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Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America's Atomic Age
"Gavin not only succeeds in disentangling postwar nuclear history from the US-Soviet rivalry of the Cold War, but provides a deeper and more complex understanding of the long-term effects of nuclear weapons on Great Power relations." ― Matthew Jones ― International Affairs We are at a critical juncture in world politics. Nuclear strategy and policy have risen to the top of the global policy agenda, and issues ranging from a nuclear Iran to the global zero movement are generating sharp debate. The historical origins of our contemporary nuclear world are deeply consequential for contemporary policy, but it is crucial that decisions are made on the basis of fact rather than myth and misapprehension. In Nuclear Statecraft , Francis J. Gavin challenges key elements of the widely accepted narrative about the history of the atomic age and the consequences of the nuclear revolution. On the basis of recently declassified documents, Gavin reassesses the strategy of flexible response, the influence of nuclear weapons during the Berlin Crisis, the origins of and motivations for U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy, and how to assess the nuclear dangers we face today. In case after case, he finds that we know far less than we think we do about our nuclear history. Archival evidence makes it clear that decision makers were more concerned about underlying geopolitical questions than about the strategic dynamic between two nuclear superpowers.Gavin's rigorous historical work not only tells us what happened in the past but also offers a powerful tool to explain how nuclear weapons influence international relations. Nuclear Statecraft provides a solid foundation for future policymaking.
232 pages, Hardcover
First published October 16, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 21, 2021
I don't know enough about nuclear weapons and their influence on policy, hence I've been slowly adding more books on these issues to my reading diet.
I admit to some alarm bells when starting this book, given the author's firm declaration that most of the scholarship and conventional wisdom on these weapons is wrong or misguided. Especially when that author, by their own admission, isn't an expert in the field. This is however a book that largely delivers.
While I can't verify all the claims, and think the dismissal of the broader literature inaccurate, Gavin presents a compelling account. What makes it so is not so much the extensive use of archival documents - including transcripts of key official discussions - but also his underlying focus on politics, not technology to explain specific crises and actions.
Too many authors on nuclear weapons - indeed all warfare - overemphases the particulars of the weapons, against the underlying political disputes that make such weapons even considered. While there are long standing claims of a 'nuclear revolution' that seemingly broke with past human history, Gavin's is one of a number of accounts which push back against this thesis. Even with such capabilities, politics is what makes war and strategy, not the particular means (such as nukes). For another detailed recent account of this line of argument see also Lieber & Press' excellent 'The Nuclear Revolution'.
Thus, while it is not perhaps the genre-changing analysis it sometimes claims to be, it offers a rich and well based historical account. One that shows such weapons in a more 'normal' light to that sometimes portrayed, and offers a generally compelling explanation for their role and use (and often irrelevance or contradictory elements).
A worthwile read.
I admit to some alarm bells when starting this book, given the author's firm declaration that most of the scholarship and conventional wisdom on these weapons is wrong or misguided. Especially when that author, by their own admission, isn't an expert in the field. This is however a book that largely delivers.
While I can't verify all the claims, and think the dismissal of the broader literature inaccurate, Gavin presents a compelling account. What makes it so is not so much the extensive use of archival documents - including transcripts of key official discussions - but also his underlying focus on politics, not technology to explain specific crises and actions.
Too many authors on nuclear weapons - indeed all warfare - overemphases the particulars of the weapons, against the underlying political disputes that make such weapons even considered. While there are long standing claims of a 'nuclear revolution' that seemingly broke with past human history, Gavin's is one of a number of accounts which push back against this thesis. Even with such capabilities, politics is what makes war and strategy, not the particular means (such as nukes). For another detailed recent account of this line of argument see also Lieber & Press' excellent 'The Nuclear Revolution'.
Thus, while it is not perhaps the genre-changing analysis it sometimes claims to be, it offers a rich and well based historical account. One that shows such weapons in a more 'normal' light to that sometimes portrayed, and offers a generally compelling explanation for their role and use (and often irrelevance or contradictory elements).
A worthwile read.
January 1, 2019
An essential and fascinating read for anyone who wants a background to make informed opinions on how nuclear weapons have been effectively instrumented in statecraft, and how they can be thought of in the future with respect to diplomacy. This sort of work is even more critical now with the simmering crisis with North Korea, Iran, and any other nation that may choose to build this capacity in the near to mid-term future.
The book follows a historical sequence of doctrines and topics, ranging from the total retaliation strategy, and the idea of nuclear supremacy, which stated that the count of one's arsenal impacted both diplomacy and warfare. Then the text moves to subsequent expansions in doctrine, including the "flexible retaliation" idea pioneered by JFK, which sought to provide the president with several optional deployment packages other than total acquiesce and total annihilation. It then introduces the n-th nation problem, which is essentially the problem of uncontrolled proliferation. How nuclear weapons can be viewed in terms of a cost-benefit substitution for conventional arms, findings of the Gilpatric Commission with respect to US future nuclear strategy during the Johnson admin, Nixon/Kissinger' s theories of where nuclear weapons fit in great-power competition, China's entry and impact into the nuclear club, and why the PRC has not opted to match the missile/warhead counts of either Russia or the US, nuclear strategy in the 21st century, and a light intro to Perry/Nunn's work on Global 0.
What's not in the book is any technical discussion on the operational/simulation/game theoretic analysis or models that informed some of the understanding of nuclear weapons use in the 50s and 60s, much of that is beyond the scope of the book, which is strategic and historical, whereas a lot of these models outside of the simple game theoretic analysis ended up informing the morbid activity of building payload target lists, sequencing of targets by various criteria (population, industrial value, military value, "terror" values etc.), or focused on engineering models of increasing the efficiency of the delivery in some way. Most of these would probably fall under the "risk manipulation" category, which a few presidents, like Nixon, used to their detriment, to justify "bold stances", according to the author. Although Schelling is mentioned a few times as a reference to the broader insights into "stability" and the "balance of terror".
I read this to put the current North Korea crisis into context and found the discussion to be highly informative. First, the current talk of rogue regime getting the bomb is not new. As the book correctly points out, both the USSR and the PRC were viewed as "rogue regimes" the first few decades of their existence, and similar arguments were made for preventing them gaining the capacity of building and deploying the devices and delivery systems. However, both countries eventually came to be viewed or evolved into, "status quo" powers.
The author argues that Iran and North Korea are not different, in the sense that both nations have rational justification to seek these weapons, for state/regime survival, and this thinking is similar to those made by Israel, Pakistan, India France, South Korea, and Japan in the past. The only reasons the later 2 have not built these weapons is an explicit agreement to being under the US "nuclear shield", which was a choice the US has made for several reasons, but most importantly to limit proliferation and diminish the n-th nation phenomenon.
The book convincingly argues that the mere possession of nuclear weapons is often not a threat to any nation so long as that nation also possess the weapon, nor is the possession of such weapons the origin for conflict, instead conflicts almost always have political origins, this was a key reading of the historical record from the Nixon/Kissinger analysis. With respect to stability, this does not change even with the addition of the 2nd strike capability, which is designed to prevent a nation from attempting a decapitating maneuver with a first strike.
Further the concept of "rollback", the forceful eviction of a nation from the "nuclear club", is not only dangerous but actually, incentives nations to procure the devices in the first place. It also increases the chances that the world could spiral into an uncontrolled n-th nation proliferation dilemma. I believe we are seeing the consequences of these concepts in action with respect to the preventive war in Iraq in 2003 and the Libya coup of a few years ago.
It seems likely that many nations, even those not considered rogue states, have learned that nuclear weapons are a type of guarantee from external coercion, and any further action against anyone country who has these devices will probably incentives many more to attempt the mad sprint towards procurement. Ironically, this is all actually bad for the United States, since these devices equalize the competitive edge it possesses in the conventional battlefield. Thus, the actions of the United States in the past 2 decades in the Middle East will have had a powerful secondary effect that will further erode its primacy to act militarily in the mid and long-term, as these other nations expand procurement activity.
Of course, it's not all that simple, and there's an elaborate arms/brain race of sorts to prevent this dire scenario to play out. What I fear is unlike the 1960s, this current president does not have something like the Gilpatric Commission of "wise men" to help sort out what ought to be the broader strategy for the United States in this dimension, and thus, he will wade into potential conflict for no reason.
I did not find all of the arguments convincing, especially the descriptions of the logic/calculus a country would make with respect nuclear weapons, the move-counter-move analysis has always seemed tenuous to me, not having the robustness of a statistical argument, but it at least clarifies the subject matter, so one can construct a more informed view.
Recommend, especially if you happen to be President ...
The book follows a historical sequence of doctrines and topics, ranging from the total retaliation strategy, and the idea of nuclear supremacy, which stated that the count of one's arsenal impacted both diplomacy and warfare. Then the text moves to subsequent expansions in doctrine, including the "flexible retaliation" idea pioneered by JFK, which sought to provide the president with several optional deployment packages other than total acquiesce and total annihilation. It then introduces the n-th nation problem, which is essentially the problem of uncontrolled proliferation. How nuclear weapons can be viewed in terms of a cost-benefit substitution for conventional arms, findings of the Gilpatric Commission with respect to US future nuclear strategy during the Johnson admin, Nixon/Kissinger' s theories of where nuclear weapons fit in great-power competition, China's entry and impact into the nuclear club, and why the PRC has not opted to match the missile/warhead counts of either Russia or the US, nuclear strategy in the 21st century, and a light intro to Perry/Nunn's work on Global 0.
What's not in the book is any technical discussion on the operational/simulation/game theoretic analysis or models that informed some of the understanding of nuclear weapons use in the 50s and 60s, much of that is beyond the scope of the book, which is strategic and historical, whereas a lot of these models outside of the simple game theoretic analysis ended up informing the morbid activity of building payload target lists, sequencing of targets by various criteria (population, industrial value, military value, "terror" values etc.), or focused on engineering models of increasing the efficiency of the delivery in some way. Most of these would probably fall under the "risk manipulation" category, which a few presidents, like Nixon, used to their detriment, to justify "bold stances", according to the author. Although Schelling is mentioned a few times as a reference to the broader insights into "stability" and the "balance of terror".
I read this to put the current North Korea crisis into context and found the discussion to be highly informative. First, the current talk of rogue regime getting the bomb is not new. As the book correctly points out, both the USSR and the PRC were viewed as "rogue regimes" the first few decades of their existence, and similar arguments were made for preventing them gaining the capacity of building and deploying the devices and delivery systems. However, both countries eventually came to be viewed or evolved into, "status quo" powers.
The author argues that Iran and North Korea are not different, in the sense that both nations have rational justification to seek these weapons, for state/regime survival, and this thinking is similar to those made by Israel, Pakistan, India France, South Korea, and Japan in the past. The only reasons the later 2 have not built these weapons is an explicit agreement to being under the US "nuclear shield", which was a choice the US has made for several reasons, but most importantly to limit proliferation and diminish the n-th nation phenomenon.
The book convincingly argues that the mere possession of nuclear weapons is often not a threat to any nation so long as that nation also possess the weapon, nor is the possession of such weapons the origin for conflict, instead conflicts almost always have political origins, this was a key reading of the historical record from the Nixon/Kissinger analysis. With respect to stability, this does not change even with the addition of the 2nd strike capability, which is designed to prevent a nation from attempting a decapitating maneuver with a first strike.
Further the concept of "rollback", the forceful eviction of a nation from the "nuclear club", is not only dangerous but actually, incentives nations to procure the devices in the first place. It also increases the chances that the world could spiral into an uncontrolled n-th nation proliferation dilemma. I believe we are seeing the consequences of these concepts in action with respect to the preventive war in Iraq in 2003 and the Libya coup of a few years ago.
It seems likely that many nations, even those not considered rogue states, have learned that nuclear weapons are a type of guarantee from external coercion, and any further action against anyone country who has these devices will probably incentives many more to attempt the mad sprint towards procurement. Ironically, this is all actually bad for the United States, since these devices equalize the competitive edge it possesses in the conventional battlefield. Thus, the actions of the United States in the past 2 decades in the Middle East will have had a powerful secondary effect that will further erode its primacy to act militarily in the mid and long-term, as these other nations expand procurement activity.
Of course, it's not all that simple, and there's an elaborate arms/brain race of sorts to prevent this dire scenario to play out. What I fear is unlike the 1960s, this current president does not have something like the Gilpatric Commission of "wise men" to help sort out what ought to be the broader strategy for the United States in this dimension, and thus, he will wade into potential conflict for no reason.
I did not find all of the arguments convincing, especially the descriptions of the logic/calculus a country would make with respect nuclear weapons, the move-counter-move analysis has always seemed tenuous to me, not having the robustness of a statistical argument, but it at least clarifies the subject matter, so one can construct a more informed view.
Recommend, especially if you happen to be President ...
May 9, 2017
Nuclear Statecraft provided evidence about the history of nuclear policy in the United States. Gavin claims that by studying history, we can better understand why certain decisions were made in the past, and how the US should move forward with nuclear policies.
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February 18, 2014Francis J. Gavin, AB'88
Author
From our pages (Mar–Apr/13): The United States is making big bets in the nuclear arena and those calculations could have lasting consequences for world politics, argues Francis J. Gavin. By examining recently declassified documents, Gavin traces the origins of today's nuclear world. Aiming to influence future policy making, he evaluates Cold War strategies; the influence of nuclear weapons during the Berlin crisis of 1961; the reasoning behind US nonproliferation policy; and today's most pressing nuclear concerns.
Author
From our pages (Mar–Apr/13): The United States is making big bets in the nuclear arena and those calculations could have lasting consequences for world politics, argues Francis J. Gavin. By examining recently declassified documents, Gavin traces the origins of today's nuclear world. Aiming to influence future policy making, he evaluates Cold War strategies; the influence of nuclear weapons during the Berlin crisis of 1961; the reasoning behind US nonproliferation policy; and today's most pressing nuclear concerns.
February 21, 2013
90% for school and 10% because it is an interesting read. Something tells me no one will be commenting on this book selection anytime soon.
May 25, 2016
Gavin researched appropriately, but his writing is dry and hard to get through...typical academic filling space to get published
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews