Book reviews: A hawk, a dove and the missile man of America

Two books on the Cold War

1. The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War – Nicholas Thompson

In this book, Nicholas Thompson provides a fascinating account of the life, times and work of probably the two most important American diplomats of the Cold War. George Kennan and Paul Nitze were starkly opposite in many respects, yet both provided immensely important direction to American geopolitics through their advice to many Presidents and shaped the Cold War more than any other two American policy makers.

Of the two Kennan is the more famous and is regarded by many as the most important American diplomat of the twentieth century (he passed away in 2005 at the ripe age of 101 and was known for the resplendent prose in his many books which I could strongly recommend). Kennan is mainly known for a famous 1946 telegram that he sent from the Soviet Union. At this time Americans were still trying to understand the looming Soviet menace and Kennan was probably the most knowledgeable Soviet expert in the country. He rightly understood Stalin’s bluster and sent a telegram describing the intentions and nature of the Soviet state. The telegram instantly catapulted him to recognition and set in place the official policy of “containment” which Kennan’s name became synonymous with. In the telegram Kennan indicated that the Soviets would respond to only strength and not reconciliation and weakness. In his book on the hydrogen bomb, Richard Rhodes says that it was this telegram along with Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech and Stalin’s rousing speech in Moscow that inaugurated the Cold War.

However Kennan did not advocate necessarily employing military strength. This was advocated by Paul Nitze, a man who may not be as famous as Kennan but who was no less important. Nitze is regarded by many as the “father of threat inflation”. As a measure of his influence as a hawk, it suffices to realize that many of the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration were either Nitze acolytes or acolytes of Nitze’s proteges. Just like Kennan Nitze also became famous for a secret 1950 document called NSC-68 that advocated the use of preemptive force against the Soviets and exaggerated their military might. This was a pattern that Nitze and his growing band of followers (among them in various ways were Albert Wohlstetter, Richard Pipes, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld) would consistently pursue; whenever they thought that liberals were trying to be too reconciliatory toward the Soviet Union, they would prepare documents and advocate polices exaggerating Soviet military potential and intentions. Their policies frequently worked and became especially influential during the Reagan administration (formerly they did a good job of portraying Carter as being weak on the Soviets). To some extent they were responsible for the dangerous arms race between the two nations.

Needless to say, such hawkish views radically differed from those of Kennan the dove whose more measured opinions fell somewhat out of favor in later years. Yet the book does an outstanding job of showing that the agendas of both men were more subtle and complicated. Occasionally when it was necessary Nitze would take a softer approach, and during the later Reagan years he joined the President in pressing for open disarmament and reconciliation when many of his followers continued to take a hard line. In his later life Nitze mellowed down, and in 1999 went so far as to write a New York Times op-ed recommending unilateral nuclear disarmament for the US. Although Nitze rightly perceived the work that he had done to be very important in dictating Cold War policy, it is tragic that unlike him, others did not have the sense to see the shortcomings and detrimental effects of these policies in a post Cold War world (Nitze and the accompanying rise of the neo-cons are very well-documented in J. Peter Scoblic’s
“Us vs Them: How a Half-Century of Conservatism Has Undermined America’s Security”).

With such differing perspectives one would think that Nitze and Kennan would have been mortal enemies. But remarkably, through several decades of acute differences and disagreements, the two men remained close personal friends. As Thompson who is Nitze’s grandson shows, it is a mark of the character of both men that they managed to rise above their political differences no matter how severe these were. Thompson shows in this highly readable volume, the tremendous impact on US foreign policy that the work of Nitze and Kennan had. He bring both of them to life and sensitively and wisely dissects their personalities, thoughts and lives. Very strongly recommended for foreign policy/Cold War enthusiasts.

2. A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon- Neil Sheehan

Neil Sheehan apparently spent 15 years writing this account of a little known Air Force General, Bernard Schriever, and the time he spent on the man shows in this comprehensive account. He has performed a very valuable service in bringing this rather obscure character to life and driving home the importance of his accomplishments. Schriever was one of the individuals most responsible for jump starting the US’s missile program, especially shepherding the development of the ICBM. Sheehan does a great job bringing to life all the characters that Schriever was associated with, from his mentors in flight school (including General “Hap” Arnold) to his bete noir, the notorious Curtis LeMay, to his contact with brilliant scientists John von Neumann and Edward Teller whose contributions were critical for America’s missile and atomic bomb programs.

Sheehan provides ample background and little known tidbits of Schriever’s life and times. For instance I was not aware that the US Air Force was a rather inefficient backwater organization till the mid-1930s, easily outclassed by its European counterparts. Apparently at one point, pilots were asked to deliver the mail in the wake of a post office scandal. Their inexperience in flying and the loss of life that resulted galvanized FDR and others to issue directives for a modern Air Force that would become among the best in the world.

The main problem I have is that while Sheehan’s digressions (for instance on the atomic bomb project and Soviet espionage) are fascinating and reflect the most up-to-date information, they are too many and too frequent. An editor who could have shaved off a few pages and encouraged a tighter narrative would have definitely helped. The digressions draw your attention from direct information about General Schriever. To be fair the book is not supposed to be just about him, but a little less meandering would have been a boon.

In spite of this deficiency, the book will be fascinating for Cold War enthusiasts who want to know about the development of the US Air Force and its atomic and missile arsenals during the early Cold War. There is also a fair amount of technical detail about missiles explained in relatively plain and accurate language. After JFK came to power Schriever’s influence waned and the latter part of the book is not as interesting. Nevertheless, Sheehan has done a valuable and outstanding job in bringing a little known individual to life and telling us about his enormous contributions during a critical period of American history.

Particle or nuclear?

This is interesting. A Tehran University physics professor has been killed by a bomb planted outside his home. There is speculation whether this could be the work of outsiders, especially from Israel or the US.

To me the accusation that this was an Israeli operation seems anything but far fetched. After all there has been ample talk of the Israelis bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities the way they did with Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1980. But any such action would likely cause immense international outrage and political problems for Israel, not to mention added Arab animosity. Thus from their perspective the next best option would be to do something like this, assassinate someone who was playing a key role in the nuclear program with the hope that it would at least slow down Iran’s plans and intimidate them.

The trouble is that until now the specialty and role of the assassinated professor is not known. As the NYT reports,

There was some dispute about his field of scientific specialization.

The English-language Press TV said he taught neutron physics at Tehran University, although it was not clear whether he was part of Iran’s contentious nuclear enrichment program.

The broadcaster called the professor a ?staunch supporter of the Islamic Revolution? of 1979 that overthrew the Shah and initiated three decades of theocratic rule.

But two Iranian academics, who spoke in return for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said in telephone interviews that he was not a nuclear physicist and had specialized in particle and theoretical physics. The Web site of Tehran University lists him as a professor of elementary particle physics.

Now that’s silly. A professor who teaches neutron physics would likely know a lot about nuclear reactors and bombs; in 1939, the greatest expert in neutron physics in the world was Enrico Fermi, probably the most important physicist working on nuclear energy. Everyone should know that it does not matter much whether the dead professor’s field of specialty is “nuclear” or “theoretical and particle” physics since it is quite easy for a particle physicist to learn nuclear physics and vice versa (even the movies seem to have understood this; in the George Clooney-Nicole Kidman blockbuster “The Peacemaker”, the scientist working for the bad guys is an astrophysics PhD.)

Thus the unfortunate man’s specialty by itself does not at all preclude him from working on the nuclear program. Only time will tell what his exact role was.

The damning global warming emails; when science becomes the casualty

By now everyone and his grandmother must have heard about the hacked emails of the prestigious University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU). The emails were sent by leading climate change scientists to each other and seem to express doubts and uncertainty. More importantly they also seem to display some troubling signs of rather dishonest discourse, with scientists trying to hold dangerously unfavorable opinions of journal editors who seem to be open to publishing papers that don’t seem to agree with their views, and asking each other to delete emails which might signal doubt.

There is at least one example of bad science revealed in the emails. It seems that one set of data from tree ring proxies did not show the expected rise in temperatures for a particular period and showed a decline. What was done was that just for that period, a different set of data from another method which did show the rise was grafted on to this piece of data. John Tierney of the NYT has the two graphs on his blog. Does this change the general conclusion? Probably not. Is this bad science and enough to justify a flurry of indignant questions in the minds of outsiders? Certainly so. Good science would have meant revealing all the pieces of data including those which showed a decline.

Now what is remarkable (or perhaps not remarkable at all) is the vociferous political- not scientific- reaction that has erupted in blogs all over the internet. I would point readers to my fellow blogger Derek Lowe’s succinct summary of the matter. While I am not as skeptical about climate change as he is, it is disconcerting to see how much political, personal and social baggage the whole issue is carrying. Whenever a scientific issue starts carrying so much non-scientific baggage, one can be assured that we are in trouble.

The comments on most blogs range across the spectrum. There are the outright deniers who claim that the emails “disprove global warming”; they don’t, and I can’t see how any set of personal exchanges could say almost anything definitive about a system as complex as the climate. Phrases like “hide the decline” (in the case of the above tree ring proxy data) and “trick” have been taken out of their technical context to indicate subversion and deception. And then there are the proponents who want to act like nothing has happened. I like George Monbiot’s take on it where he says that even if the science of climate change has certainly not come crashing down, the public image of climate change has been dealt a serious blow, and denying this would simply mean burying your head in the sand. After all, we are supposed to be the good guys, the ones who are supposed to honestly admit to our limitations and failings, and we are not doing this. What ramifications this will have for the important Copenhagen climate summit this month is uncertain.

However, the very fact that we have to worry as much about the public image of climate science as the science itself plainly speaks to the degree of politicization of the issue. I think the liability of this entire matter has basically become infinite and I think scientists working in the field are facing an unprecedented dilemma which few scientists have ever faced. Here’s the problem; we are dealing with an extremely complex system and it is hardly surprising if the science of this system (which after all is only a hundred years or so old) keeps getting revised, reshuffled and reiterated even if the basics remain intact. That would be perfectly normal for a vast, multidisciplinary field like this. That is the way science works. One finds such revision and vigorous debate even in highly specific and recondite areas like the choice of atomic partial charges in the calculation of intermolecular energies. The climate is orders of magnitude more complicated. If the usual rules of scientific discourse were to be followed, making such debates and disagreements open would not be a problem.

But with an issue that is so exquisitely fraught with political and economic liabilities and where the stakes are so enormously high, I believe that the normal process of scientific debate, discourse and progress has broken down and is being bypassed. Scientists who would otherwise engage in lively debate and disagreements have become extremely loathe to make their doubts public. These scientists fear that they would essentially be condemned by both sides. The right wing extremists would seize upon any honest disclosure of debate as the kick that brings the entire edifice crumbling down. They would predictably try to discredit even reasonable conclusions drawn by climate change scientists. At the same time, left wing extremists would essentially disown such scientists and either declare them an anomaly or more predictably declare them to be political and corporate shills. A scientist who honestly voices his doubts would become a man without a country.

This is of course in addition to the ample scorn that establishment upholders like climate blogger Joe Romm would heap on them. Thus, if you are a scientist working in climate change today, it would be rather difficult for you to make even the normal process of science transparent. Plus, most scientists are genuinely scared that all the momentum they have built over the years would fizzle out if their right wing opponents pounce on their private doubts. Think about it. The Copenhagen summit is going to be held in a month. Scientists have faced enormous obstacles in convincing the public and governments about climate change. Your work has been crowned by grudging acknowledgement even by George W Bush and the Nobel Peace Prize for Al Gore. Would you be ready to throw away all this rightly hard-earned and hard-fought consensus for the sake of a few dissenting opinions? The simple laws of human nature dictate that you probably would not.

In my opinion, that is what seems to have happened with the scientists at the CRU. They have been so afraid of not only expressing their doubts (many of which as noted above would be valid given the science involved) but also entertaining other dissenting opinions that they have unfortunately picked the option of trying to silence open debate in a way that would be unacceptable in science in general. One can understand their motivation, but their actions still seem deplorable.

I think these emails point to a much more serious structural problem in the scientific enterprise of climate change. For good reasons and bad, whether to stand up to political hacks or ironically to defend good science, this enterprise has accumulated so much political baggage that it is now virtually impossible for it to compromise, to change, to maneuver even in the face of cogent reasons. The science of climate change has essentially bound itself into a straitjacket. My prediction is that important decisions about this science will in the future be mainly politically motivated. Public consensus not completely backed by good science will be the driving force for major decisions. The consequences of those decisions, just like the climate, are uncertain. We will have to wait and see.

But as usual, the casualty is ultimately science itself. What was good science and ineffective politics before is becoming effective politics and bad science. Whatever else happens, science never wins when it gets so overtly politicized. And hopefully about this there will be universal consensus.

A wrong kind of religion; Freeman Dyson, Superfreakonomics, and global warming

The greatest strength of science is that it tries to avoid dogma. Theories, explanations, hypotheses, everything is tentative, true only as long as the next piece of data does not invalidate it. This is how science progresses, by constantly checking and cross checking its own assumptions. The heart of this engine of scientific progress is constant skepticism and questioning. This skepticism and questioning can often be exasperating. You can enthusiastically propound your latest brainwave only to be met with hard-nosed opposition, deflating your long harbored fervor for your pet idea. Sometimes scientists can be vicious in seminars, questioning and cross questioning you as if you were a defendant in a court.

But you learn to live with this frustration. That’s because in science, skepticism always means erring on the safer side. As long as skepticism does not descend into outright irrational cynicism, it is far better to be skeptical than to buy into a new idea. This is science’s own way to ensure immunity to crackpot notions that can lead it astray. One of the important lessons you learn in graduate school is to make peace with your skeptics, to take them seriously, to be respectful to them in debate. This attitude keeps the flow of ideas open, giving everyone a chance to voice their opinion.

Yet the mainstay of science is also a readiness to test audacious new concepts. Sadly, whenever a paradigm of science reaches something like universal consensus, the opposite can happen. New ideas and criticism are met with so much skepticism that it borders on hostility. Bold conjectures are shot down mercilessly sometimes even without considering their possible merits. The universal consensus separates scientists into a majority who provide a vocal and even threatening wall of obduracy against new ideas. From what I have seen in recent times, this unfortunately seems to have happened to the science of global warming.

First, a disclaimer. I have always been firmly in the “Aye” camp when it comes to global warming. There is no doubt that the climate is warming due to greenhouse gases, especially CO2, and that human activities are most probably responsible for the majority of that warming. There is also very little doubt that this rate of warming has been unprecedented into the distant past. It is also true that if kept unchecked, these developments will cause dangerous and unpredictable changes in the composition of our planet and its biosphere. Yet it does not stop there. Understanding and accepting the details about climate change is one thing, proposing practical solutions for mitigating it is a whole different ball game. This ball game involves more economics than science, since any such measures will have to be adopted on a very large scale that would significantly affect the livelihood of hundreds of millions. We need vigorous discussion on solutions to climate change from all quarters, and the question is far from settled.

But even from a scientific perspective, there are a lot of details about climate change that can still be open to healthy debate. Thus, one would think that any skepticism about certain details of climate change would be met with the same kind of lively, animated argument that is the mainstay of science. Sadly, that does not seem to be happening. Probably the most recent prominent example of this occurred when the New York Times magazine ran a profile of the distinguished physicist Freeman Dyson. Dyson is a personal scientific hero of mine and I have read all of his books (except his recent very technical book on quantum mechanics). Climate change is not one of Dyson’s main interests and has occupied very little of his writings, although more so recently. To me Dyson appears as a mildly interested climate change buff who has some opinions on some aspects of the science. He is by no means an expert on the subject, and he never claims to be one. However he has certain ideas, ideas which may be wrong, but which he thinks make sense (in his own words, “It is better to be wrong than to be vague”). For instance he is quite skeptical about computer models of climate change, a skepticism which I share based on my own experience with the uncertainty modeling even “simple” chemical systems. Dyson who is also well known as a “futurist” has proposed a very interesting possible solution to climate change; the breeding of special genetically engineered plants and trees with an increased capacity for capturing carbon. I think there is no reason why this possibility could not be looked into.

Now if this were the entire story, all one would expect at most would be experts in climate change respectfully debating and refuting Dyson’s ideas strictly on a factual basis. But surprisingly, that’s not what you got after the Times profile. There were ad hominem attacks calling him a “crackpot”, “global warming denier”, “pompous twit” and “faker”. Now anyone who knows the first thing about Dyson would know that the man does not have a political agenda and he has always been, if anything, utterly honest about his views. Yet his opponents spared no pains in painting him with a broad denialist brush and even discrediting his other admirable work in physics to debunk his climate change views. What disturbed me immensely was not that they were attacking his facts- that is after all how science works and is perfectly reasonable- but they were attacking his character, his sanity and his general credibility. The prominent climate blogger Joe Romm rained down on Dyson like a ton of bricks, and his criticism of Dyson was full of condescension and efforts to discredit Dyson’s other achievements. My problem was not with Romm’s expertise or his debunking of facts, but with his tone; note for instance how Romm calls Dyson a crackpot right in the title. One got the feeling that Romm wanted to portray Dyson as a senile old man who was off his rocker. Other bloggers too seized upon Romm-style condescension and dismissed Dyson as a crank. Since then Dyson has expressed regret over the way his views on global warming were overemphasized by the journalist who wrote the piece. But the fact is that it was this piece which made Freeman Dyson notorious as some great global warming contrarian, when the truth was much simpler. In a Charlie Rose interview, Dyson talked about how global warming occupies very little of his time, and his writings clearly demonstrate this. Yet his views on the topic were blown out of proportion. Sadly, such vociferous, almost violent reactions to even reasonable critics of climate change seems to be becoming commonplace. If this is how the science of global warming is looking like, then it’s not a very favourable outlook for the future .

If Dyson has been Exhibit A in the list of examples of zealous reactions to unbiased critics of climate change, then the recent book “Superfreakonomics” by economists Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (authors of the popular “Freakonomics”) would surely be Exhibit B. There is one chapter among six in their book about global warming. And yet almost every negative review on Amazon focuses on this chapter. The authors are bombarded with accusations of misrepresentation, political agendas and outright lies. Joe Romm again penned a rather propagandish and sensationalist sounding critique of the authors’ arguments. Others duly followed. In response the authors wrote a couple of posts on their New York Times blog to answer these critics. One of the posts was written by Nathan Myhrvold, previously Chief Technology officer of Microsoft and now the head of a Seattle-based think tank called Intellectual Ventures. Myhrvold is one of the prominent players in the book. Just note the calm, rational, response that he pens and compare it to one of Joe Romm’s posts filled with condescending personal epithets. If this is really a scientific debate, then Myhrvold surely seems to be behaving like the objective scientist in this case.

So are the statements made by Levitt and Dubner as explosive as Romm and others would make us believe? I promptly bought the book and read it, and read the chapter on climate change twice to make sure. The picture that emerged in front of me was quite different from the one that I had been exposed to until then. Firstly, the authors’ style is quite matter of fact and not sensationalist or contrarian sounding at all. Secondly, they never deny climate change anywhere. Thirdly, they make the very important general point that complex problems like climate change are not beyond easy, cheap solutions and that people sometimes don’t readily think of these; they cite hand washing to drastically reduce infections and seat belts to reduce fatal car crashes as two simple and cheap innovations that saved countless lives. But on to Chapter 5 on warming.

Now let me say upfront that at least some of Levitt and Dubner’s research is sloppy. They unnecessarily focus on the so-called “global cooling” events of the 70s, events that by no means refute global warming. They also seem to cherry pick the words of Ken Caldeira, a leading expert on climate change. But most of their chapter is devoted to possible cheap, easy solutions to climate change. To tell this story, they focus on Nathan Myhrvold and his team at Intellectual Ventures who have come up with two extremely innovative and interesting solutions to tackle the problem. The innovations are based on the injection of sulfate aerosols in the upper atmosphere. This rationale is based on a singular event, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Phillipines in 1990 which sent millions of tons of sulfates and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere and circulated them around the planet. Sulfate aerosols serve to reflect sunlight and tend to cause cooling. Remarkably, global temperatures fell by a slight amount for a few years after that. The phenomenon was carefully and exhaustively documented. It was a key contributor to the development of ideas which fall under the rubric of “geoengineering”. These ideas involve artificially modulating the atmosphere to offset the warming effects of CO2. Geoengineering is controversial and hotly debated, but it is supported by several very well known scientists, and nobody has come up with a good reason why it would not work. In the light of the seriousness of global warming, it deserves to be investigated. With this in mind, Myhrvold and his team came up with a rather crazy sounding idea; to send up a large hose connected to motors and helium balloons which would pump sulfates and sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. Coupled with this they came up with an even crazier sounding idea; to thwart hurricanes by erecting large, balloon like structures on coastlines which would essentially suck the hot air out of the hurricanes. With their power source gone, the hurricanes would possibly quieten down.

Are these ideas audacious? Yes. Would they work? Maybe, and maybe not. Are they testable? Absolutely, at least on a prototypical, experimental basis. Throughout the history of science, science has never been fundamentally hostile to crazy ideas if they could be tested. Most importantly, the authors propose these ideas because the analysis indicates them to be much cheaper than long-term measures designed to reduce carbon emissions. Solutions to climate change need to be as cheap as they need to be scientifically viable.

So let’s get this straight; the authors are not denying global warming and in fact in their own words, they are proposing a possible solution that could be cheap and relatively simple. And they are proposing this solution only to temporarily act as a gag on global warming, so that long-term measures could then be researched at relative leisure. In fact they are not even claiming that such a scheme would work, only that it deserves research attention. Exactly what part of this argument screams “global warming denial”? One would imagine that opponents of these ideas would pen objective, rational objections based on hard data and facts. And yet almost none of the vociferous critics of Levitt and Dubner seem to have engaged in such an exercise (except a few). Most exercises seem to be of the “Oh my God! Levitt and Dubner are global warming deniers!!” kind. Science simply does not progress in this manner. All we need to do here is to debate the merit of a particular set of ideas. Sure, they could turn out to be bad ideas, but we will never know until we test them. The late Nobel laureate Linus Pauling said it best; “If you want to have a good idea, first have lots of ideas, then throw the bad ones away”. Especially a problem as big as climate change needs ideas flying in from all quarters, some conservative, some radical. And as the authors indicate, cheap and simple ideas ought to be especially welcome. Yet the reception to Superfreakonomics to me looked like the authors were being castigated and resented for having ideas. The last thing scientific progress needs is a vocal majority that thwarts ideas from others and encourages them to shut up.

Freeman Dyson once said that global warming sometimes looks like a province of “the secular religion of environmentalism” and sadly there seems to be some truth to this statement. It is definitely the wrong kind of religion. As I mentioned before, almost any paradigm that reaches almost universal consensus runs the risk of getting forged into a religion. At such a point it is even more important to respect critics and give them a voice. Otherwise, going by the almost violent reaction against both Dyson and the authors of Superfreakonomics, I fear that global warming science will descend to the status of biological studies of race. Any research that has to do with race is so politically sensitive and fraught with liabilities and racist overtones that even reasonable scientists who feel that there is actually something beneficial to be gained from the study of race (and there certainly is; nobody would deny that certain diseases are more common to certain ethnic minorities) feel extremely afraid to speak up, let alone apply for funding.

We cannot let such a thing happen with the extremely important issue of climate change. Scientific progress itself would be in a very sad state if critics of climate change with no axe to grind are so vilified and resented that they feel inclined to shut up. Such a situation would trample the very core principles of science underfoot.

New Books

Tom Zoellner’s “Uranium: War, Energy and the Rock That Shaped the World”

David Hoffman’s “The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy”

Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon

Neil Sheehan has written a book about an obscure man who was to shepherd one of the key developments during the Cold War- the development of the US’s ICBM capability. His book is titled “A Fiery Peace in a Cold War”. The NYT has a review of it and I will be reviewing it myself after finishing it. Definitely worth the time.

Missile shield to be scrapped!

It’s a great day. This piece of news makes me feel extremely gratified as I am sure it does many others. Missile defense against ICBMs has been an eternal bug that has bitten almost every President since 1960. The Bush administration had aggressively pushed plans to implement a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. There has always been evidence that the efficacy of such a shield will ultimately be severely limited by the basic laws of physics, and that the adversary can essentially and cheaply overwhelm the defense with decoys and countermeasures.

I have written about these limitations and studies about them several times before (see below). The best article arguing against the European missile shield is a May 2008 article by Theodore Postol and George Lewis in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (free PDF here).

And as arms expert Pavel Podvig succinctly wrote in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists only three days back, it’s not just about the technology, but it’s about a fundamentally flawed concept:

“The fundamental problem with the argument is that missile defense will never live up to its expectations. Let me say that again: Missile defense will never make a shred of difference when it comes to its primary mission–protecting a country from the threat of a nuclear missile attack. That isn’t to say that advanced sensors and interceptors someday won’t be able to deal with sophisticated missiles and decoys. They probably will. But again, this won’t overcome the fundamental challenge of keeping a nation safe against a nuclear threat, because it would take only a small probability of success to make such a threat credible while missile defense would need to offer absolute certainty of protection to truly be effective…It’s understandable that people often talk about European missile defense as one of the ways in which to deal with the missile threat posed by Iran. Or that someday missile defense could provide insurance for nuclear disarmament–this is the vision that Ronald Reagan had. When framed in this way, missile defense seems like a promising way out of difficult situations. But this promise is false. If a real confrontation ever comes about (and let’s hope it never happens), we quickly would find out that missile defense offers no meaningful protection whatsoever”.

Now the Obama administration has decided to scrap the unworkable shield and has decided to replace it with a much more realistic defense against short-range missiles. I cannot imagine how gratified this must make the scores of scientists, engineers and policy officials who have long argued against the feasibility of the shield. It also signals a huge shift in Bush-era foreign policy. Notice how the administration has diplomatically and shrewdly avoided mentioning the basic failures of the earlier system.

Unfortunately, the sordid history of missile defense and the inherent satisfaction that seems to stem by arguing in favor of a “shield” to protect the population makes me skeptical in believing that the concept is dead forever. But for now, there is peace in our time and this is a significant breakthrough.

Past posts on missile defense:
Made For Each Other
Missile Defense: The Eternal Bug
Holes in the Whole Enterprise
Czechs halt missile shield progress

New book roundup

Unfortunately I have had to be away for a long time because real life intervened. I will be posting occassionally now and will resume regular posting in a short while. For now, some interesting newly published and upcoming books:

1.Scientists in Conflict: Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, and the Shaping of United States Nuclear Weapons Policy, 1945-1972- Jacqueline M.Bird

2. The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy- David Hoffman (Doubleday, September 2009)

3. Atomic Awakening: A New Look at the History and Future of Nuclear Power- James Mahaffey (June, 2009)

The last one which I am reading currently looks especially interesting. Another good discussion of nuclear power and its future is in “Physics for Future Presidents”

Demolishing the ‘vacuous’ argument for the RRW

Jeffrey Lewis and Kingston Reif do a neat and clean job. The last line is priceless and is not exactly BAS-like

Firstly, vacuum tubes are not used in the physics package of a single nuclear weapon design. Vacuum tubes are used only in the radar-fuse, which tells the firing system when the bomb is at the correct altitude for detonation, in some modifications (mods) of one warhead design, the B61 gravity bomb. In total, the B61 bombs that have vacuum tubes in their radar-fuses account for only about one in ten operationally deployed warheads. (Vacuum tubes are used in the radars of three B61 mods: 3, 4, and 7. Mods 10 and 11 have newer radars that use solid-state electronics.) The fuses in these weapons are old, but perfectly functional. To reiterate, vacuum tubes are not in use in any other warhead design, including the W76 warhead, a portion of which would be replaced by the first RRW warhead, the WR1, if it ever were funded and developed.

Secondly, the Energy Department has routinely replaced radars without nuclear testing or redesigning the physics package. In fact, during the 1990s, Sandia National Laboratories scientists developed the MC4033 common radar, which uses solid-state electronics, for planned refurbishments of the B61 and B83 gravity bombs. All B83 bombs now use the common radar, though similar plans to fit a new radar on all B61s have been repeatedly deferred.

Most recently, in 2006, Sandia planned to replace the remaining B61 vacuum tube radars as part of ALT 364/365/366. The National Nuclear Security Administration, which overseas the nuclear weapons complex, canceled these latest ALTs, which would have resulted in the removal of the last vacuum tubes from the U.S. nuclear stockpile, because the U.S. Air Force preferred replacement to life extension. Due to this absurd twist, one could say that vacuum tubes remain in the U.S. nuclear arsenal in part because of the RRW, contrary to Chilton’s insistence that the RRW is needed to get rid of them.

The bottom line is that vacuum tubes are used only sparingly in the U.S. nuclear arsenal and can be replaced on short notice if the need arises, independent of whether Congress funds the RRW Program. Of the many reasons that Defense and Energy officials have put forth to justify the RRW Program, the need to replace vacuum tubes is the worst and has no place in the debate about the RRW or modernizing the nuclear stockpile. General Chilton can stick that prop in his, um, pocket.

Alex Abella’s Soldiers of Reason

Due to some unavoidable and important engagements as a graduate student, blogging has been relatively slow recently but I will return with more posts soon. Meanwhile I just wanted to make a brief book recommendation for Alex Abella’s engaging “Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corporation and the Rise of the American Empire”, a history of RAND. Abella focuses on the usual suspects; Brodie, Kahn, Wohlstetter etc. and he particularly shines in describing their personalities and mindsets. I have not finished the book yet but it is definitely worth a read; fast paced and informative. The one gripe I have is that Abella seems to overemphasize RAND’s influence (a fact exemplified by the name) and sometimes attaches names like Donald Rumsfeld and Chalabi to it who only had a rather tangential connection with the organization. He also seems to be rather obsessed with Albert Wohlstetter who is the central character in the book. Nonetheless, Wohlstetter’s policy recommendations were certainly quite influential and the book would be worth reading just for its portrait of this one man.