Product Description

A career diplomat argues that a second and much more threatening nuclear arms race is on the immediate horizon - and that despite recent world government actions, there remain positive actions to be taken.

We continue to face a choice with respect to nuclear weapons - either to move safely toward their elimination or to remain their victim. A forty-year effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons is breaking down, and the likely acquisition of these weapons by terrorist groups is growing. In Fatal Choice, Richard Butler, a well-known and respected voice on the subject of nuclear weapons, argues that we are poised on the verge of a second and much more threatening nuclear arms race than the one experienced throughout the Cold War. This threat is clearly reflected in nuclear weapons development by India, Pakistan, Iraq, and North Korea. The revival by the Bush administration of missile defense will not deal with the problem but worsen it. Butler outlines the steps that can be taken to give effect to the right choice on nuclear weapons.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #690976 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04
• Released on: 2003-04-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

Amazon.com Review
The man who led the United Nations' failed effort to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in the late 1990s says the world must make a decision "to survive nuclear weapons or be sentenced by them." Richard Butler describes the current situation in understandably stark terms: "These weapons are the singular human invention capable of destroying the earth and all that lives on it." He believes the planet faces no greater challenge than figuring out how to contain them. Global nonproliferation efforts have succeeded over the last several decades, he writes, but not completely: countries such as India, Pakistan, and possibly Iraq now have access to the bomb. President Bush's plans to build a national missile-defense system are especially misguided, in his view, because they would spur a new arms race. By pushing forward, the United States will ensure "the realization of its own nightmare." Butler proposes a series of arms-control measures--Senate confirmation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, a bilateral agreement between the United States and Russia to reduce their nuclear stockpiles, the creation of an international Council on Weapons of Mass Destruction--but the main draw of Fatal Choice may be its moral fervor. Policymakers, Butler writes, "have a clear choice: to build a world free from the greatest of all threats to life, or to prepare for the next stage of nuclear bondage and terrorism." --John Miller

From Publishers Weekly
Butler, an experienced and well-respected advocate of nuclear disarmament (he headed the U.N. Special Commission for disarming Iraq), offers a brief but comprehensive survey of nuclear weapons in today's world. He aims to make the available policy choices "understood by plain people in plain language." Butler first explains the regime of treaties and doctrines (such as mutual assured destruction) developed since the inauguration of the nuclear age in 1945. Given their horrific power, nuclear weapons have always been the most feared of the world's weapons of mass destruction. In response, as the author explains, nearly all nations have supported eliminating nuclear weapons, or at least preventing further proliferation. These goals have had only partial success, and currently Iran, Iraq and North Korea are seeking to join India, Pakistan and Israel in the nuclear club. As to the future, Butler warns against passive resignation to nuclear weapons as a permanent fixture of international life. He believes the world can rid itself of these weapons and proposes a program to accomplish this. The most striking feature of Butler's plan is forming a Council on Weapons of Mass Destruction, working parallel to the U.N.'s Security Council. Butler's council would have sufficient conventional military forces to take effective action against nations violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. International action of this kind, not the National Missile Defense advocated by the Bush administration which Butler sees as self-defeating forms the core of this thought-provoking argument against nuclear weapons. (Jan.)Forecast: Readers concerned with world affairs will find this more timely than ever, if they manage to catch word of it from the author's three-city tour and radio satellite tour.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

For over 35 years, Butler has worked to reduce the threat of nuclear disaster that has hung over the world for half a century. He served as the Australian ambassador to the United Nations and more recently as head of the U.N. Special Commission to disarm Iraq from 1997 to 1999. Based on his experiences in Iraq, he wrote The Greatest Threat: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Crisis of Global Security. Now, in a relatively short book, he summarizes the last 35 years of arms control efforts by the West and describes his role in struggling to craft an agreement among the small community of nuclear powers to restrict significantly the number of these dangerous weapons. Butler's book concludes with a call for the establishment of a Council on Weapons of Mass Destruction, which would be led by the United States and eventually result in serious arms reduction. In these times of terrorism at home and abroad, Butler's work resonates with the reminder that things could get much worse if we don't act. Recommended for most collections. Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Important Ideas Concerning Treaties and Nukes
Richard Butler, a proponent of the abolition of all nuclear weapons, has written an important book concerning the current state of nuclear weapons in the world. His main thesis states that the problem with nuclear weapons are the weapons themselves and anything short of getting rid of them a futile effort. Specifically he refers to the Bush administrations future deployment of National Missile Defence as the "fatal choice."

According to Butler, the advocates of missile defense and other measures designed to keep and expand nuclear arsenals in the U.S. use the argument that current treaties, especially the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, are not being adhered to and are thus useless. Butler, however, indicts the U.S. as being the main noncopliant culprit in that the U.S. has not bilaterally reduced its arsenal along with Russia to lower levels as is required in the treaty. Instead of scrapping the treaties, Butler advocates that these treaties ought to be bolstered and the proper institution be established to ensure compliance by all signators.

Butler's book outlines effectively a few specific arguments against NMD.

A Bomb Of A Book
I must say right up front that I was disappointed with this book. I had read the authors other book on his time as an Iraqi weapons inspector and found it to be both interesting and entertaining. I had hoped this book would be the same. It turns out the interesting sections were sparse and even the authors mother might be hard pressed to call the book entertaining. The author has spent most of his career working on nuclear weapons issues in regards to disarmament. Given that he was a member of the Australian government this meant his work consisted of being ignored by the countries with the weapons and be placated by the countries that wanted them. The book is his review of the current state of affaires with nuclear weapons and his opinion on the "star wars" missile defense system the U.S. is in the process of building.

I guess I should not be too hard on the author. He did drop into his book here and there very interesting bits of information about nuclear weapons, who has them and what do they have. He also gives the reader some in sight as to which counties helped who with the creation of the weapons. I also liked the numbers he tossed in every now and then. The overall amount of money the U.S. alone has spent on these weapons systems is jaw dropping amazing. My complaints with the book are two fold. First he left out a large amount of interesting information that could have bulked up the book. There were very little discussion on what the current weapons can do, how they are delivered, and how the missile defense system is supposed to work. Given that the author was barely able to scrape together 160 pages for the book, it might not have been that bad of an idea to spend a little time at the library and give the reader a bit more.

But my largest issue with the book was this pie in the sky view that by just talking to all the counties in the world about not having these weapons, somehow the countries that currently have the weapons would just decide to trash them and we would all live happily ever after. Now I do not argue that this would be a nice state of affairs, but lets step into reality. Who really thinks the conservative government we have now would think voluntarily getting rid of all nuclear weapons is a good idea. How about the Israelis, surrounded by enemies or how about India and Pakistan, two countries that routinely have boarder fights today. I felt the thinking was simplistic, narrow minded and bordering on the fanciful. Overall the book was average, it held some interesting bits of info, but also suffered from rather long and dull musings about a better world. I am sure there are better books dealing with weapons disarmament or the missile defense system.

Wishfull thinking does not make a practical policy
I have been following Richard Butler for many years with a lot of interest as he is a man who is extremely experienced in the issues of nuclear proliferation.

His argument is that nuclear weapons spread is caused by other states that have nuclear weapons, they are expensive and that we could modify the world system so we could get rid of them. Well I find myself disagreeing with him.

Originally nuclear weapons were first developed by the US against a non-nuclear opponent Germany. When the US discovered that Germany did not have a bomb, they kept on making it. They then used it against a non-nuclear enemy Japan. Then they built up their nuclear resources against a non-nuclear Russia. Later on Israel developed its nuclear weapons to be used as a last resort against enemies that lacked nuclear weapons. What I think one could argue is that the presence of nuclear weapons accelerates the spread of nuclear weapons but not that it is the cause!

I also disagree about the expense. To quote the US federal government and say that nuclear weapons cost more then education, training, employment and social services; agriculture, natural resources and environment; general science and space research; community and regional development; law enforcement; and energy production and regulation is dishonest. Most these expenses are not federal but state and local costs. Defense tends to be a federal expense. I could use the same argument and argue since the US state governments spend so little on nuclear weapons compared to other things that nuclear weapons are cheap.

But say his own figures is correct and the US military spend about 14% of its budget on nuclear weapons. The US military budget is about 19% of the federal total. So that works out to about 2.7% of the federal budget. For that expenditure, the US gets a massive powerful weapon system which is much cheaper then any other conventional system. President Eisenhower, who Richard Butler likes to selectively quote, talked about getting the biggest bang for the buck, and Eisenhower was talking about nukes. Bluntly the reason the US went for a nuclear defense system was it was cheaper. Similarly nuclear programs in other countries, do not appear to have made much a dent on their countries budgets so much that open societies like Britain, France, Israel and South Africa all managed to hid the relative small amounts in large items.


Not only that but many countries purposes, a conventional system cannot do what a nuclear system can do. What size conventional force could North Korea or Iran build, that could deter the US?


Lastly as anyone who has followed world affairs can see, its extremely unlikely that the international community can even if it wanted to police nuclear proliferation. His example of a policeman and crime is just wishful thinking - crime occurs in all countries. Nor is it easy to find, EVERY nation that today possesses nuclear weapons has lied about its intention to develop them. EVERY nuclear nation once protested that either "we are NOT going to develop nuclear weapons" or "our nuclear research is for peaceful purposes only." Then they went right ahead and developed the bomb. All we need is one crime in this case for a country going nuclear and Richard Butler's theories go out the door. By Richard Butler calculations then 44 countries could get a bomb, if they wanted one. Since then, one now has it North Korea. So we have a failure rate of 2%. Considering the record of the UN there is no reason to believe that any new UN body would do much not that much. Short of an invasion of North Korea, there is little the world can do to stop North Korea.

The problem is that nuclear have been invented, its very hard to uninvent them and wishful thinking like this book suggests is not the answer.