The international security studies literature contains many thorough discussions of terrorists’ potential to acquire radiological “dirty bombs,” but it has mostly ignored the potential of states to do likewise.[1] Now, a crack team of nonproliferation experts led by the indefatigable William Potter has filled this gap in the literature with Death Dust, a fascinating comparative…
Category: Reviews
H-Diplo | RJISSF Review Essay 96: Wang on Pantucci and Petersen, Sinostan
Based on fieldwork primarily conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic by Raffaello Pantucci and the late Alexandros Petersen,[1] this carefully written book is impressive. It calls for greater attention to the Eurasian landmass to account for the growing dominance of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) in six Central Asian countries” Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Review Essay 94: d’Ambruoso on Mandelbaum, The Four Ages of American Foreign Policy
How has the United States’ foreign policy changed over time? After all, the country itself has changed dramatically in its more than two-and-a-half centuries of existence, especially in terms of its power vis-à-vis other countries. Living through the past several decades of mostly uncontested American hegemony, one can forget just how weak the United States…
H-Diplo | RJISSF Review Essay 93: Daniels on Meijer, Awakening to China’s Rise
On both sides of the Atlantic it has become fashionable to criticize the China policies of the West over the last few decades as having been “naïve.”[1] Confronted with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s self-confident, often abrasive and confrontational style of foreign policy, the West’s hopes of “Wandel durch Handel” (change through trade)—one of the main…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Article Review 167: Davis on Stein, “Escalation Management in Ukraine”
For the average person, indeed, for most sane people, nuclear war is simply unthinkable. For those of us who have committed our professional lives to thinking about the unthinkable, nuclear war between two states that possess secure second-strike capability is irrational. There are simply no political objectives worth the assured destruction that likely would follow…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Review Essay 92: Chiampan on Tardy, ed., The Nations of NATO
The Nations of NATO brings together an all-star team of NATO scholars to assess the state of the alliance on the eve of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Prominent questions, which have perhaps been over-explored regarding NATO’s cohesion and continued relevance in the post-Cold War era inspired, informed, and shaped the book’s thirteen…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Review Essay 90: Mody on Miller, Chip War
This review is being written on a computer, at the heart of which is an electronic gadget—a “chip”—made up of billions of transistors and other tiny components. Once the review is written, I will email it to the editor, meaning that it will pass through a chain of more powerful computers, perhaps bounce off a…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Review Essay 89: Pemberton on Cooling, Arming America through the Centuries
War seems to have attracted more scholarly interest through the years than virtually any other subject. Amazon lists upwards of 50,000 books for sale on World War II alone.[1] Vastly under-covered, on the other hand, has been the business of war—how its forces have been supplied, through what systems, by whom and at what cost.[2]
H-Diplo|RJISSF Review Essay 87: Zeiler on Hadley, et al., Hand-Off
Around the middle of 2014, President Barack Obama reportedly noted to his traveling press corps on Air Force One that a hallmark of his foreign policy was “don’t do stupid sh*t.”[1] That realism contrasted to the previous administration of George W. Bush, an idealist who thought he could remake the world with American power. The…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Review Essay 86: Tønnesson on Moir, Number One Realist
Bernard B. Fall (19 November 1926–21 February 1967) was born in Austria, moved with his family to France after the 1938 Anschluss, lost his parents in the Holocaust, and joined the French Maquis at the age of 16. He thus earned experience with guerrilla warfare, including political mobilization and the assassination of collaborators with a…