Customer Reviews

Weapons of Mass Destruction: The No-Nonsense Guide to Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Weapons Today (Cassell Military Paperbacks)

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This short volume spends a good deal of its space on the BACKGROUND and DEVELOPMENT (including missile technology) of WMD since the end of WW2. I suppose this makes sense since one can easily find fairly reliable info on CURRENT ARSENALS from the internet (the "Nuclear Notebook" of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists immediately comes to mind). This sort of data change all the time.

One figure from this book strikes me: Britain's total nuclear arsenal - all in SLBM's - have a combined yield of just 19 MT. (p. 122) Compare this with China's total: 530 MT. (p. 124) However, one must keep in mind the high-survivability of a first strike of the former, something China still lags behind. China has no SSBM's in operation, according to Hutchinson. (This is well known.) How can China see itself as a superpower? And to think some Americans see China as a future threat!

The following are chapter headings: 1. Dr Strangelove Lives! 2. Thunder from the Sky 3. Dawn of Deterrence 4. A Terrible Mushroom Cloud 5. Delivering the Hand of God 6. Missile Proliferation 7. The Last Ditch Defence 8. Awakening from the Nuclear Nightmare 9. Man's Inhumanity to Man - Chemical Weapons 10. Unlocking Pandora's Box - Biological Weapons Glossary Bibliography

This book has no appendixes. (Worse it lacks an index - something I consider essential in any book of this type.) This book's emphasis seems to be on nuclear rather than chem or bio weapons.

For those who enjoy a HISTORICAL tour of WMD, this book is standard fare. For those who are interested in the technical description of WMD (i.e., info that are de-classified and thus available to the public), you'd do well to look elsewhere. As for the author's credentials, I take his competence for granted since he comes from Jane's.

Overall, interesting and useful.

Despite the depressing subject matter and the dry title, the author (Robert Hutchinson) has created a highly readable account of nuclear weapon history. The subtitle, "The no-nonsense guide to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons today," is a bit of a misnomer. The book mostly covers the development of nuclear bombs/warheads and their delivery systems. Only one chapter each is devoted to chemical and biological weapons, respectively. This emphasis parallels the military's own probable reliance on these various weapon systems. (Chemical and biological weapons alone rarely have decisive effects on the battlefield.) The book is not a reference guide, but a truly intriguing look at man's inherent insecurity and his irresistible attraction to harness the destructive forces of the universe.

Although I read quite a lot about military history, the book revealed many little-publicized systems and nuclear close-calls. For instance, the Soviets developed a 'dead-hand' computerized launch system, so that if the Soviet (now Russian) leadership was killed in a sudden pre-emptive first strike then Russian ICBMs would launch automatically. (Gee, I hope those Russian computers don't crash their hard drives.) Both Soviets/Russians and Americans (32 Pentagon-confirmed) have had some startlingly close-calls in accidental nuclear weapons detonation or launching!

Also, the Soviets spent huge sums on developing an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system to shield the Soviet leadership in Moscow. While the Americans did the same to protect their own ICBM fields. Interestingly enough, neither side felt it imperative to try to shield their own cities from nuclear destruction. (Which begs the question: If all your cities are destroyed in a nuclear attack, then what is the point of maintaining a national leadership? There would be no people left to govern! Such is the logic of nuclear game theory.)

The book's chapters cover: Cold War nuclear weapons and strategy, cruise missile and ICBM development, survey of nuclear delivery systems (especially missiles), nuclear weapon effects/tactics/response, nuclear missile proliferation, ABM and launch command systems, efforts to reduce nuclear proliferation, chemical weapons types/usage/covert dumping, and biological weapons. It also mentions the 'doomsday bomb', which the Soviets developed to ensure the complete uninhabitability of planet Earth for millenia, just in case they found themselves on the losing end of a nuclear war.

I heartily recommend this book to anyone remotely interested in the Cold War or nuclear weapons history. Hutchinson has a superb writing style. Just a few minor complaints: chapters could be subdivided and better organized, add tables listing the weapons and their comparative attributes, more photos. (My 2004 edition has a decent bibliography and index.)

I really do not like it when a book has a title which does not reflect what the book is about. The book states that it is a "no-nonsense guide to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons today". I would say that about 2/3 of this book is a history of these weapon systems starting from WW1 before it starts to talk about the situation today, which is about 2000.

Having said that the book itself is an average history on this topic. No major insights. The information is available in many other books too.

The current stuff, is so brief there is nothing that a decent scan though the internet could not produce just as good. Although I am sure since the book been published the writer would have changed some of his comments now.

This book is essentially a very good general history of weapons of mass destruction, back to WW I, with a primary emphasis on nuclear weapons, which makes sense since most of the actual development, deployment, and even use/testing has been nuclear for all the major powers. Given the classified nature of the information, esp. as regards who has what today, there is really very little about current WMD capability for chemical and biological weapons.

Where this book really shines is its coverage beyond the usual USA-USSR/Russia duo. Being a Brit, the author provides a huge amount of information regarding the UK! And a lot of great information about the French and Chinese!! Not to mention some extremely good information about India, Israel, Pakistan, and South Africa!!! So anyone reading this gets a much broader picture about the history of nuclear weapons. The information about the non-USA/USSR powers is worth the price of admission. So if you're interested in the medium and smaller nuclear powers, get this book. And if you're looking for some rather "sensational" assertions--e.g., the Soviets had a fail-safe automatic launch system or that there are two giant gaps in Russian radar coverage at the time this was written such that we could launch an undetected SLBM attack on them--then this is the book for you.

While one hesitates to use words like "fun read" when describing the subject matter at hand, Hutchinson's book is direct, to the point, accessible, and very engaging. It is a rather "fun read", if you like the subject; once you start, it is hard to put down. But, it has a most serious caveat. There is no direct sourcing of the information, so the reader is completely unable to assess the accuracy of the information presented. Is that a fatal flaw? Guess it depends on what you think of the author's background.

Sadly, there are no page footnotes nor chapter endnotes. So at no time in the text does the author tie a particular factual assertion to a specific source document. Take the following assertions about South Africa: "..., the first deliverable air-dropped bomb, with a yield of 18kT, was produced in August 1987, using 121 lbs. of Highly Enriched Uranium. It measured 6ft in length and weighed 2,200lbs. A further three bombs were assembled before the programme wsa terminated in 1990." This is great data and most interesting, but is it accurate? Where did the information come from? The reader can only search the bibliography to see if he can find a potential source. Is it David Albright's 'South Africa and the affordable bomb' from 1990? If so, would've been nice to know and would then be possible to verify if the source supports the assertion. It might have helped if he would've broken down the bibliography by country, so sources tied to French or British or Indian weapons were readily discernable, and subject, whether dealing with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

The author has a just decent bibliography, with a heavy reliance upon the Public Record Office, London. Over a fourth of the citations here are from the PRO. Long being personally interested in the UK and France's weapons and systems, I was unpleasantly surprised to see a large number of important sources on them absent. That is a cause for some concern. There is a very good glossary and a few decent photographs. But the lack of an index is a huge oversight, one that seems tied to the failure to source the assertions!

Too bad there is no world map showing the relevant powers. And there is no chart showing the various weapon systems over time. Would've been nice to be able to compare the growth and strength of say the French from the initial operational deployment of their Mirage IVA bombers to their current SSBN/SLBM today, showing the range, yield, etc. of their bombers, IRBMs, and SLBMs over time. Same for Brits, USSR, and USA. This is the sort of basic information that needs to be put in tabular or other easy-to-digest summary format. For example, I built my own table showing the date each nation reportedly exploded its first A-bomb, with yield, and H-bomb, with yield. The author gives A-bomb data for 8 current and former nuclear powers (USA-USSR-UK-Frnc-Chn-Ind-SoAf-Pakstn--everyone but Isr) and H-bomb data for 6 (USA-USSR-UK-Frnc-Chna-Ind). How hard would it have been for the author to include such a chart? And why not show some charts about the changing size and composition of these weapons over time? Since this is mainly an historical summary work, using such charts would've greatly benefitted the reader.

I write the above having been a Captain (O-3) in the USAF. For example, I was working as an intelligence analyst (with TS/SCI clearance) in 1990 and 1991 at 13th Air Force HQ, Clark AB/RP, when we were actively monitoring the then French nuclear tests in the Pacific (as our AOR stretched from South Africa all the way to the South Pacific). And my son, who is in the USN, spent 2009-2011 guarding the US/UK Trident SLBMs at Kings Bay, Georgia; he met RN sailors who were ashore while their SSBN was being "serviced" regarding its Trident SLBMs.

Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq -- by Sheldon Rampton, John C. Stauber; Paperback

Enough said...

Don't wait until the media whites out this book completely...THEY are as responsible for the many lies. Of course there are truths, but we need to be informed of what was fabricated and what was not. This is extremely helpful and was promoted by NPR recently.