Customer Reviews

Why Nuclear Disarmament Matters (Boston Review Books)

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Hans Blix provides an interesting perspective for nuclear disarmament. That perspective should have been taken into account by the Bush administration, not only for nuclear weapons, but for the mythical Weapons of Mass Destruction. It's such a simple concept that it could've been realized without the writing of this book, but it wasn't. The United States fell down on the job of being a world leader because of the "entitlement" attitude of the political right, which is, entitlement to push around any country that disagrees with U.S. policy. Blix makes a strong case for changing that policy and gaining the respect from the rest of the world by encouraging cooperation rather than using strong arm tactics. Possibly because he's been around the world a few times and has chosen to learn from it, unlike the Bush administration that didn't learn anything but went out into the world anyway, and still didn't learn anything. It's the different between having street savvy and being a bully to get something accomplished. It seems that the U.S. may never have really had the insight into the rest of the world. This was demonstrated with the price that was paid for the war in Iraq to rid the country of the mythical Weapons of Mass Destruction. A good supplemental read to Hans Blix's book is "The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris" by Peter Beinart. Beinart's book gives another point of understanding and supporting Blix's approach.