The Second Nuclear Age

Taking issue with the complacent belief that a happy mixture of deterrence, arms control, and luck will enable humanity to cope adequately with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the author of this study argues that the risk posed by WMD is ever more serious. Policy that ignores the nuclear age, he cautions, is policy that ignores reality. Gray's analysis, which includes a rigorous examination of the major policy and conceptual issues associated with WMD, criticizes traditional approaches to nonproliferation and assaults as fallacious both the aspiration to "abolish" or "marginalize" nuclear weapons and the idea that there is a "nuclear taboo" in universal operation.