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Fire In the East: The Rise of Asian Military Power and the Second Nuclear Age
On May 11, 1998, India began testing nuclear weapons.
The world will never be the same. The Indian test of five atomic bombs, and the Pakistani tests that answered a few weeks later, marked the end of the arms control system that has kept the world from nuclear war for half a century. As Paul Bracken, professor of management and political science at Yale University, explains in this landmark study, they signal the reemergence of something the world hasn't seen since the sixteenth century-modern technologically adept military powers on the mainland of Asia.
In Fire in the East, Professor Bracken reveals several alarming trends and secrets, such as how close Isreal actually came to a germ warfare attack during the Gulf War, why "globalization" will spur the development of weapons of mass destruction, how American interests are endangered by Asian nationalism, and how to navigate what he names the second nuclear age. Fire in the East is a provocative account of how the Western monopoly on modern arms is coming to an end, and how it will forever transform America's role on the stage of international politics.
The world will never be the same. The Indian test of five atomic bombs, and the Pakistani tests that answered a few weeks later, marked the end of the arms control system that has kept the world from nuclear war for half a century. As Paul Bracken, professor of management and political science at Yale University, explains in this landmark study, they signal the reemergence of something the world hasn't seen since the sixteenth century-modern technologically adept military powers on the mainland of Asia.
In Fire in the East, Professor Bracken reveals several alarming trends and secrets, such as how close Isreal actually came to a germ warfare attack during the Gulf War, why "globalization" will spur the development of weapons of mass destruction, how American interests are endangered by Asian nationalism, and how to navigate what he names the second nuclear age. Fire in the East is a provocative account of how the Western monopoly on modern arms is coming to an end, and how it will forever transform America's role on the stage of international politics.
224 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1999
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January 16, 2012
This is a provocative book that lays out a very different analysis on the reasons for the proliferation of missile and nuclear weapons technologies in the developing world. The author has a different analysis than the standard balance of power rational calculations that are common in the pages of Foreign Affairs. Here are the reasons:
1. Post-colonial armies were peasant armies that were agents of nation-building (and repression) that have become sclerotic and have always been ineffective at war-fighting (e.g., the Arab-Israeli wars). The missile and nuclear programs are ways for civilian leadership to take control of the modernization of these armies, driving them away from massed infantry and artillery and into the 21st Century.
2. The weapons are essentially status symbols viz. modernization. Former colonies believe the were exploited by Western powers that held them down. Having the bomb is a status symbol and rite of passage. For example, India tested their first nuclear bomb in 1974. It was so large it was not deliverable as a weapon.
3. Nationalism is a force that is not properly perceived by Western analysts. World War II was the last war fought by a Western power that was nationalistic--the Americans and British defeated Germany by mobilizing the entire nation emotionally as well as economically. Nationalism makes the proliferation of missile and nuclear weapons technology more dangerous than is properly appreciated.
4. Nuclear weapons makes a clash of civilizations less likely. The reason is that the weapons are developed and deployed by nations not civilizations. There is no Islamic Bomb. It is a Pakistani Bomb.
5. Military planners in the developing world do not fully appreciate how high tech weapons change the way they will fight the West. Developing nations learned how to defeat Western militaries by creating conditions where losses are higher than Western publics will support. The Vietnamese defeated the French and the Americans in that way. The Russians were defeated in Afghanistan that way. They have learned to us CNN their advantage. What developing world planners fail to appreciate is that their own populations are having expectations raised regarding the ability to fight relatively antiseptic high tech wars with lower casualties.
Biggest weakness of the book is its breezy tone and lack rigor and proofpoints. It reads more like an extended advocacy piece, rather than a well-researched piece of scholarship.
1. Post-colonial armies were peasant armies that were agents of nation-building (and repression) that have become sclerotic and have always been ineffective at war-fighting (e.g., the Arab-Israeli wars). The missile and nuclear programs are ways for civilian leadership to take control of the modernization of these armies, driving them away from massed infantry and artillery and into the 21st Century.
2. The weapons are essentially status symbols viz. modernization. Former colonies believe the were exploited by Western powers that held them down. Having the bomb is a status symbol and rite of passage. For example, India tested their first nuclear bomb in 1974. It was so large it was not deliverable as a weapon.
3. Nationalism is a force that is not properly perceived by Western analysts. World War II was the last war fought by a Western power that was nationalistic--the Americans and British defeated Germany by mobilizing the entire nation emotionally as well as economically. Nationalism makes the proliferation of missile and nuclear weapons technology more dangerous than is properly appreciated.
4. Nuclear weapons makes a clash of civilizations less likely. The reason is that the weapons are developed and deployed by nations not civilizations. There is no Islamic Bomb. It is a Pakistani Bomb.
5. Military planners in the developing world do not fully appreciate how high tech weapons change the way they will fight the West. Developing nations learned how to defeat Western militaries by creating conditions where losses are higher than Western publics will support. The Vietnamese defeated the French and the Americans in that way. The Russians were defeated in Afghanistan that way. They have learned to us CNN their advantage. What developing world planners fail to appreciate is that their own populations are having expectations raised regarding the ability to fight relatively antiseptic high tech wars with lower casualties.
Biggest weakness of the book is its breezy tone and lack rigor and proofpoints. It reads more like an extended advocacy piece, rather than a well-researched piece of scholarship.
May 25, 2015
A little dated, but a chilling discussion of the scary and destabilizing world arising from nuclear proliferation in Asia. Not a lot of hope in this message, and Bracken gives the clear impression that the major powers do not have a good solution to this challenge.
October 21, 2014
I was very impressive how well the strategic issues reviewed in this book published in 1999 stand up today. Bracken rips the Western reader out of the western mindset and explores real issues in power and geopolitics. He attacks the western concept of "Asia" and the impact of nuclear testing.
Extremely thoughtful!
Extremely thoughtful!
April 17, 2013
A somewhat dated, banal examination of the changing strategic dynamics in Asia given the acquisition of advanced missile and WMD technology by Asian states.
July 9, 2023
"....explodes the comforting Western belief that globalization will inevitably lead Asian nations into peaceful economic competition. In fact, he says, it works the other way: economic progress both spurs and makes possible the development of weapons of mass destruction."
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Yale political science professor Paul Bracken suggests that the second nuclear age offers many more risks than the first one, the main problem being not that the United States is getting weaker, but that Asia is growing stronger.
China looks increasingly aggressive, India and Pakistan have gone nuclear, and more countries--such as Iran, Syria, and North Korea. are waiting in the wings.
"Proliferation of modern weaponry is driven not by anything that happens in Washington, but by the national strategies set in Beijing, Delhi, and Tehran," writes Bracken.
This has disturbing implications: "Since the War of 1812, only one country in modern history has ever been able to mount a convincing threat to the territory of the United States. the Soviet Union. "Now there will be many," he says.
Going far beyond the stale debate over engagement versus containment, Bracken argues that the West, especially the United States, must prepare all-new national security strategies to meet the emerging realities of the 21st century:
"The long era in which Asia was penetrated by outside powers is coming to a close. An age of Western control is ending, and the challenge is not how to shape what is happening but how to adapt to it."
Fire in the East is an outstanding book written by a wise man for a nonspecialist audience, but one so provocative and important that the experts can't ignore it.
John J. Miller
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Publishers Weekly
"A multipolar balance of terror stretches over a six-thousand-mile arc, comprising some of the most unstable countries on earth." Such ominous phrases abound in this alarming vision of the post-Cold War geopolitical landscape.
Yale political scientist Bracken (Command and Control of Nuclear Forces) takes the 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan as his cue to make an argument that the nuclear genie is out of the bottle.
Increased cash reserves brought about by the global economy enable governments to buy nuclear technology; therefore, in the 21st century, Asian nations will be able to achieve a measure of military parity with the West not seen for half a millennium.
Parts of the book get rather technical, as Bracken addresses military strategy and takes interesting digressions into Asian military history.
However, whether he's writing about the oil-rich but politically unstable Central Asian countries of the former Soviet Union or more traditional Asian powers such as China and India, Bracken always returns to his theme that the days when the West was the dominant military power in Asia (a period that stretches from the beginning of European colonialism to today's American military hegemony) are numbered.
While very clear and persuasive in making his case that the availability of nuclear weapons will change the Asian geopolitical landscape and the relationship between the West and Asia, Bracken is less clear about what the West should do to manage this inevitable shift.
He does clearly outline the options (arms control, balance-of-power diplomacy among them), and his book stands as a sobering reminder that economic globalization is as likely to give rise to geopolitical tension as it is to peace and prosperity.
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The Emerging Cold War with Asia
4/10
Yale Political Scientist Paul Bracken proclaims that "a world of new military powers is appearing right before our eyes." Bracken proceeds to explain: "Asia's new military might was already a major factor in international politics."
According to Bracken, "Atomic bombs get the West's attention," and he adds: "Whether Asia, and the world, can contain the international dynamics unleashed by weapons of mass destruction will be the other great challenge of the twenty-first century."
I thought that this book had great promise, but it was very disappointing. Much of what Bracken writes is correct but obvious, and some of what he has to say is incorrect, if not utter nonsense.
For instance, Bracken asserts: "The problem is that the United States isn't thinking about what it will be like to live in a world where five to ten Asian countries are nuclear powers, with missiles that can hit distant targets."
According to Bracken: "In 1995, China had about fifty missiles aimed at Taiwan. Now, 200 missiles are there. In a few years, a thousand missiles are likely to be pointed at [Taiwan]."
Bracken is far from unique in recognizing that the proliferation of nuclear weapons will be one of the most important international-security issues of the 21st century.
According to Bracken: "An unbroken belt of countries from Israel to North Korea (including Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India, and China) has assembled either nuclear or chemical arsenals and is developing ballistic missiles."
He then asserts: "The ballistic missiles and atomic, chemical, and biological weapons coming to Asia are all disruptive technologies. They nullify Western advantages in conventional weapons."
According to Bracken: "Ballistic missiles break down the entire strategy of forward engagement from fixed bases;" and "Without bases, there can be no concentration of military power. Weapons cannot be stored, let alone massed for use. No bases, no weapons. It is America's singular military weakness in Asia."
All of this assumes that, at some point in the relatively near future, the United States will need to fight a land war in Asia or the west Pacific. I believe that is exceptionally unlikely.
On the next point, I believe that Bracken is absolutely wrong on cause and effect.
He writes: "Industrialization and globalization increase military potential. That is the record of the 1990s."
That is a specious reading of receny history. A number of countries, in Asia and elsewhere, have industrialized without militarizing.
Bracken is correct, however, that the international arms bazaar is one of the most serious problems in the world: "Now countries can buy almost whatever they want from others, using international markets greatly abetted from the forces of globalization."
According to Bracken: "Atomic bombs, because they offset the vast superiority of U.S. conventional forces, are the premier disruptive technology at work in the world today."
If that is correct, it is a curious reversal of the early Cold War pattern, when the United States's atomic weapons countered the Soviet Union's vast superiority in conventional forces. Bracken speculates that "arms races in Asia might take a form very different from those of the cold war.
China, for example, has no need to take on the United States in strategic nuclear forces. It only has to be strong enough to threaten vulnerable U.S. bases in Asia."
In my opinion, that is a fundamental misreading of the strategic realities.
U.S. bases may be vulnerable, but they are ultimately protected by the deterrent strength of the United States' massive nuclear superiority.
For example, if North Korea were to attack an American base in Asia, or an American ally such as South Korea or Japan, with an atomic, chemical or biological weapon, the U.S. could, and almost certainly would, retaliate with nuclear weapons, and every military installation, economic asset, and population center in North Korea could be reduced to a smoking, radiating ruin within minutes.
The dilemma lies in what the United States would do if North Korea launched a serious conventional attack against an American ally.
That would recreate the problem the United States faced in the 1950s in Europe: what provocation is a sufficiently serious threat to American interests to justify employing nuclear weapons?
According to Bracken: "The shaky control of Asian nuclear forces increases the danger of accidental or unintended war."
That is one of Bracken's most significant observations.
"Transitions of power could be especially dangerous...An upheaval in the government could open the way to military adventures with catastrophic consequence."
Bracken states the obvious: "Asia is rife with sectarian disputes, which are likely to take on a more ominous character in an environment of weapons of mass destruction."
Israel's long standoff with its Muslim neighbors and the India-Pakistan rivalry are the most obvious examples of this point.
Bracken probably also is correct when he writes: "The rise of Asian military power makes for a new relationship between the west and Asia."
Nevertheless, according to Bracken: "The rise of Asian military power does not argue for a U.S. pullback from the world military. It argues instead for a restructured U.S. military, one that can operate at greater distances from home and is less reliant on vulnerable forward bases;" and "[T]he United States cannot continue to base its fighting power in these installations because they are becoming too vulnerable to attack."
As I asserted above, this is the real dilemma: When is an attack on American interests sufficiently serious threat to justify using nuclear weapons?
This book contains no foot- or endnotes and only a short bibliography, so it clearly was written for a general audience.
Nevertheless, practically none of Bracken's observations are profound, and some of his conclusions result from superficial, if not wrongheaded, analysis.
However, this book cannot be completely dismissed.
My criticisms notwithstanding, the issues Bracken raises are of vital importance. The world, may in fact, be on the verge of another cold war, one which could be every bit as unstable as its earliest manifestation during its most virulent period, between the late 1940s and the middle 1960s.
Steven S. Berizzi
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I agree with much of Berizzi, but I still rate the book much higher...
Especially when you consider US Policy towards China in the 1990s, and as Ken Waltz phrased things, 'the fad of globalization'....
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September 14, 2023
I like to write about globalization in this review. The entire book reflects on global power, the author significantly narrated superpower dominance across the national borders in post-Vasco Da Gama. Globalization implemented industrialization, industrialization focused the global demand, The West and East measured history in 1998 when India successfully tested nuclear and marked five hundredth anniversary of the first landing of the West on Asia in 1498. The high technology in that era sailing ships, and today’s industrial revolution from coal, steel, and silicon today the digital century pays attention to rare earth elements, and on this industrial superpower marathon India is leading, the recent moon mission of India the rover listed out rare earth elements in the southern pole of the Lunar surface including the most valuable mineral ilium 3 which could be able to dominate the global industrial power.
In this context, the first globalization began in 1498 marked the first encroachment and the human and technological tasks of Gama’s voyage, Armstrong’s moon mission, and territorial armament tests to the superpower gala celebrations. Kaveripoompattinam in the history of old Asia is the most advanced society in the world, Lemuria continent was highly civilized in culture, engineering, and education, especially in international trade, so this evidently proved that globalization existed in industrialization and trade even twenty thousand years ago. The author’s focus on China was forwarded in technology than Europe such printing press, gunpowder, and compass. Today Japan is overtaking the world in advanced technology and establishing their industries all over the world by creating demand in quality. As a reader, my argument is, that the secret of success is globalization, which should eliminate the bureaucratic and feudal systems and focus interest on innovation as a universal thinking pattern.
Asia moves into market economies, i.e., China’s economic reformation, India’s major reforms in the capital market in 1991 comprised liberalization, privatization, and globalization, and Japan and South Korea’s industrializations along with that Asia has an agricultural superpower for feed to the world, but the political bureaucrat and corruptions are barricade this potentiality. In the context of globalization, technology power share across national borders is potent for peace, does not mean give up defense research for video games and hamburgers. It is a multilateral macro environment USA investors, Chinese entrepreneurs, Indian software programmers, Thai stakeholders, and Japanese technology surely describe the socioeconomic trend in the international market.
It is a matter of time how can industrialization maintain world peace, progress in economy, eradicate poverty, restore unemployment, eliminate terrorism, and stop drug and illegal armament deals. The governing body should act as an enforcement directorate for imposing laws and orders, and structural reformation for policy-making in both national and international bodies in a significant way of raising food and technology for hunger bust and perish malnutrition instead of making guns. Investing more only in the weapons industry is not for economic prosperity but a time of widespread prosperity in the market liberalization and growing acceptance the cultural exchange would be possible for people to grow in the aspect of education, health, and industrialization professionally, Bharata Natyam and Belay and Carnatic and Jas culturally across the continent than KFC and Masala Vada. The author pointed out that some Gulf warfare and intelligence systems bought the commercial markets in East Asia from West Asia and real globalization does not cause war on the pressure of political force but, it is an “economic and social one”.
Westerners’ geopolitical strategy in Asia today speaks significant rim of larger continental powers, but the foreign policy costs curtailing to change an invasion corridor into an invasion barrier in the buffer zone. The imagination of the new age of digital warfare encapsulated in the nano chips for threatening the land to upend the economy for starvation. The quarrel between a map maker and a map taker for redraw space to fit the geopolitical climate. Globalization establishment can interconnect the world through industrialization by the government, governing body, private shareholders or investors, and institutional networks.
Communication sensory networks and grids are inevitable for globalization platforms but intelligence technology is a vital debate as a turning point. For example, Japan’s intelligence satellite launching, Chania’s intelligence station in the Indian Ocean to watch India’s marine activities, and India’s northeastern frontier of Himalaya and agricultural belt about 1,300 miles plain from Calcutta to Lahore. Similarly, experimental processes, logistic deals, and scientific theory applications also will be a global threat, for example “John von Neumann’s hydrogen bomb design”, the author said.
Culture is a root, social life is a trunk, civilly is a branch, and modernization is the cream of society. Competing disruptive technologies damage the social structural system in the form of zones of exclusion, nuclear weapons, and super high-tech warfare including AI methodology. The learning curve of globalization entails the performance in the design of social needs, for example, food security, education, health care, and climate change than the ballistic disruptive manner. Technologies support today’s global disasters and warn in advance, but the tragedy is one after another, Morocco’s earthquake and Libya’s flood sadly lost livelihood, the damage is high and the life cost is unrecoverable. Learning lessons from the problem will be a reference for tomorrow’s better hope. Globalization, technology, and industrialization are already established in the interconnected network system across the planet in accordance with the national and international negotiation policies and procedures based on the act of memorandum. Thanks a lot, to my friend/colleague Yasodhara Kapuge for the book.
In this context, the first globalization began in 1498 marked the first encroachment and the human and technological tasks of Gama’s voyage, Armstrong’s moon mission, and territorial armament tests to the superpower gala celebrations. Kaveripoompattinam in the history of old Asia is the most advanced society in the world, Lemuria continent was highly civilized in culture, engineering, and education, especially in international trade, so this evidently proved that globalization existed in industrialization and trade even twenty thousand years ago. The author’s focus on China was forwarded in technology than Europe such printing press, gunpowder, and compass. Today Japan is overtaking the world in advanced technology and establishing their industries all over the world by creating demand in quality. As a reader, my argument is, that the secret of success is globalization, which should eliminate the bureaucratic and feudal systems and focus interest on innovation as a universal thinking pattern.
Asia moves into market economies, i.e., China’s economic reformation, India’s major reforms in the capital market in 1991 comprised liberalization, privatization, and globalization, and Japan and South Korea’s industrializations along with that Asia has an agricultural superpower for feed to the world, but the political bureaucrat and corruptions are barricade this potentiality. In the context of globalization, technology power share across national borders is potent for peace, does not mean give up defense research for video games and hamburgers. It is a multilateral macro environment USA investors, Chinese entrepreneurs, Indian software programmers, Thai stakeholders, and Japanese technology surely describe the socioeconomic trend in the international market.
It is a matter of time how can industrialization maintain world peace, progress in economy, eradicate poverty, restore unemployment, eliminate terrorism, and stop drug and illegal armament deals. The governing body should act as an enforcement directorate for imposing laws and orders, and structural reformation for policy-making in both national and international bodies in a significant way of raising food and technology for hunger bust and perish malnutrition instead of making guns. Investing more only in the weapons industry is not for economic prosperity but a time of widespread prosperity in the market liberalization and growing acceptance the cultural exchange would be possible for people to grow in the aspect of education, health, and industrialization professionally, Bharata Natyam and Belay and Carnatic and Jas culturally across the continent than KFC and Masala Vada. The author pointed out that some Gulf warfare and intelligence systems bought the commercial markets in East Asia from West Asia and real globalization does not cause war on the pressure of political force but, it is an “economic and social one”.
Westerners’ geopolitical strategy in Asia today speaks significant rim of larger continental powers, but the foreign policy costs curtailing to change an invasion corridor into an invasion barrier in the buffer zone. The imagination of the new age of digital warfare encapsulated in the nano chips for threatening the land to upend the economy for starvation. The quarrel between a map maker and a map taker for redraw space to fit the geopolitical climate. Globalization establishment can interconnect the world through industrialization by the government, governing body, private shareholders or investors, and institutional networks.
Communication sensory networks and grids are inevitable for globalization platforms but intelligence technology is a vital debate as a turning point. For example, Japan’s intelligence satellite launching, Chania’s intelligence station in the Indian Ocean to watch India’s marine activities, and India’s northeastern frontier of Himalaya and agricultural belt about 1,300 miles plain from Calcutta to Lahore. Similarly, experimental processes, logistic deals, and scientific theory applications also will be a global threat, for example “John von Neumann’s hydrogen bomb design”, the author said.
Culture is a root, social life is a trunk, civilly is a branch, and modernization is the cream of society. Competing disruptive technologies damage the social structural system in the form of zones of exclusion, nuclear weapons, and super high-tech warfare including AI methodology. The learning curve of globalization entails the performance in the design of social needs, for example, food security, education, health care, and climate change than the ballistic disruptive manner. Technologies support today’s global disasters and warn in advance, but the tragedy is one after another, Morocco’s earthquake and Libya’s flood sadly lost livelihood, the damage is high and the life cost is unrecoverable. Learning lessons from the problem will be a reference for tomorrow’s better hope. Globalization, technology, and industrialization are already established in the interconnected network system across the planet in accordance with the national and international negotiation policies and procedures based on the act of memorandum. Thanks a lot, to my friend/colleague Yasodhara Kapuge for the book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews