by Graham Allison
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Product Description
"Allison's comprehensive but accessible treatment of this vital subject is a major contribution to public understanding." -The New York Times Book Review
Americans in the twenty-first century are keenly aware of the many forms of terrorism: hijackings, biological attacks, chemical weapons. But the deadliest form is almost too scary to think about-a terrorist group exploding a nuclear device in an American city.
In this urgent call to action, Graham Allison, one of America's leading experts on nuclear weapons and national security, presents the evidence for two provocative, compelling conclusions. First, if policy makers in Washington keep doing what they are currently doing about the threat, a nuclear terrorist attack on America is inevitable. Second, the surprising and largely unrecognized good news is that nuclear terrorism is, in fact, preventable. In these pages, Allison offers an ambitious but feasible blueprint for eliminating the possibility of nuclear terrorist attacks, if we are willing to face the issue squarely.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Faulty strategy to prevent nuclear terrorism, 2008-12-13
Graham Allison's nuclear terrorism prevention strategy is a perceptive and tough look at a nagging problem of grave national importance. It's perhaps the best strategy possible given America's current structure. Allison warns that if terrorists get weapons of mass destruction, then the game is over because these weapons will probably be used against us, and therefore a rigorous strategy of locking down weapons worldwide is sensible. Allison fails to explain how the United States can act as the world's nuclear policeman. His book is loaded with practical suggestions like using financial incentives in nations like Russia to encourage foreign officials to lock up or destroy excess weapons, giving money to non-nuclear states to produce less dangerous plutonium and uranium, having a more humble foreign policy, improving intelligence, strengthening global alliances, and so on. But there's a sense that even if all of these suggestions were followed to the letter, the United States would remain vulnerable.
So, in my view, Allison's strategy is flawed.
The correct strategy, in my view, is to reform America in serious ways to substantially reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism. And that means a new understanding of terrorism as well as substantial political reform that requires, in effect, a Second Constitutional Convention.
Allison, along with experts such as Bruce Hoffman as well as most people, see terrorism as essentially a government and military and police problem. And I think that's a mistake. I think terrorism is a bigger problem -- it's a citizens' problem. We're the ones who suffer when it happens. So citizens need to prevent it. And as citizens we have wider latitude and authority to act than government officials have.
Terrorism, in my view, is "violence against individual rights". Begin with my definition and a solution will follow. One can suppose there are three types of terrorists -- criminals (neighbors who violate our rights), tyrants (our own government officials who violate our rights) and foreign terrorists (powerful individuals abroad or heads of state.) All three types of terrorism must be prevented, in my view. It's not enough for government by itself to try to fight terrorism, because in trying to fight terrorism, government may become a terrorist towards its own people. It's a multi-faceted problem, larger but solvable, in my view. We can't try to fight one form of terrorism by exacerbating another. But this happens routinely in airports: to prevent airline hijackings (crime) security guards frisk every passenger without cause (a form of tyranny that passengers put up with despite being treated like criminals.)
My book "Common Sense II: How to Prevent the Three Types of Terrorism" (Amazon & Kindle, 184 pages) spells out the logic for a prevention strategy. The essential concept linking an effort to prevent each type of terrorism is the application of light (meaning information, exposure, awareness.) For example, to prevent crime, we must identify all movement in public while strengthening privacy. For this to happen, citizens must agree to such monitoring, and for this to happen, people must become real citizens, not merely apathetic consumers and shoppers which characterize most Americans today. The concept of citizenship is examined (again, a type of light); citizenship should be a contract between individual and state with specific responsibilities and privileges. It's possible to prevent every instance of home-grown terrorism using this method. The rest of my book shows how one can apply the concept of light to exposing the other types. For example, I think the architecture of government requires an overhaul so that America can make steady long-term foreign policy, consistently rewarding friends and punishing enemies; but today it can't do this because administrations change every eight years, sometimes after only four. I propose a revised architecture based on lessons from history and political philosophy.
My strategy will prevent all types of terrorism, including smuggled nuclear bombs. Allison's won't. My strategy is brief, rational, non-religious, written by a citizen for citizens, non-technical. Be prepared: there are some controversial ideas (one expert found it "bracing"). But my book can protect America. It's plain logic from one citizen to another. Allison's tough strategy is perhaps the best that America can do given the current constraints, and I respect Allison as an expert on foreign policy, but I argue that we need to reform America in serious ways using my strategy to protect ourselves. If reforming America is impossible, then Allison's strategy is the next best thing. Please read my book and judge for yourself.
I challenge Mr. Allison to debate the merits of my strategy.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
 The Ultimate Depressing Thing, 2008-11-01
What is?
Nuclear terrorism, according to Warren Buffet, who should be adept in evaluating the probability of future events. He goes on to say, "It will happen. It's inevitable. I don't see any way that it won't happen".
And yet the subtitle of is book is "The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe". The author is not a pessimist. He writes, "The central but largely unrecognized truth is that nuclear terrorism is preventable. As a simple matter of physics, without fissile material, there can be no nuclear explosion. There is a vast, but not unlimited, amount of highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium in the world, and it is within our power to keep it secure. The United States does not lose gold from Fort Knox, nor Russia treasures from the Kremlin Armory. Thus all that the United States and its allies have to do to prevent nuclear terrorism is to prevent terrorists from acquiring a weapon or nuclear material. The `all' required calls for a substantial, sustained, but nonetheless finite undertaking that can be accomplished by a finite effort. It is a challenge to our will, our conviction, and our courage, but not to our technical capacity".
The first part of the book deals with the nature of the threat. Key points include the following:
* Numerous terrorist groups have the motive and capacity to seek out nuclear weapons.
* These weapons exceed anything else in terms of deadly effect and terror producing potential.
* Nuclear material and weapons are poorly guarded in the former Soviet Union and developing world.
* Nuclear proliferators such as Pakistan exacerbate the situation.
* An actual weapon is easy to put together once the fissile material has been obtained.
* There are many relatively straightforward delivery methods and routes for such a weapon.
Taking all this together, Buffet is right and nuclear terrorism seems indeed inevitable.
In the second part of the book the author presents his approach to dealing with the threat.
His objective is "A World of Three No's" - no loose nukes, no new nascent nukes, and no new nuclear weapons states.
How do we accomplish this? Allison sets it forth in "A Road Map of Seven Yesses". These are:
* Making the prevention of nuclear terrorism an absolute national priority;
* Fighting a strategically focused war on terrorism;
* Conducting a humble foreign policy;
* Building a global alliance against nuclear terrorism;
* Creating the intelligence capabilities required for success in the war on nuclear terrorism;
* Dealing with dirty bombs;
* Constructing a multilayered defense.
While this all seems reasonable enough, I couldn't help coming away with the sense that while clearly necessary, these actions are not in and of themselves sufficient to address the immensity of the risk. And even if they were, there is a question as to how they are to be accomplished.
For example, the author calls for a stop to the new national production of fissile material "beginning with Iran".
What's left out is how.
And this is but one piece of what needs to be done...
Anyway, this is a good, if sobering book. It should be required reading for whoever the new occupant of the White House will be.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Deterrence and Attribution helped once will help now, 2008-10-19
During the Cold War from the 1950s until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, we faced adversaries (including China) that could with impunity launch ICBMs and airborne bomber fleets. In response we spent billions building radars to attribute the nuclear attack to the country which launched the ICBMs and bombers.
It worked.
We're here.
The strategy was called deterrence. Mutually Assured Destruction. MAD.
Today we need to employ the same strategy of Attribution and Deterrence against our new nuclear armed adversaries.
The delivery system they are selecting will not necessarily be limited to ICMBs and bomber fleets. It will included weaponized civilian transportation systems. Airplanes and sea containers. 9/11 was a sample of a scary future.
We can stop it.
Let's build a nuclear sensor network. Attribution and Deterrence worked once.
It can and will work again.
Matthew Schor, Trojan Defense.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Well Written and Cogent Analysis, 2008-06-06
One of the best books on the subject. Without a lot of hype and drama, the author captures the danges from this threat. Of particular interest are his recommendations to the US Government on changes that should be implemented if we are to avoid this looming threat. Most authors lack the experience and perspective needed to formulate a recommended path forward.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A must read!, 2008-05-08
We were surprised by 9/11 even though we should not have been. Let's not be surprised by a nuclear version that wipes an American (or Russian, or Israeli) city off the map -- and possibly creates a crisis that sparks complete destruction of our civilization, just as the assassination of the Archduke in Sarajevo in 1914 set off World War I.
Graham Allison knows his stuff and makes a strong argument for action to avert such a disaster. THIS IS A MUST READ!! If you are already in touch with the urgency of the situation and need a quick shot of hope, jump ahead to chapters 7 and 8 where Allison outlines what we need to do, and then go back and read the early parts.
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