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Reacting to nuclear weapons

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by Steve Weinberg Posted Wed, Nov 17 2010

Every journalist who writes about international issues could be considered negligent without an understanding of the contemporary nuclear weapons scenario. When some nations possess the ability to destroy humanity with a split-second decision, and the rest of the nations know it, diplomacy is meaningless without an understanding of that reality.

Learning about the potential destruction of life on earth because of nuclear war is never fun but is usually interesting if undertaken with a professional journalistic attitude. The chief agent of “interesting” since 1987 has been Richard Rhodes. The Twilight of the Bombs is his fourth book about nuclear weapons for a general readership. Each has been a triumph of information-gathering, narrative drive and philosophizing. The new volume sounds cautiously optimistic that humankind will continue to evolve because some nation-states are reducing their nuclear arsenals, or, at minimum, instituting safeguards against unauthorized attacks on enemies.

Now in his early 70s, Rhodes never intended to become a specialist author, and he surprised himself when his specialty began developing, it was nuclear weaponry. A generalist journalist at first, Rhodes focused on geographical uniqueness within the United States, starting with his books The Inland Ground and The Ozarks.

In 1979, looking to write a book that would change the world (and maybe sell lots of copies), Rhodes began researching what would become The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Published in 1987, that book won major prizes and led publishers to compete for his work. Rhodes continued to write about topics other than nuclear weaponry but could not give up what could be considered the ultimate topic of survival. In 1995, he published Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. In 2007 came Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race.

The fourth volume focuses on the actions and reactions of U.S. politicians, diplomats and scientists since World War II. However, the book is not America-centric. Rhodes also explores nuclear weapons developments throughout the former Soviet Union, Iraq, North and South Korea, India, Pakistan, South Africa, and China, Great Britain, France, Middle Eastern and South American nations.

It is hard to write or read well about nuclear weapons without trying to determine whether they serve as a deterrent to further destruction or as inevitable doom.

Rhodes sets the stage for the necessarily ongoing discussion by writing in the Prologue: “…in all the years since the first two atomic bombs destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War, no more nuclear weapons [have] been exploded in anger. Those who believed in deterrence, in the power of the bombs to prevent their use, naturally believed that half a century free from major war meant that deterrence had worked—and, by extension, should continue to work in perpetuity. Those who doubted the efficacy of deterrence noted that both the United States and the Soviet Union had accepted stalemate, as in Korea, or even defeat, as in Vietnam and Afghanistan, rather than risk nuclear escalation. Nuclear arsenals might promote caution in relations among hostile states, the doubters therefore argued, but they clearly did not compel, while a world awash with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons risked accidental or inadvertent nuclear holocaust.”

With the aptly described debate as the book’s framework, Rhodes relies on government and private documents as far back as the 1930s and interviews with current players to explain the varying circumstances in different nation-states.

For some readers, the book will seem fresh, will cram the brain with previously unknown information. For readers of Rhodes’ previous books on the topic, parts of the new book will seem a bit warmed over. Because I have read Rhodes’ previous books (plus dozens more by other authors on the topic), I felt like reading quickly over some of the passages.

That’s not allowed when reading as a professional reviewer, so I read carefully to the end. The most enthralling sections for me came from Rhodes’ accounts of what occurred as the Soviet Union broke apart. Suddenly, nuclear weapons resided in four politically unstable states—Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Political leaders, military commanders or even devoted terrorists could have sold weapons to the highest outside bidders for cash or could have attempted to blackmail more established nuclear powers. For now, such a calamity has been averted.

Rhodes’ reporting about averting calamity in the former Soviet Union will resonate months and probably years from now.