakistan might not be able to avoid war. Similar concerns were raised during the Kargil crisis in 1999, and the Indo-Pakistani conventional military tensions that arose in 2001 and 2002-crises that most analysts (including those who contributed to this volume) believe could have escalated into nuclear conflicts. The intent of this book is to conduct a significant evaluation of these threats. Its companion volume, Worries Beyond War, published in 2008, focused on the challenges of Pakistani nuclear terrorism. These analyses offer a window into what is possible and why Pakistani nuclear terrorism is best seen as a lesser included threat to war, and terrorism more generally. Could the United States do more with Pakistan to secure Pakistan's nuclear weapons holdings against possible seizure? It is unclear. This book argues that rather than distracting our policy leaders from taking the steps needed to reduce the threats of nuclear war, we would do well to view our worst terrorist nightmares for what they are: Subordinate threats that will be limited best if the risk of nuclear war is reduced and contained.

At the height of the Cultural Revolution a Chinese long-range nuclear missile is fired within the country, and the nuclear warhead it is carrying detonates. A French nuclear device is exploded in Algeria during a coup there. The Soviet empire has collapsed, and shots are fired at a Russian crowd intent on rushing a nuclear weapons-laden plane straining to remove a stash of nuclear weapons to a safer locale. Pakistani civilian governments are routinely pushed aside by a powerful, nuclear-armed military that observers worry might yet itself fall prey to a faction willing to seize a portion of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. This volume reveals previously unknown details on each case and teases out what is to be learned. This book is ideal not only for policymakers and analysts, but for historians and teachers as well.

As the United States and Russia negotiate to bring their number of deployed nuclear weapons down, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel continue to bump their numbers up while a growing number of smaller states develop "peaceful" nuclear programs that will bring them closer to getting bombs if they choose. Welcome to the brave new world of tighter, more opaque nuclear competitions, the focus of The Next Arms Race-a must read for policy analysts and planners eager to understand and prevent the worst.

With most of the world's advanced economies now stuck in recession; Western support for defense cuts and nuclear disarmament increasing; and a major emerging Asian power at odds with its neighbors and the United States; it is tempting to think our times are about to rhyme with a decade of similar woes-the disorderly 1930s. Might we again be drifting toward some new form of mortal national combat? Or, will our future more likely ape the near-half-century that defined the Cold War-a period in which tensions between competing states ebbed and flowed but peace mostly prevailed by dint of nuclear mutual fear and loathing? The short answer is, nobody knows. This much, however, is clear: The strategic military competitions of the next 2 decades will be unlike any the world has yet seen.

When security and arms control analysts list what has helped keep nuclear weapons technologies from spreading, energy economics is rarely, if ever, mentioned. Yet, large civilian nuclear energy programs can-and have-brought states quite a way towards developing nuclear weapons; and it has been market economics, more than any other force, that has kept most states from starting or completing these programs. Since the early 1950s, every major government in the Western Hemisphere, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe has been drawn to atomic power's allure, only to have market realities prevent most of their nuclear investment plans from being fully realized. Adam Smith's Invisible Hand, then, could well determine just how far civilian nuclear energy expands and how much attention its attendant security risks will receive. Certainly, if nuclear power's economics remain negative, diplomats and policymakers could leverage this point, work to limit legitimate nuclear commerce to what is economically competitive, and so gain a powerful tool to help limit nuclear proliferation. If nuclear power finally breaks from its past and becomes the cheapest of clean technologies in market competitions against its alternatives, though, it is unlikely that diplomats and policymakers will be anywhere near as able or willing to prevent insecure or hostile states from developing nuclear energy programs, even if these programs help them make atomic weapons. Will the global spread of nuclear power programs, which could bring many more countries much closer to acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities, be an inevitable consequence of energy market economics? Or is such an expansion impossible without government subsidies and new policies to support them? This volume showcases the analyses of some of the world's leading energy experts to shed light on this key 21st century security issue.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (New START) agreement was reached in 2011, and both Russia and the United States are bringing nuclear strategic warhead deployments down to roughly 1,500 on each side. In the next round of strategic arms reduction talks, though, U.S. officials hope to cut far deeper; perhaps as low as several hundred warheads on each side-numbers that approach what other nuclear weapons states, such as France, China, Israel, India, and Pakistan either have or will soon possess. This, then, raises the question of how compatible such reductions might be with the nuclear activities of other states. How might Russia view the nuclear and military modernization activities of China? How might the continuing nuclear and military competition between Pakistan and India play out? What might the nuclear dynamics be between North and South Korea, Japan, and China? What might other states interested in developing a nuclear weapons option of their own make of the way the superpowers have so far dealt with the nuclear programs in India, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and North Korea? Are "peaceful" nuclear competitions in the Middle and Far East where states build up civilian nuclear programs to help them develop nuclear weapons options inevitable? What, beyond current nuclear control efforts, might help to reduce such nuclear threats? Each of these questions and more are examined with precision in The Next Arms Race.

Pioneers of nuclear-age policy analysis, Albert Wohlstetter (1913-1997) and Roberta Wohlstetter (1912-2007) emerged as two of America's most consequential, innovative and controversial strategists. Through the clarity of their thinking, the rigor of their research, and the persistence of their personalities, they were able to shape the views and aid the decisions of Democratic and Republican policy makers both during and after the Cold War. Although the Wohlstetters' strategic concepts and analytical methods continue to be highly influential, no book has brought together their most important essays--until now. Edited by Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) research fellow Robert Zarate and NPEC executive director Henry Sokolski, Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writings of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter demonstrates not only the historical importance, but also the continuing relevance of the Wohlstetters' work in national security strategy and nuclear policy. It is the first book to make widely available over twenty of Albert and Roberta's most influential published--and unpublished--writings on: methods of policy analysis and design; nuclear deterrence through survivable, controllable and therefore credible strategic forces; nuclear proliferation and the military potential of civil nuclear energy; spiraling arms-race myths versus the real, observable dynamics of strategic competition; the revolutionary potential of non-nuclear technologies of precision, control, and information; and the continuing need for prudence and pragmatism in the face of changing dangers. In addition, Nuclear Heuristics provides readers with an introduction to the Wohlstetters' work by editor Robert Zarate; and short commentaries on Wohlstetter writings by Henry S. Rowen (2005 WMD Commissioner and former Assistant Secretary of Defense), Alain C. Enthoven (former Assistant Secretary of Defense), Henry Sokolski (2008 WMD Proliferation and Terrorism Commissioner and former Pentagon official), Richard Perle (former Assistant Secretary of Defense and emeritus Defense Policy Board chairman), Stephen J. Lukasik (former Director of the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency, now DARPA), and Andrew W. Marshall (Director of the Office of Net Assessment). Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writings of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter is a must-read and an indispensable resource for policy makers, military planners, and strategic analysts, as well as for students who aspire to these positions.

CONTENTS Preface Nicholas Eberstadt Acknowledgements Introduction Henry D. Sokolski Chapter 1. Planning for a Peaceful Korea: A Report of the Korea Competitive Strategies Working Group Henry D. Sokolski Chapter 2. North Korea's Strategy Stephen Bradner Chapter 3. The North Korean View of the Development and Production of Strategic Weapons Systems Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr., and Sharon A. Richardson Chapter 4. The Last Worst Place on Earth: Human Rights in North Korea Jack Rendler Chapter 5. China's Goals and Strategies for the Korean Peninsula Eric A. McVadon Chapter 6. China's Goals and Strategies for the Korean Peninsula: A Critical Assessment Larry M. Wortzel Chapter 7. Japan's Grand Strategy on the Korean Peninsula: Optimistic Realism Victor D. Cha Chapter 8. Economic Alternatives for Unification Marcus Noland Chapter 9. Conventional Arms Control in Korea: A Lever for Peace? Bruce William Bennett Working Group Participant List About the Contributors

Although the United States efforts to prevent the spread of strategic weapons have varied significantly since 1945, they all presumed to be avoiding one or another type of strategic war. To the extent their military scenarios were sound, so too were the nonproliferation remedies these initiatives promoted. But, as Sokolski demonstrates, the obverse was also true--when these intiatives' military hopes and fears were mistaken, their nonproliferation recommendations also missed their mark.

What is the best hope for breaking out of this box and securing a higher rate of nonproliferation success? The United States must base nonproliferation policies less on insights concerning strategic military trends and more on the progressive economic and political trends that have increased the number of relatively peaceful, prosperous, liberal democracies. For the proliferating nations that are exceptions to this trend, the U.S. and its allies need to devise ways of competing that will encourage these governments to expend more energies shoring up their weaknesses and eventually giving way to less militant regimes. A major resource for students and military professionals interested in arms control and international relations.