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Beyond Nunn-Lugar: Curbing the Next Wave of Weapons Proliferation Threats from Russia
The chapters in this book were originally commissioned by the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) as part of a study on the future of U.S.-Russian nonproliferation cooperation. This book is different from other studies of U.S.-Russian cooperation because it relies on competitive strategies, which detail how best to pit one's strengths against a competitor's weaknesses in a series of moves and countermoves. The goal is to devise strategies that force one's competitor to spend more time and resources shoring up his weaknesses than in taking offensive action.
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Riisager, Thomas; Sokolski, Henry D.
2002-04
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Should We Let the Bomb Spread?
"Nuclear deterrence and nonproliferation no longer enjoy the broad support they once did during the Cold War. Academics and security experts now question the ability of either to cope or check nuclear rogue states or terrorists. On the one hand, America's closest allies--e.g., Japan and South Korea--believe American nuclear security guarantees are critical to their survival. If the United States is unwilling to provide Tokyo or Seoul with the assurance they believe they need, would it then not make sense for them to acquire nuclear forces of their own? On the other hand, with more nuclear-armed states and an increased willingness to use them, how likely is it that nuclear deterrence will work? This volume investigates these questions. In it, six experts offer a variety of perspectives to catalyze debate. The result is a rich debate that goes well beyond current scholarship to challenge the very basis of prevailing nonproliferation and security policies."
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.
2016-11-22
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Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future
From the introduction: "As I continued to teach, though, I noticed another
gap in the literature. The arguments policymakers
and academics were making on how nuclear weapons reductions related to preventing further nuclear
proliferation were, at best, uneven. Each of the basic
views-official, hawkish, and academic-spotlighted
some important aspect of the truth, but each was
incomplete and surprisingly optimistic. [...] This brief volume covers each of these points.
First, it reviews the key popular views on nuclear
proliferation. Second, it considers how much worse
matters might get if states continue with relatively
loose nuclear constraints on civilian and military
nuclear activities. Finally, it offers several policy
recommendations."
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.
2016-01
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Prevailing in a Well-Armed World: Devising Competitive Strategies Against Weapons Proliferation
The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to publish Prevailing In A Well-Armed World: Devising Competitive Strategies Against Weapons Proliferation. This work provides insights into the competitive strategies methodology. Andrew Marshall notes that policymakers and analysts can benefit by using an analytical tool that stimulates their thinking-more directly-about strategy in terms of long-term competition between nations with conflicting values, policies, and objectives. Part I of this work suggests that the competitive strategies approach has value for both the practitioner and the scholar. The book also demonstrates the strengths of the competitive strategies approach as an instrument for examining U.S. policy. The method in this book focuses on policies regarding the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In "shaping" the international environment in the next millennium, no other national security issue seems as complex or important. The imperative here is to look to competitive strategies to assist in asking critical questions and thinking broadly and precisely about alternatives for pitting U.S. strengths against opponents' weaknesses. Part II uses the framework to examine and evaluate U.S. nonproliferation and counterproliferation policies formed in the final years of the 20th century. In Part III, the competitive strategies method is used to analyze a regional case, that of Iran.
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.
2000-03
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Nuclear Power's Global Expansion: Weighing Its Costs and Risks
"This volume consists of research that the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) commissioned in 2007 and 2008. 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;1 and it has been market economics, more than any other force, that has kept most states from starting or completing these pro¬grams. 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. With any luck, this past may be our future. Certainly, if nuclear power programs continue to be as difficult and expensive to complete as they have been compared to their nonnuclear alternatives, only additional government support and public spending will be able to save them. In this case, one needs to ask why governments would bother, especially in light of the security risks that would inevitably arise with nuclear power's further proliferation. On the other hand, if nuclear power evolves into the quickest and least expensive way to produce electricity while abating carbon emissions, little short of a nuclear explosion traceable to a 'peaceful' nuclear facility is likely to stem this technology's further spread-no matter what its security risks might be."
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.
2010-12
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Taming the Next Set of Strategic Weapons Threats
"Long discounted by arms control critics, traditional nonproliferation efforts now are undergoing urgent review and reconsideration even by their supporters. Why? In large part, because the current crop of nonproliferation understandings are ill-suited to check the spread of emerging long-range missile, biological, and nuclear technologies. Attempts to develop a legally binding inspections protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention, for example, were recently rejected by U.S. officials as being inadequate to catch serious violators while being prone to set off false alarms against perfectly innocent actors. Missile defense and unmanned air vehicle (UAV) related technologies, meanwhile, are proliferating for a variety of perfectly defensive and peaceful civilian applications. This same know-how can be used to defeat U.S. and allied air and missile defenses in new ways that are far more stressful than the existing set of ballistic missile threats. Unfortunately, the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) is not yet optimized to cope with these challenges. Finally, nuclear technologies have become much more difficult to control. New centrifuge uranium enrichment facilities and relatively small fuel reprocessing plants can now be built and hidden much more readily than nuclear fuel-making plants that were operating when the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and the bulk of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections procedures were first devised 30 or more years ago. This volume is designed to highlight what might happen if these emerging threats go unattended and how best to mitigate them. The book, which features research the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center commissioned, is divided into three sections."
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.
2006-06
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Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran
"Little more than a year ago, the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) completed its initial analysis of Iran's nuclear program, Checking Iran's Nuclear Ambitions. Since then, Tehran's nuclear activities and public diplomacy have only affirmed what this analysis first suggested: Iran is not about to give up its effort to make nuclear fuel and, thereby, come within days of acquiring a nuclear bomb. Iran's continued pursuit of uranium enrichment and plutonium recycling puts a premium on asking what a more confident nuclear-ready Iran might confront us with and what we might do now to hedge against these threats. These questions are the focus of this volume. The book is divided into four parts. The first presents the findings of the NPEC's working group on Iran." Part two of the book examines the likely consequences and security risks of a nuclear Iran, part three evaluates the policy options of military strikes and economic sanctions, and part four concludes the book by laying out possible alternative policies.
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Clawson, Patrick, 1951-; Sokolski, Henry D.
2005-11
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Checking Iran's Nuclear Ambitions
Were Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, there is a grave risk it would be tempted to provide them to terrorists. After all, mass casualty terrorism done by proxies has worked well for Iran to date. The fear about what Iran might do with nuclear weapons is fed by the concern that Tehran has no clear reason to be pursuing nuclear weapons. The strategic rationale for Iran's nuclear program is by no means obvious. Unlike proliferators such as Israel or Pakistan, Iran faces no historic enemy who would welcome an opportunity to wipe the state off the face of the earth. Iran is encircled by troubled neighbors, but nuclear weapons does nothing to help counter the threats that could come from state collapse in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, or Azerbaijan. Achieving trans-Atlantic consensus on how to respond to Iran's nuclear program will be difficult. This is a remarkably bad time for the international community to face the Iran nuclear problem, because the tensions about the Iraq WMD issue still poison relations and weaken U.S. ability to respond. Nevertheless, Iran's nuclear program poses a stark challenge to the international nonproliferation regime. There is no doubt that Iran is developing worrisome capabilities. If the world community led by Western countries is unable to prevent Iranian proliferation, then it is unclear that there is much meaning to global nonproliferation norms.
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Clawson, Patrick, 1951-; Sokolski, Henry D.
2004-01
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Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice
"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...At the start of the NPEC's [Nonproliferation Policy Education Center] work on this book, a review of the literature concerning nuclear planning was conducted. It highlighted the dearth of historical publications on either the origins or the practice of MAD. Certainly, a clear account of the premises behind MAD's original argumentation and a critical assessment of the extent to which this theory was applied by nuclear weapons states are needed to develop sound alternative policies. It is hoped that this book, which details the origins and practice of MAD and highlights sounder alternatives, will fill this gap in the literature and encourage debate about how best to supplant what's
MAD that remains."
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.
2004-11
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Falling Behind: International Scrutiny of the Peaceful Atom
"Ask how effective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear safeguards are in blocking proliferation, and you are sure to get a set of predictable reactions. Those skeptical of the system will complain that IAEA inspections are too sketchy to ferret out nuclear misbehavior (e.g., North Korea, Iraq, and Iran) and that in the rare cases when such violators are found out (almost always by national intelligence agencies), the IAEA's board of governors is loath to act. IAEA supporters have a rather opposite view. The IAEA, they point out, actually found Pyongyang, Baghdad, and Tehran in non-compliance with their IAEA safeguards agreements and reported this to the United Nations (UN) Security Council. International inspectors, moreover, were the only ones correctly to assess the status of Saddam's strategic weapons programs. The problem is not to be found in Vienna or in the IAEA's inspections system but in Washington's unwillingness to listen. In the future, the United States, they argue, should rely more, not less, on the IAEA to sort out Iran's nuclear activities and to disable North Korea's nuclear weapons complex. These two views could hardly be more opposed. There is at least one point, though, upon which both sides agree: If possible, it would be useful to enhance the IAEA's ability to detect and prevent nuclear diversions. This would not only reduce the current risk of nuclear proliferation, it would make the further expansion of nuclear power much less risky. The question is what is possible? To date, little has been attempted to answer this basic question."
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.
2008-02
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Nuclear Weapons Materials Gone Missing: What Does History Teach?
"This volume is the 18th in a series of edited volumes of contracted research the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) has published in cooperation with the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College. The volume features research done over the last 2 years. Funding for this project came from the U.S. Department of Defense, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and other charitable foundations. Much of the work to prepare the book for publication was undertaken by NPEC's research associate, Kate Harrison, and the staff of the Strategic Studies Institute, especially Dr. James Pierce and Ms. Rita Rummel. This book would not have been possible without their help. Finally, heartfelt thanks are due to the project's authors and reviewers, who contributed their time and ideas."
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.
2014-11
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Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future, Second Edition
"With the world focused on the nuclear crisis in Iran, it is tempting to think that addressing this case, North Korea, and the problem of nuclear terrorism is all that matters and is what matters most. Perhaps, but if states like Russia and Pakistan become more willing to use their nuclear weapons to achieve military advantage, and if nuclear weapons-related technology and materials continue to spread, the problem of proliferation will become much more unwieldy. In this case, U.S. security will be hostage not just to North Korea, Iran, or terrorists, but also to more nuclear proliferation, diplomatic miscalculations, and wars between a much larger number of possible players (including some of our closest allies) that could go nuclear. This, in a nutshell, is the premise of Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future, Second Edition, which explores what nuclear futures we may face over the next 3 decades and how we currently think about this future. Will nuclear weapons spread in the next 20 years to more nations than just North Korea and possibly Iran? How dire will the consequences be? What might help us avoid the worst? This book supplies the answers."
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.
2018-08
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Pakistan's Nuclear Future: Reining in the Risk
"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." This book conducts a significant evaluation of these threats. "Could the United States do more with Pakistan to secure Pakistan's nuclear weapons holdings against possible seizure?" This book argues that "rather than distract 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."
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.
2009-12
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Reviewing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)
"As currently interpreted, it is difficult to see why the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) warrants much support as a nonproliferation convention. Most foreign ministries, including that of Iran and the United States, insist that Article IV of the NPT recognizes the 'inalienable right' of all states to develop 'peaceful nuclear energy.' This includes money-losing activities, such as nuclear fuel reprocessing, which can bring countries to the very brink of acquiring nuclear weapons. If the NPT is intended to ensure that states share peaceful 'benefits' of nuclear energy and to prevent the spread of nuclear bomb making technologies, it is difficult to see how it can accomplish either if the interpretation identified above is correct. Some argue, however, that the NPT clearly proscribes proliferation by requiring international nuclear safeguards against military diversions of fissile material. Unfortunately, these procedures, which are required of all non-nuclear weapons state members of the NPT under Article III, are rickety at best. [...] Consequently, each chapter of this book is dedicated to clarifying the NPT's key ambiguities, and the chapters are roughly structured to trace the NPT's text, article by article. The analysis set forth here was mostly written or commissioned by the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. Much more, of course, could have been included in this book. But rather than seeking to be comprehensive, the aim throughout is to provide a guide for both policymakers and security analysts. This guide should assist in navigating the most important debates over how best to read and implement the NPT and, in the process, spotlighting alternative views of the NPT that are sound and supportable."
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.
2010-05
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Review Essay: 'Sir Quinlan: Nuclear Zealot for Moderation'
"Potentially limitless in its military destructiveness and boundless in its ability to provide carbon-free power, nuclear energy all but begs viewing through the conjectural political lenses of infinity and zero. As a result, much of what passes for sound policy and insight regarding its management is not just reckless and self-defeating but technically impracticable. Sir Michael Quinlan (1930--2009), with whom I had the good fortune to work, understood this. An intelligent, modest, and religiously curious man, Quinlan helped shape much of the British nuclear weapons policy. His public service spanned nearly four decades, including work as private secretary to the British chief of air staff, as director of defense policy in the British Ministry of Defence, as UK NATO defense counselor, and as permanent undersecretary of state at the ministries of Employment and Defence. What is most refreshing about Quinlan's insights, reflected in this work, is how consistently he avoids the most current popular extremes."
Naval War College (U.S.). Press
Sokolski, Henry D.
2010
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Pakistan's Nuclear Future: Worries Beyond War
"Raise the issue of Pakistan's nuclear program before almost any group of Western security analysts, and they are likely to throw up their hands. What might happen if the current Pakistani government is taken over by radicalized political forces sympathetic to the Taliban? Such a government, they fear, might share Pakistan's nuclear weapons materials and know-how with others, including terrorist organizations. Then there is the possibility that a more radical government might pick a war again with India. Could Pakistan prevail against India's superior conventional forces without threatening to resort to nuclear arms? If not, what, if anything, might persuade Pakistan to stand its nuclear forces down? There are no good answers to these questions and even fewer near or mid-term fixes against such contingencies. This, in turn, encourages a kind of policy fatalism with regard to Pakistan. This book, which reflects research that the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center commissioned over the last 2 years, takes a different tack. Instead of asking questions that have few or no good answers, this volume 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. A second volume of commissioned research planned for publication in 2008 will consider how best to address these challenges."
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.
2008-01
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Moving Beyond Pretense: Nuclear Power and Nonproliferation
From the foreword by the director of the Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press: "The President of the United States and nearly all his critics agree that the spread of nuclear weapons and the possibility of their seizure and potential use is the greatest danger facing the United States and the world. Looking at the way government and industry officials downplay the risks of civilian nuclear technology and materials being diverted to make bombs, though, a person would get almost the opposite impression. In fact, most governments have made the promotion of nuclear power's growth and global development a top priority. Throughout, they have insisted that the dangers of nuclear weapons proliferation are manageable either by making future nuclear plants more 'proliferation-resistant' or by strengthening International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards and acquiring more timely intelligence on proliferators. [...] This volume taps the insights and analyses of 13 top security and nuclear experts to get the answers. What emerges is a comprehensive counternarrative to the prevailing wisdom and a series of innovative reforms to tighten existing nuclear nonproliferation controls. For any official, analyst, or party concerned about the spread of nuclear technology, this book is essential reading."
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.
2014-06
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Gauging U.S.-Indian Strategic Cooperation
"First, U.S. nuclear cooperation - the lynch pin of U.S.-Indian strategic cooperation, according to the deal's supporters - has to navigate several necessary steps. India has not yet negotiated a nuclear cooperative agreement with the United States. This will take several months. The key issues here include nuclear testing and the sharing of nuclear fuel technology. In the first instance, India objects to congressional demands that all nuclear cooperation be terminated if India tests; in the second, Congress opposes such sharing unless the transfers are part of a larger nonproliferation effort. Also, because India has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and refuses to open all of its nuclear facilities to international inspections, it is not yet eligible to import controlled nuclear goods from the United States or any other of the 44 members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). To change this, the NSG must agree by consensus to make an exception for India. It is unclear how this might work. China (an NSG member) has offered nuclear cooperation to India, but has argued that any exception for India should be framed in such a way also to allow nuclear transfers to Pakistan as well. Several NSG members, including Sweden, also seem uncomfortable approving civilian nuclear cooperation unless India does more to restrain its nuclear weapons program."
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.
2007-03
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Nuclear Weapons Security Crises: What Does History Teach?
"The past 2 decades have seen an increase in nuclear dangers. Arsenals have been operationalized in India and Pakistan, and China seems to be augmenting its own. North Korea has crossed the nuclear threshold, and Iran seems to be on the way to do so itself. Four hitherto undisclosed--and illegal--nuclear programs were discovered: Iraq in 1991, Iran in 2002, Libya in 2003, and Syria in 2007. Pakistani and North Korean nuclear expertise and technology transfers were also uncovered. Al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups showed an interest in gaining access to nuclear weapons and materials, and some attacked nuclear-related facilities in Pakistan. The security and control of nuclear weapons is thus more important than ever, as witnessed by the political success of two Nuclear Security Summits in Washington (2010) and Seoul (2012). Despite disagreement over budget priorities, the topic enjoys a rare level of bipartisanship in the United States. Much has been written about nuclear accidents and nuclear crises, but much less about the impact of political crises in nuclear-capable states. The goal that Henry Sokolski and I set in undertaking this project was to shed light on the following issue: How do nuclear-capable states behave in times of major political crises?"
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.; Tertrais, Bruno
2013-07
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Speaking Truth to Nonproliferation: Improving the Intelligence and Policy Nexus [PASCC Research in Progress]
"The success of U.S. nonproliferation efforts has most often resulted from actions beneath the public radar. Policy makers have acted on early indications of proliferation and were able to take modest measures that proved effective. It is important to know how policy is influenced by intelligence and intelligence-led policy. This two-year project will produce detailed histories of how U.S. intelligence officers and policy makers have worked together on several challenging proliferation cases. It will distill practical lessons for the improvement of future collaboration in this area. The project will also include research to evaluate past U.S. intelligence and policy collaboration aimed at countering proliferation in India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Taiwan, South Korea, and a set of other nuclear and missile cases." This document has been added to the Homeland Security Digital Library in agreement with the Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering WMD (PASCC) as part of the PASCC collection. Permission to download and/or retrieve this resource has been obtained through PASCC.
Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.). Center for Contemporary Conflict; Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Sokolski, Henry D.
2015-05
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Next Arms Race
"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. Assuming U.S., Chinese, Russian, Israeli, Indian, French, British, and Pakistani strategic forces continue to be modernized and America and Russia continue to reduce their strategic nuclear deployments, the next arms race will be run by a much larger number of contestants--with highly destructive strategic capabilities far more closely matched and capable of being quickly enlarged than in any other previous period in history."
Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute
Sokolski, Henry D.
2012-07
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