The November additions to the ever-increasing library. As the year draws to a close I took the opportunity to use the book budget to make one last round of purchases. I tried to keep it fairly tightly focused on the arms control treaties / regime front this time.
November books
Reluctant Restraint looked like a useful addition, especially in combination with Solingen’s book, which at least one friend of mine has referred to in what can only be called a derisory manner. If I recall correctly the arument was that the book was overly reliant on economic determinism to explain nuclear choices in E. Asia, downplaying the significance of alliance relationships. I’ll be interested to see how that plays out. I am particularly looking forward to getting into “Sunken Treaties.” I may be mistaken but I strongly suspect that as the U.S. and Russia continue to downsize their nuclear arsenals the experience of the inter-war naval limitation treaties will become more and more relevant. If nothing else, the experience of negotiating arms control between multiple parties with differing relationships and obligations will represent a dramatic shift from the history of arms control to date which has been almost exclusively bilateral in nature. A further consideration will be dealing with the prickly subject of equality of armament. Working out the ratio system in the 1920s was hardly painless, especially in the Japanese case. I doubt China will be any easier to deal with in any nuclear weapons negotiations. Anything that smacks of less than absolute equality wit hthe other major powers will probably be rejected, a position that has the handy benefit of allowing china to remain outside of the nuclear disarmament process for as long as possible. “Complex Deterrence” will fit nicely with this reading.
“World At Risk” is available as a PDF but it was on special and books are much easier to read than electronic files, unless you have an ebook reader, which I don’t. This one will be worth revisiting; I got into a bit of a discussion with a fellow from the State Department earlier this year who professed himself at least as surprised as I was that the authors of the report totally discounted any suggestions that chemicals might be used by terrorists while making the utterly sensationalist assertion that there s a 50% chance of a nuclear weapon being used.