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Preventive Attack and Weapons of Mass Destruction: a Comparative Analysis James J Naval War College Review Volume 60 Article 13 Number 2 Spring 2007 Preventive Attack and Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Comparative Analysis James J. Wirtz Lyle J. Goldstein Follow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review Recommended Citation Wirtz, James J. and Goldstein, Lyle J. (2007) "Preventive Attack and Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Comparative Analysis," Naval War College Review: Vol. 60 : No. 2 , Article 13. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol60/iss2/13 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen 154 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW Wirtz and Goldstein: Preventive Attack and Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Comparative Secretary of Defense was focused on technologies, with the attendant as- building up Army and Air Force strength sumption that fewer forces will be in Western Europe, while naval forces needed as a consequence. Further, he languished because they were seen as of questions whether the process of trans- lesser utility. Hayward set out to chal- formation is really advanced by grafting lenge this strategic vision by commis- an “Office of Force Transformation” sioning and then championing a naval (since abolished) onto the Department force-planning study called “Sea Plan of Defense, arguing that the services 2000.” The essence of this plan was the were in fact taking full advantage of in- assertion that any assault across the formation technologies for a decade be- inner-German border would result in a fore a “revolution in military affairs” global war. Naval forces provided strike was decreed. capabilities that could be marshaled On balance, Kagan gives the services anywhere, while protecting the sea- good marks for their stewardship over lanes. The redoubtable head of the Soviet the past twenty-five years as the na- navy, Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, had tion’s guardians. The current war in enunciated a strategy of protecting his Iraq, however, worries him, because the ballistic missile submarines in their military did not adapt swiftly enough. northern bastions. Sea Plan 2000 advo- He is too good a scholar to make cated naval-based offensive strikes sweeping assertions about American against the Kola Peninsula and against martial superiority. Instead, he argues Soviet attack and missile submarines that the process of adapting in order to worldwide. win is the nation’s greatest strength. When President Ronald Reagan took Finding the Target will make an excel- office in 1981, John Lehman became lent textbook for those whose opera- secretary of the Navy and aggressively tional jobs have not left sufficient time supported such an offensive maritime to keep abreast of the changing strategic strategy. The U.S. Navy budget in- perspective in the services. creased, and the Soviets worried. Their self-confidence was dented, as they later F. J. “BING” WEST Newport, Rhode Island freely admitted. No one could predict what would occur in an actual war, but according to Kagan, “Hayward’s real- ization that the Navy’s greatest weak- ness was its strategic thinking made Goldstein, Lyle J. Preventive Attack and Weapons possible a transformation of the Navy’s of Mass Destruction: A Comparative Analysis. capabilities with few new technologies. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 2006. As a result, the Navy regained a consid- 268pp. $50 erable degree of balance against a wan- Do nuclear weapons represent a source ing Soviet threat.” of stability in world politics, or does the Conversely, Kagan cites the efforts of acquisition of these weapons create in- former secretary of defense Donald centives for established nuclear states or Rumsfeld to “transform” the services as longtime rivals to destroy nascent nu- flawed in both concept and process. He clear weapons programs before they ac- criticizes the recent focus on information tually coalesce into significant strategic Published by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2007 1 C:\WIP\NWCR\NWC Review Spring 2007.vp Monday, May 14, 2007 3:57:49 PM Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen BOOK REVIEWS 155 Naval War College Review, Vol. 60 [2007], No. 2, Art. 13 forces? The answer to both key ques- Goldstein addresses this debate with a tions, according to Lyle Goldstein, is survey of the most significant interna- yes. The acquisition of nuclear weapons tional confrontations involving nuclear creates the incentive to prevent war, ex- and nonnuclear states, exploring the acerbate existing rivalries, and produce incentives, perceptions, and judgments crises, but over time even asymmetric of nuclear-armed leaders as they con- nuclear balances tend to moderate en- template the prospects and pitfalls of during rivalries and calm more acute launching preventive war to disarm conflicts. emerging nuclear powers. His compara- Goldstein’s primary purpose is to ad- tive case studies span the entire nuclear dress the contemporary debate between age: from the U.S. reaction to the emer- “proliferation optimists” and “prolifer- gence of a Soviet nuclear weapons pro- ation pessimists.” Proliferation opti- gram, American and Soviet responses to mists suggest that nuclear weapons will the Chinese nuclear program, and the have a moderating effect on interna- Israeli strike against Iraq’s Osiraq reac- tional relations. Because nuclear arse- tor, to both U.S. counterproliferation nals provide mechanisms for states to wars against Iraq. His case studies reveal protect their fundamental security con- that although the leaders in dominant cerns while increasing the potential states often contemplate preventive war, costs of war, leaders tend to be moder- a host of issues conspires to prevent them ate when dealing with not only their from launching strikes to destroy emerg- own nuclear weapons but their oppo- ing nuclear forces and infrastructures. nents’ arsenals as well. Optimists also Goldstein’s finding that preventive believe that governments everywhere counterproliferation strikes are rare is tend to be good stewards of their nu- offset by several observations that are clear capabilities, generally treating not at all reassuring. Counterprolifer- them as political instruments, not as an ation attacks have been contemplated enhancement to their war-fighting ca- from the start of the nuclear age, but pabilities. Proliferation pessimists, actual attacks are a relatively recent however, argue that a situation of mu- phenomenon. Goldstein’s analysis sug- tual assured destruction (MAD), not gests that the revolutions in conven- nuclear weapons per se, is what induced tional precision guidance and global caution between competing capitals reconnaissance capabilities have tipped during the Cold War. In the absence of the balance in favor of preventive war, MAD, they believe, states face mount- although risks still remain. U.S. officers ing pressure to launch preventive war and officials, for instance, were deeply to destroy nascent nuclear weapons concerned about the prospect that programs. New nuclear states, accord- Saddam Hussein might retaliate with ing to the pessimists, lack the resources, chemical or biological weapons when it technical expertise, and stable govern- became clear that the regime in Bagh- ments that are needed to construct sur- dad itself was the target of coalition op- vivable nuclear arsenals, especially erations in 2003; nevertheless, members those that remain under negative con- of the administration were ultimately trol and in times of extreme stress. undeterred by what they considered to be a credible threat. Goldstein concludes https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol60/iss2/13 2 C:\WIP\NWCR\NWC Review Spring 2007.vp Monday, May 14, 2007 3:57:49 PM Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen 156 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW Wirtz and Goldstein: Preventive Attack and Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Comparative with an even more disturbing observa- this with The Parliament of Man. Ken- tion: that world politics might be nedy, the author of The Rise and Fall of entering a period of pronounced insta- the Great Powers and Grand Strategies in bility as the proliferation of nuclear War and Peace, approves of the idea of weapons and associated delivery sys- the UN but is not blind to its failings. tems accelerates. More opportunities He believes that “since this is the only will soon present themselves to stop am- world organization that we possess, we bitious nascent nuclear states in their need to make it work in the best way tracks. possible, in order to help humankind Goldstein’s narrative is compelling, the- navigate our present turbulent cen- oretically informed, well written, and well tury.” Consequently, while the book is organized. His comparative study sheds mostly historical, a consistent tone of light on the proliferation optimism/ apology runs along with the narrative. pessimism debate, even though his con- It is a story, Kennedy writes, of “evolu- clusions are unlikely to satisfy either tion, metamorphosis, and experiment, camp. Skeptics might point out that his of failure and success,” but a story that case studies are a bit cursory and lack is ultimately justified. documentary evidence drawn from the A solid introductory chapter traces the various capitals in question. To its deepest roots of the UN back to post– credit, however, Goldstein’s work is rel- Napoleonic Europe, but Kennedy very atively comprehensive and provides a naturally spends most of his time exam- global perspective on how preventive ining events in the wake of World War war dynamics play out among Western I. Here Kennedy rehearses the prehis- and non-Western antagonists. It also tory of the UN from the advent of its provides a chronological perspective on predecessor, the League of Nations, how the phenomenon of preventive war through that organization’s failures and might, in fact, be changing.
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