Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century: China, Britain, France, and the Enduring Legacy of the Nuclear Revolution

Abstract

"Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century: China, Britain, France, and the Enduring Legacy of the Nuclear Revolution" by Avery Goldstein is reviewed.

DETERRENCE AND SECURITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY: China, Britain, France, and the Enduring Legacy of the Nuclear Revolution. By Avery Goldstein. Stanford (California): Stanford University Press. 2000. 356 pp. US$49.50, cloth. ISBN 0-8047-3736-3.

What will be the likely role of nuclear weapons in the international system in the twenty-first century? Much recent writing about international politics highlights the changes that have followed from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, emphasizing that the key role of nuclear weapons in the security policies of states is or should be ending as well. In contrast, in his latest book Avery Goldstein identifies an important continuity. He argues that despite its receded role in public consciousness, nuclear deterrence will remain at the core of the security policies of the world's great powers and will remain an attractive option for many other less powerful states worried about adversaries whose capabilities they cannot match. This continuity, he suggests, will characterize international political-strategic affairs well into the new century.

After a thoughtful introduction, Goldstein draws on the insights of neorealist balance-of-power theory and strategic studies to lay a theoretical foundation for the case studies that follow. To illustrate his argument, he focuses on examining the security policies of three second-ranking powers, China, Britain and France, during the decades of the cold war. Why devote more attention to a bygone and well-studied era so unlike the world we face today? What is the usefulness of the relatively recent history of the cold war? And, is the logic that informed the strategic decision-making of the three second-ranking powers relevant to other great powers and less powerful states at the turn of the century? As the book unfolds, it gives answers to all these important questions, though to a varying degree of satisfaction.

The strength of the book lies in its explanation why, despite sharp differences in their domestic politics and history that contributed to the distinctiveness of each country's experience, the cold war security policies of China, Britain and France reflected a common strategic logic: all three ultimately embraced remarkably similar, though certainly not identical, nuclear deterrent policies and for remarkably similar reasons. This was primarily due, the author analyzes, to the interaction of three features of the cold war world - the international system's structural constraints of bipolarity, anarchy and the availability of nuclear weapons technology. For the three security-conscious second-ranking powers constrained to operate in a bipolar as well as anarchic international system, relying on nuclear weapons for deterrence provided an effective, robust and, in a way, more economical solution to their principal security concern: how best to cope with the threat from a superpower adversary. In other words, the distinctive features of the cold war world made the leaders of the three countries determined to emphasize independent nuclear deterrence as the keystone of their security policies. Thus, despite the differences of the world we face today from that of the cold war era, four features of the post-cold war world that seems to be taking shape - polarity, anarchy, nuclear weapons and economic concerns - suggest, logically, that the strategic robustness and economic affordability of national nuclear deterrents that have made them attractive will endure.

The book is well crafted with great care and considerable analytical skill. However, the rigorousness and rigor of the central argument would have benefited from more adequate explanation of the relevance of the logic that informed the strategic decision-making of the three second-ranking powers to the United States - the single superpower in the early twenty-first century that arguably enjoys superiority in both nuclear and conventional forces that no other state can match. Nevertheless, the book is no doubt a valuable contribution to the understanding as well as the debate about the future role of nuclear weapons in international politics.