Book Review: The Case for U.S. Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century

Roberts, director of the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and an Obama administration deputy assistant secretary for nuclear defense policy, has produced a factually based, highly readable counterargument to the nuclear free advocacy of recent years. Rather than attack the race-to-zero argument head on, the author presents a cool, level-headed analysis based on recentpast and expected world conditions affecting the deterrence posture of the United States. He wastes no time with a historical nuclear weapon narrative but instead begins with a concise discussion of U.S. nuclear policy evolution administration by administration beginning with the George H.W. Bush presidency. From there, current U.S. adversaries are analyzed with separate chapters devoted to isolationist North Korea, authoritarian China, and Russia under Putins antidemocratic regime. The books timing could not have been better, coinciding with the rise of a populist, domestically focused, U.S. presidency, an expansionist China, and an aggressive Russian state utilizing cyber-attacks in repeated attempts to fracture the Western international coalition.