How To Get Smarter About WMDs
In two days, the U.S. Department of State, in coordination with the George Washington University Elliott School for International Affairs, will host the 2016 James Timbie Forum for Arms Control and Nonproliferation (Timbie Forum, for short). This event is dedicated to promoting new voices and fostering new ideas on policy relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
This year’s speakers — experts, pioneers, and rising stars in the field — have a wealth of knowledge and wisdom to share, so we asked about the books, films, articles, pieces of art or experiences related to WMD that have influenced them. We then asked them to recommend just one thing to people wanting to learn more about WMDs, WMD policy, or the WMD threats facing us.
Here are their recommendations:
Representative Seth Moulton, Timbie Forum Panel: WMD Policy on the Hill
“Many point to movies, books, or articles, but what has most informed me on these matters are the four tours I spent as a Marine infantry officer in Iraq, ostensibly to eliminate weapons of mass destruction.”
Amy Woolf, Timbie Forum Panel: WMD Policy on the Hill
“I would suggest that someone new to the area of nuclear weapons policy read John Hersey’s “Hiroshima”, from the August 31, 1946 issue of The New Yorker. Whether one chooses to work for the elimination of nuclear weapons or the retention of a robust nuclear deterrent, one must understand just how horrific these weapons are and how important it is to make sure they are never used in conflict again.”
Smriti Keshari, Timbie Forum Panel: Perceptions of WMD in the Media
“I would encourage people to view the photographs of an atomic bomb milliseconds after detonation by Harold ‘Doc’ Edgerton.”
Katherine Blakely, Timbie Forum Panel: The Triad: Past, Present and Future
“[David Hoffman’s The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy is] a gripping historical read, and covers a broad swathe of Cold War political and nuclear history. It does an outstanding job talking about the core role of nuclear weapons in the Cold War and the US-USSR relationship, and also brings to light the chilling scope of Soviet biological and chemical weapons efforts.”
Elbridge Colby, Timbie Forum Panel: The Triad: Past, Present and Future
“I’d have to say Thomas Schelling’s Arms and Influence. It’s just the one thing to read on nuclear strategy if nothing else. If you’re looking for something a bit more off the beaten path, I found Robert Osgood’s Limited War Revisited a great guide for understanding nuclear strategy debates. It’s a bit dated but still very useful and insightful.”
Alex Wellerstein, Timbie Forum Panel: The Triad: Past, Present and Future
“[Eric] Schlosser’s book [Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety] manages to cover an immense span of time, from the 1940s up through the present-day, looking at the history through the lens of command and control. This approach takes him through the very core of nuclear technology: questions about the politics of the bomb; the fears of unauthorized and accidental detonations; the difficulties of predicting low-probability, high-consequence events; the ways in which strategy and technology overlap; and the fact that any sufficiently complex technology is as much about human organization as it is about the gadgets in question.”
Nickolas Roth, Timbie Forum Panel: The Next Big Threat: Pressing Dangers Facing the President in 2017
“If someone asked me about the best resource on nuclear terrorism, I would recommend Managing the Atom’s reports on the subject. The latest report, Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: Continuous Improvement or Dangerous Decline, describes the history of our understanding of nuclear terrorism threats and the current threat environment; assesses recent nuclear security efforts with an emphasis on the Obama Administration; and provides policy recommendations to advance nuclear security at the organizational, national, and international levels.”
Ben Rusek, Timbie Forum Panel: The Next Big Threat: Pressing Dangers Facing the President in 2017
“The Curve of Binding Energy by John McPhee is about a nuclear weapon designer concerned about the proliferation of nuclear technology he helped design. It foreshadows many of the problems policy makers struggle with today. McPhee’s writing makes this warning about nuclear terrorism accessible and personal.”
Tristan A. Volpe, Timbie Forum Panel: The Next Big Threat: Pressing Dangers Facing the President in 2017
“The sanitized destruction of major cities is so commonplace in action movies today that we need to be reminded occasionally about why we are seeking to prevent the spread and use of nuclear weapons. While John Hersey’s 1946 seminal report on the bombing of Hiroshima provides a harrowing account of actual damage wrought by atomic weapons, Cormac McCarthy[‘s The Road] paints the most vivid and disturbing fictional portrait I’ve ever read of the anarchic wasteland likely to rise from the ashes of nuclear war.”
James Acton, Timbie Forum Panel: Debating a Nuclear Weapons Ban
“Although over 50 years old and a comedy, Dr. Strangelove [or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb] brilliantly encapsulates the fundamental debates over nuclear strategy that were taking place at the time and are still taking place today.”
Rebeccah Heinrichs, Timbie Forum Panel: Debating a Nuclear Weapons Ban
“Dr. Keith Payne’s The Great American Gamble: Deterrence Theory and Practice from the Cold War to the Twenty-First Century demonstrates how ideas about international actors and relations have had real consequences on policy and strategies that have led to increased peace and stability or war. Not only is it a great study of deterrence, it’s also a powerful study of how to think carefully about security policy, to question conventional wisdom on matters of such great global consequence, and to convincingly offer a way forward.”
Adam Mount, Timbie Forum Panel: Debating a Ban
“I recommend The Unfinished Twentieth Century by Jonathan Schell. There has been very little work that updates nuclear ethics for the end of the Cold War. Schell’s short book is powerful argument about what it means for a liberal society to possess nuclear weapons and is worthy of serious reflection.”
Justin Anderson, Timbie Forum Panel: Deterrence and Arms Control
“[On Limited Nuclear War] provides both historical background and contemporary context helping to explain why several states have considered (and in some cases, still consider) the potential employment of a relatively small number of “tactical” nuclear weapons within potential armed conflicts. The best endorsement for this book is offered by Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling in his foreword: ‘I hope this book gets read by governments everywhere that possess or contemplate nuclear weapons.’ And if you want really awesomely wonky I recommend Icarus Restrained by Jennifer Sims.”
Heather Williams, Timbie Forum Panel: Deterrence and Arms Control
“In this short speech [Michael Quinlan’s “Farm Street Talk: The Morality of Nuclear Deterrence”], one of his last, Quinlan succinctly and elegantly outlines three positions on whether or not nuclear deterrence is a moral policy. He acknowledges his personal and political struggles with the question despite coming down firmly in favor of deterrence for both practical and ethical reasons. His final line is a call for honesty and unity within the nuclear community that we could all heed today: ‘Throughout this field formidable problems beset any view, and it is the duty of us all both to recognize difficulty and face up to it honestly, and to listen very carefully to one another.’”
Nick Miller, Timbie Forum Panel: Reevaluating Nonproliferation Policy
“I would recommend reading Bernard Brodie’s chapters in The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order [ed. Bernard Brodie], which establish much of the intellectual foundation for subsequent thinking on nuclear weapons and nuclear strategy. His insights are remarkably prescient, especially considering that the book was published only a year after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
Jon Wolfstahl, Timbie Forum Panel: Day 2 Keynote Address
“It’s hard to beat Richard Rhodes’ The Making of the Atomic Bomb. It helps you understand the science, struggles and moral challenges facing those at the beginning of the nuclear age.”
And one more recommendation from me:
Go to a test site, any test site — I’ve been to Nevada, Trinity, Semipalatinsk, the Marshall Islands. You cannot help but get a small but visceral understanding of the fierce, unrelenting power of these weapons.
For more information about the Timbie Forum, visit: ww.state.gov/timbieforum.
