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    The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics
    Unavailable
    The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics
    Unavailable
    The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics
    Ebook385 pages6 hours

    The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics

    By Paul Bracken

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A leading international security strategist offers a compelling new way to "think about the unthinkable."

    The cold war ended more than two decades ago, and with its end came a reduction in the threat of nuclear weapons—a luxury that we can no longer indulge. It's not just the threat of Iran getting the bomb or North Korea doing something rash; the whole complexion of global power politics is changing because of the reemergence of nuclear weapons as a vital element of statecraft and power politics. In short, we have entered the second nuclear age.

    In this provocative and agenda-setting book, Paul Bracken of Yale University argues that we need to pay renewed attention to nuclear weapons and how their presence will transform the way crises develop and escalate. He draws on his years of experience analyzing defense strategy to make the case that the United States needs to start thinking seriously about these issues once again, especially as new countries acquire nuclear capabilities. He walks us through war-game scenarios that are all too realistic, to show how nuclear weapons are changing the calculus of power politics, and he offers an incisive tour of the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia to underscore how the United States must not allow itself to be unprepared for managing such crises.

    Frank in its tone and farsighted in its analysis, The Second Nuclear Age is the essential guide to the new rules of international politics.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateNov 13, 2012
    ISBN9781429945042
    Unavailable
    The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics
    Author

    Paul Bracken

    Paul Bracken is a professor of management and political science at Yale University and a well-established expert in the field of international politics. He has served as a consultant to nearly all of the post-cold war government reassessments of national security, including those for the Department of Defense and the CIA. He is the author of Command and Control of Nuclear Forces.

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    Reviews for The Second Nuclear Age

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    • 3/5
      It was difficult getting into this book. Perhaps not being familiar with game theory was a factor. The author seemed to nitpick about when the second nuclear age began. Did it overlap with the cold war or was it a separate event. What made me a little suspicious was a fairly obvious mistake in the middle of the book. It was stated that the Israelis had sunk the USS Liberty. While this book is OK, providing some interesting tidbits, it struggled to hold my attention.
    • 4/5
      if you're looking for a book to cheer you up during the holiday season, this probably isn't it.  The Second Nuclear Age is a somber assessment of the current state of nuclear affairs in the world.  The past duels between cold war superpowers will be replaced in some cases by "truels," three-player conflicts where the weakest player can leverage a nuclear threat to achieve objectives.  There are chapters on the Middle East and Southeast Asia; Mr. Bracken officially takes no position on the benefit of a  preemptive strike to destroy a potential Iranian nuclear capability but discusses 'thinking about the unthinkable' at some length.  As more states and organizations get the bomb there needs to be more scenario planning to manage this new reality.  Give a different book for the holidays, but read this one anyway.  Today's tensions can best be addressd by understanding our cold war nuclear history and applying the right lessons during the first crisis, whenever and wherever that occurs, in the second nuclear age.
    • 4/5
      Professor Bracken brings needed attention to the nuclear issues and dangers facing the world in the post-Cold War era. He demonstrates that our current policy on nuclear arms, while focusing on the important matter of non-proliferation, significantly neglects to strategically analyze and respond to the reality that nuclear weapons exist (and won't go away) in the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia. The presence of nuclear weapons in countries like Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea -- and likely soon in Iran -- make the interactions between parties significantly more complex and intricate. We must recognize how nuclear weapons affect the balance of power, and the range of strategic choices available to nations in conflict if we are to craft a national policy, and partner with other nations, to deal with the exigencies of a post bipartite nuclear world.Strategic nuclear logic is fascinating because it is often counter intuitive. Their cataclysmic destructive power suggests they simply can never be used, but having them opens up many paths for nation-to-nation interactions that are not conceivable without them. Bracken's book delves deeply into the possibilites for national policies that nuclear weapons create. His description of Iran and Isreal and North Korea v. the workd are illuminating. Perhaps most worrisome is the imbalances in technology and capacity between Pakistan and India which could push a desparate, poorly governed Pakistan over the nuclear brink.Professor Bracken valuably reminds us that thinking of nuclear weapons as passe, irrelevant weapons in the post Cold War era is a seriously short-sighted view in light of their continued presence and growth among regional powers.
    • 5/5
      This book is a splash of cold water to the face for those of us raised in the Cold War. While we in the United States have lost our focus on the geopolitical implications of nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War world, the rest of the world hasn't, with Pakistan, North Korea and India starting or expanding nuclear programs and Iran poised to join the nuclear club. This book is a welcome reminder that nuclear strategy is still immensely important and that we have taken a 20 year holiday from thinking seriously about the topic.As Paul Bracken astutely observes, the Second Nuclear Age will be multilateral instead of bilateral, regionally-focused and driven by nationalism rather than the systemic struggles of the Cold War. Much of our thinking, Bracken argues, is centered on the old models of Soviet-American arms control treaties and the increasingly dysfunctional Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime, while what we need is a thoughtful examination of how the nuclear component will affect regional confrontations in the Middle East, the Indian sub-continent and East Asia. Bracken suggests that the Second Nuclear Age will have its own versions of the Berlin blockade and Cuban Missile Crisis and that America's national security players need to think now about the implications of the existence and possible use of nuclear weapons in the 21st Century's geopolitical confrontations.This is a very fine book and a must read for serious student of diplomacy or national security.
    • 5/5
      Paul Bracken presents a clear strategic roadmap leading from the 1940s into today and on to tomorrow. Part One summarizes the Cold War, present day crises scenarios are presented in Part Two, and strategy proposals for the future are discussed in the last part. The transition is from a time when nuclear weapons were at the core of strategic planning to a time when strategic planning must be conducted in a nuclear environment. His ideas provoke thinking and provide a structure by which to better understand current events. The provocation of thinking leads to criticism but that can be a beneficial outcome itself.As a reader unaccustomed to academic works of this nature, I stumbled over some vocabulary. For example, there is a distinct difference between ‘strategy’ and ‘grand strategy’ and that distinction is more important when the discussion goes from business planning to geo-political planning. I came to that realization when it struck me that goals and objectives were never included in the author’s discussions. The singular goal of strategy is the implementation of grand strategy (or the thwarting of your adversary’s grand strategy). In business, the goal is the improvement of the bottom line but in geo-politics it is not as self-evident. Only once, during the discussion of China’s foreign policy, does Bracken use the term ‘grand strategy’ and never once does he explicitly discuss goals or objectives. It is my understanding, dating back to the 1950s, that Soviet planners used the term ‘strategy’ where we use ‘grand strategy’ and ‘operations planning’ where we use ‘strategy’. The ship has sailed to adopt that convention but it would have helped.The implicit goal imbedded in Bracken’s thesis is the maintenance of a status quo or a return to a stable state of affairs. The problem is that it is unbalanced. The status quo is, in general, favorable for nations that have but not for ‘have-not’ nations because it only assures them that they will continue to not have. There is no incentive. A more precise discussion of goals tailored for specific crises would have strengthened Bracken’s argument.In my opinion, nuclear confrontations or crises of a lesser nature might be blunted but never resolved without due consideration of the goal and objectives coupled with their associated constraints and requisites of each side.In the opening part of his book, Bracken presents a case for the use of war-gaming as means to not only hone our thinking through of strategic processes but to give insight into adversarial plans or responses. An example he gave of the successful use of war-gaming was the conduct of the WWII naval war in the Pacific. Admiral Nimitz reported that every movement of the Japanese with the exception of the kamikaze attacks was anticipated because they had been revealed during war-games beforehand. The exception he noted exposes a basic weakness in war-gaming; its success is dependent on the rationality of the parties. In our culture, the use of kamikaze attacks were irrational and so were not considered. The Japanese fleet movements were very rational because their leaders, like ours, studied Mahan and Billy Mitchel – both sides were singing from the same hymn books. Although Bracken and other intellectual thinkers might deem it politically incorrect to consider much of the conflicts in the Middle East, particularly Jihadist and Israel as well as Iran versus America to be based on religious differences, many of us believe that to be the case. Religion is by its very nature irrational in that it relies on faith rather than reason. Suicide bombers shouting “Allah is great” is all the evidence I need. Suicide bombers and suicide nations differ only in scale, one may be carrying TNT and the other a nuclear bomb but both are irrational. Again, it is impossible to war-game irrationality unless, maybe, to have a certified schizophrenic as one of the players. If war-gaming cannot be effective absent an assumption of rationality, and I believe it cannot be or is seriously hampered, much of Bracken’s scenarios fall apart.Another criticism: in Chapter 10, Bracken argues for the establishment of a two prong American policy. The first is to publically and emphatically announcing a commitment to never be the first to employ nuclear weapons – so far, so good. The second prong would be to just as emphatically announce that we would retaliate against any nation that did strike first with a nuclear weapon including a friendly nation like Israel. I, probably as well as the majority of both political parties, oppose such a policy. It would mean that we are willing to become the nuclear policemen of the world. To put an iota of credence behind the policy would require us to maintain a massive military capability with forces scattered around the world to ensure a quick response. Otherwise the policy would be paper thin. A one strike retaliation would also be either ineffective or the spark for a prolonged follow-up war. Consider this scenario: The Chechens or a similar group suddenly becomes a serious threat to Russia and the Kremlin believes the only solution to the problem was a limited nuclear strike and they also believe the American policy to be an empty threat. Would we retaliate against Russia in that circumstance and invite thewar that would surely follow? I think it would be unwise to do so. The proposal has not been thought through. But do I suggest you buy the book? Yes. It got me thinking and it will do the same for you.