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Taiwan's Former Nuclear Weapons Program: Nuclear Weapons On-Demand
Thirty years ago, in 1988, the United States secretly moved to end once and for all Taiwan’s nuclear weapons program, just as it was nearing the point of being able to rapidly break out to build nuclear weapons. Because intense secrecy has followed Taiwan’s nuclear weapons program and its demise, this book is the first account of that program’s history and dismantlement. Taiwan’s nuclear weapons program made more progress and was working on much more sophisticated nuclear weapons than publicly recognized. It came dangerously close to fruition. Taipei excelled at the misuse of civilian nuclear programs to seek nuclear weapons and implemented capabilities to significantly reduce the time needed to build them, following a decision to do so. Despite Taiwan’s efforts to hide these activities, the United States was able to gather incriminating evidence that allowed it to act, effectively denuclearizing a dangerous, destabilizing program, that if left unchecked, could have set up a potentially disastrous confrontation with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The Taiwan case is rich in findings for addressing today’s nuclear proliferation challenges.
237 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 5, 2022
Great book nuclear proliferation
Albright wrote a compelling and concise account of Taiwan's attempt to build the bomb. I definitely recommend his book on the subject.
Albright wrote a compelling and concise account of Taiwan's attempt to build the bomb. I definitely recommend his book on the subject.
July 25, 2023
First, this book is extremely dry and fairly technical. If you're not a student of strategic studies, arms control, or nuclear non-proliferation, you will not enjoy this book.
Second, the book proceeds from an assumption that, even when it was published, was increasingly tenuous: that Taiwan's development of a nuclear deterrent would have been a catastrophe. The authors seem to accept this assumption, as well as China's threats to invade Taiwan if it became a nuclear-armed (quasi) state, without any further consideration. Given the passage of time, and China's corresponding changes of posture, as well as other episodes like the 2011 Western campaign in Libya and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, a frank and honest cost/benefit analysis would have gone a long way. Instead, Colonel Gray Cheng is hailed as a hero, and his detractors are dismissed as short-sighted. In the event that Beijing forces a crossing of the Formosa Strait at some point in the next ten to twenty years, Cheng will be forever cursed as a traitor. The truth is clearly more complicated, and the reader deserved that discussion. If Albright and Stricker cared to produce a second edition with an addendum debating the issue, I'd be happy to write that rebuttal.
Many of their conclusions, which are served up as case studies in non-proliferation, are also apples-to-oranges comparisons given Taiwan's unique status. Their allusions and comparisons to North Korea are of particular note: whereas American pressure curtailed Taiwan's nuclear program because it was potentially inconvenient to American policy goals, China clearly allows North Korea to maintain a crude deterrent for the very same reason: its inconvenience to America and Western allies. The same could be said of Russia's tacit support for Iran's nuclear adventurism: Albright and Stricker criticize the Iran JCPOA, but fail to recognize that many of the JCPOA's shortcomings tie directly back to Russia's desire to split American attention.
Overall, this book is worth reading by those with specific topical interests, but it's a flawed record of the topic, and its authors draw unnecessarily specific conclusions from a very complex sequence of events.
Second, the book proceeds from an assumption that, even when it was published, was increasingly tenuous: that Taiwan's development of a nuclear deterrent would have been a catastrophe. The authors seem to accept this assumption, as well as China's threats to invade Taiwan if it became a nuclear-armed (quasi) state, without any further consideration. Given the passage of time, and China's corresponding changes of posture, as well as other episodes like the 2011 Western campaign in Libya and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, a frank and honest cost/benefit analysis would have gone a long way. Instead, Colonel Gray Cheng is hailed as a hero, and his detractors are dismissed as short-sighted. In the event that Beijing forces a crossing of the Formosa Strait at some point in the next ten to twenty years, Cheng will be forever cursed as a traitor. The truth is clearly more complicated, and the reader deserved that discussion. If Albright and Stricker cared to produce a second edition with an addendum debating the issue, I'd be happy to write that rebuttal.
Many of their conclusions, which are served up as case studies in non-proliferation, are also apples-to-oranges comparisons given Taiwan's unique status. Their allusions and comparisons to North Korea are of particular note: whereas American pressure curtailed Taiwan's nuclear program because it was potentially inconvenient to American policy goals, China clearly allows North Korea to maintain a crude deterrent for the very same reason: its inconvenience to America and Western allies. The same could be said of Russia's tacit support for Iran's nuclear adventurism: Albright and Stricker criticize the Iran JCPOA, but fail to recognize that many of the JCPOA's shortcomings tie directly back to Russia's desire to split American attention.
Overall, this book is worth reading by those with specific topical interests, but it's a flawed record of the topic, and its authors draw unnecessarily specific conclusions from a very complex sequence of events.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews