Contemporary Nuclear Debates: Missile Defense Arms rule and Arms Races in the TwentyFirst hundred years edited by Alexander T.

Contemporary Nuclear Debates: Missile Defense Arms rule and Arms Races in the TwentyFirst hundred years edited by Alexander T.J. Lennon. MIT Pres (http://www-mitpress.mit.edu), Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142-1493 2002 344 pages, $2495 (softcover)

Who cares about nuclear missiles? They're thus eighties. We won the cooled War. Terrorists, suitcase bombs, anthrax, radiological dirty bomb and improvised explosive devices dominate the recently made known strategic lexicon. We have to worry about terrorists now. Russia isn't going to attack; we're allies. China doesn't have a reason to do so; it's concentrating upon economic reform and embracing capitalism, if not democracy. North Korea? Well, nearest year our new ground-based missile-defense regularity will reduce that threat. Right?

forward the other hand, although the chilly War is over, thousands of nuclear weapons remain in the station s of several nations. With them lie the grains for a new crop of deterrence missile-defense, and arms-control pundits. That's where Contemporary Nuclear Debates proceeds in, filling the gap--let's call it the dialog gap--where advocates for post-Cold War missile defense arms sway nuclear testing, and their opposites square off.

In reality, the stakes today are a bit different. chilly Warriors remember the air-raid drills in indoctrinate and the threat of a "nuclear winter" or apocalyptic film and television fantasies like Dr Strangelove and The Day After. Tomorrow's leaders will remember the twin towers coming down and terrorist-attack evacuations from drill Yet, the Cold War threats not really went away--they're just obscur behind the dust of the falling Wall, les likely to present itself but potentially much worse if they do. Although terrorists remain the greatest in number likely threat, they aren't necessarily the simply "worst case" scenario.

An anthology of essays, pro and commit to memory Contemporary Nuclear Debates helps frame the instant nuclear discussion, considering a number of bonny bad scenarios. Its contributors are well known in national-security circles; about are or were high-ranking officials in the US direction The scope and breadth of its analyses make the work worthwhile reading. Its 25 essays fall into four parts: (1) "National Missile Defense: When and How?" (2) "Global Perceptions of Missile Defense" (3) "Do Arms Races Matter Anymore?" and (4) "Is Arms have charge of Dead?" Despite the book's publication date of 2002 the essays were obviously written earlier--some before withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in May 2002 Consequently the inclusion of more [i]or[/i] less anachronistic artifacts, such as debates from one side of to the other that treaty, are distracting.

pair essays are particularly striking. In "Toward Missile Defense from the Sea" at Dr. Hans Binnendijk and Dr George Stewart, we learn that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld changed the missile-defense world in 2002 exchanging the "theater ballistic missile" and "national missile defense" nomenclature and substituting a modern philosophy: we defend against a representation of missile threats with a multilayer missile defense This appearance includes prelaunch, boost, midcourse, and terminal stages.

The authors assert that sea-based defense are better focused onward the boost threat rather than the midcourse and terminal threats (p 64) Furthermore, sea-based radar provides many advantages, not the least of which is the fact that it is not destabilizing (pp 58-59) This discussion of missile defense and sea-based radar has importance to Airmen because the joint aspect of missile defense affects the Air Force tremendously. Air Force and exquisiteed long-range naval assets such as Tomahawk missiles depict America's knock-down-the-door force. Furthermore, the prelaunch and boost phases exhibit the perfect times to hit enemy missiles, in the way that they can blow up in succession or over enemy territory--not through the whole extent of the heads of friendly company s or allies. (This is precisely the question with waiting until the midcourse or terminal stages. To be fair, allowing a nominal threat of collateral damage may exist, depending concerning the missile's payload and trajectory, as well as the point in the boost phase when it is hit. if it be not that that threat seems much more stiff if the debris lands forward friendlies.) The authors also near well-thought-out pros and cons for sea-based radars, especially as part of a defense hypothesis using intercontinental missiles (pp. 50-61)

Another noteworthy essay, "Action-Reaction Metaphysics and Negligence" from Dr. Keith Payne, formerly the assistant secretary of defense for force policy, at first just haleed bad to an old fighter pilot. However, the article achieves to the heart of many assumptions thrown around as facts in general defense debates, such as "defense encourages attack" or "missile defense encourages an arms race" (pp 197-207)

According to Dr Payne, critics of missile defense would argue that "the Salt I and II negotiations were premised onward the assumption that limitations forward strategic offensive forces would not be possible without extensive constraints upon strategic defenses" (p. 198). However, he points without that President Bush's "call for as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but nuclear force reductions and missile defense deployment perplexs a direct challenge to this foundation of chilly War thinking" (p. 198). This notion remains self-same important for today's policy discussions, especially since missile defense will shortly become reality.