The New Nuclear Disorder

’This book should be required reading for all of the military and civilian officials in the Pentagon, members of Congress, and national security analysts who will be involved in deciding whether the Pentagon should spend billions to modernize all three legs of the nuclear triad over the next decade in what Steve Cimbala correctly calls The Second Nuclear Age. Only then will the US government be able to make a sound decision.’ Lawrence J. Korb, Center for American Progress, and former Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration ’Too many people who should know better dismiss nuclear weapons as having no strategic relevance or utility. In this incisive volume, Stephen Cimbala, one of our premier students of all things nuclear and of strategy, demonstrates just how wrong-headed this view is. As long as these weapons are available neither we nor any other government can escape the responsibility of thinking about them strategically. While the strategic environment is a new one, Cimbala convincingly shows that the problems generated by the existence of nuclear weapons may be different than before but they are no less important than during the Cold War.’ Stephen J. Blank, American Foreign Policy Council, USA ’For decades Stephen Cimbala has informed and elevated the discourse on nuclear strategy. In The New Nuclear Disorder he returns to familiar haunts, but offers troubling, paradoxical twists: a world with fewer warheads but more nuclear-armed nations heralds perilous new complexities; mutually agreed arms reductions may actually undermine deterrence; and improvements in missile defenses might spark a fresh new round of arms racing. In short, a sea of troubles looms ahead. Thankfully, Dr Cimbala has crafted outstanding navigational charts to help us find our way.’ John Arquilla, US Naval Postgraduate School, USA