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The Absolute Weapon Revisited: Nuclear Arms and the Emerging International Order. Edited by T. V. Paul, Richard J. Harknett, and James J. Wirtz. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998. 312p. $47.50.
This is a book about the utility of nuclear power in the post-Cold War era. But it is also about the transformation of war, global power, and interdependence. It is written with an eye toward providing different perspectives on the political, military, and economic dimensions of war, and it provides a range of useful insights and analysis of the role of nuclear weapons in the next century. The authors emphasize that states are on the brink of something new in international politics, that indeed the post-Cold War era is ushering in a "systemic shift in the distribution of power," that the role of the atom bomb as an instrument of regional and global politics is changing. The point of departure is Bernard Brodie's famed 1946 essay, "The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order." Brodie argued eloquently that nuclear antagonists can ensure their predominance through deterrence only after successfully developing a second strike (or retaliatory) capability. Furthermore, Brodie did not envision the emergence of an arms control regime and, indeed, argued that such a regime would not succeed because states tend to distrust their adversaries' intentions.
The authors of The Absolute Weapon Revisited set...