Category Archives: Reviews

The Fate of the Earth

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fate-of-the-earthThis book by Jonathan Schell presents a stark prediction of the nuclear apocalypse. I found the writing style to be too grandiose, but kept slugging away to consider the author’s point of view. As an example of it being grandiose, the cover tells us, “Schell has taken upon himself the task of speaking for man, and acting for man; and it can be hoped that what he has written here will lead the way for many.” More to the point of the content, “Schell describes, within the limits of what is dependably and unarguably known to science, a full-scaled nuclear holocaust.” He writes as if he needs to convince readers that nuclear war would be bad. The book was written in 1982 when multiple books were written predicting the end of civilization. I recommend this one as being a good example of that genre.

The first section of the book is titled “A Republic of Insects and Grass,” which describes what would survive a nuclear holocaust. Note there is no indication any humans would survive. The book begins with irrefutable facts about the number of nuclear weapons and megatonnage that have been built since the first nuclear detonation at Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. The book then gives a brief primer of the horrible effects of a nuclear exchange. President Dwight Eisenhower recognized the risks in a 1956 letter that said, “…one day both sides have to ‘meet at the conference table with the understanding that the era of armaments has ended, and the human race must conform its actions to this truth or die.” There are many examples of political figures making statements that reinforce or confirm that comment. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in 1974, “…the accumulation of nuclear arms had to be constrained if mankind is not to destroy itself.” President Jimmy Carter said in his farewell address that after a nuclear holocaust, “…the survivors, if any, would live in despair amid the poisoned ruins of a civilization that had committed suicide.” (Those were surprising words for a President who authorized more nuclear weapons programs than any other President.) Continue reading →

Social Security’s History and Future

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Social Security WorksRecently I reviewed a book because I hated the premise. I read this book because I like the premise. The title says it all (with an exclamation point): Social Security Works! Why Social Security Isn’t Going Broke and How Expanding It Will Help Us All. I wanted to see the proof offered by authors Nancy J. Altman and Eric R. Kingson.

With an average of five stars from over three hundred reviews on Amazon, the book has a following. Altman and Kingson aren’t Social Security’s only champions, as this article on slate.com shows, there was anger over Obama’s willingness to “give away the store…[and] cut spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security In exchange for a modest tax hike of $100 billion over 10 years—targeted at the wealthiest Americans… an outrageous deal.”

Some 54 million Americans receive benefits today, with the “average retiree’s checks roughly equal to the gross pay of someone working fulltime at the federal minimum wage.”

The authors seek to debunk “a three-decade-long, well-financed campaign [that] has sought to dismantle Social Security… [and been] successful in undermining confidence… The mainstream media has aided and abetted the campaign by uncritically accepting and advancing a panoply of misconceptions, while largely ignoring the facts.”

I must admit to being swayed by the anti-Social Security campaign. Since I started my career, I have assumed I would never receive any Social Security and used to joke that my tax went to my own grandmother. Yet, here I am, nearly forty years later, and Social Security looks secure for the next 20 years (assuming Congress doesn’t damage it.)

From the beginning, many opponents called Social Security socialism. “These same opponents rarely, however, express disgust with, or seek to privatize, America’s socialized police, fire, and prosecution services or our socialized system of roads, canals, and national parks, not to mention our socialized military.”

I found it interesting to read that President Eisenhower thought the opposite. In a message to Congress, he called Social Security “a reflection of the American heritage of sturdy self-reliance which has made our country strong and kept it free.” Continue reading →

The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate

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spread-of-nuclear-weaponsThis book written by Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz is interesting because the two authors, as is indicated by the title, take radically different positions on the threat from the spread of nuclear weapons. I’ll let the authors explain further from the Preface. “What are the likely consequences of the spread of nuclear weapons? The answer is by no means certain or simple. Indeed, the readers will discover we disagree about the central issue. Kenneth Walsh argues that the fear of the spread of nuclear weapons is exaggerated: ‘More may be better’ since new nuclear states will use their weapons to deter other countries from attacking them. Scott Sagan argues that the spread of nuclear weapons will make the world less stable. ‘More will be worse’ since some new nuclear states will engage in preventive wars, fail to build survivable forces, or have serious nuclear weapons accidents.” That’s a good summary of what they say in the book, although I didn’t find out what the “fail to build survivable forces” has to do with the debate.

Kenneth Walsh takes the lead with his proposal that “More May be Better.” He points out that the world had “…enjoyed more years of peace since 1945 than had been known in modern history, if peace is defined as the absence of general war among the major states of the world.” He argues that, “War becomes less likely as the costs of war rise in relation to possible gains.” The incentive for the major nuclear powers to begin an exchange makes it clear to even the most insane leader that there will be little to gain since each side has sufficient nuclear stockpiles to destroy the other. That easy to understand fact has prevented World War III for seventy years while there have been nuclear weapon stockpiles in the many tens of thousands of weapons. “Deterrence is achieved not through the ability to defend but through the ability to punish.” Walsh writes, “Early in the Cold War, the United States deterred the Soviet Union, and in due course, the Soviet Union deterred the United States.” He observes that he believes “The presence of nuclear weapons makes war less likely…Nuclear weapons have not been fired in anger in a world in which more than one country has them.” Continue reading →

Secret Empire: Eisenhower, The CIA, and the Hidden Story of America’s Space Espionage

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secret-empireThis book by Philip Taubman introduced me to a fascinating world of spying by the United States on the Soviets during the high-stakes era of the Cold War when both the U.S. and the Soviets desperately wanted to learn everything they could about their adversaries. “In a brief period of explosive, top-secret innovation, a small group of scientists, engineers, businessmen, and government officials rewrote the book on airplane design and led the nation into outer space.” That refers to the U-2 and the Corona projects. Corona was a capsule containing cameras and new types of film launched to circle over the Soviet Union before reentry, deployment of a parachute, and recovery by a plane. It is an incredible story of repeated failures before the first success. The persistence in the face of all the failures is a tribute to the people who worked on the project and the desperation for information that politicians providing funds even when it seemed the scheme might never work. I learned much about both Corona and U-2, and more than I really cared to know about the people involved. I also learned about Eisenhower who was willing to commit huge sums of secret money and take great political risks to learn more about what was going on behind the Iron Curtain.

The book begins with an interesting description of a Strategic Air Command (SAC) bomber crew violating Soviet air space to collect pictures of military installations. The plane was attacked by a new MiG and suffered damage but was able to make it back to base. The book provides some disturbing information about the costs of such spy flights. “Hundreds of men in the Air Force and Navy risked their lives flying along or across the Soviet frontier in an effort to learn more about Russian air defenses and military forces…At least 252 air crewmen were shot down on spy flights between 1950 and 1970, most directed against the Soviet Union…It is certain that 90 of these men survived…But the fate of 138 men is unknown. It is possible, even likely, that some of them survived for years in captivity while Washington made little effort to determine if they were alive and make arrangements for their repatriation.”The human costs and political risk of such flights prompted Eisenhower to approve secret funding through the CIA to develop reconnaissance techniques through development of the U-2 spy plane and the Corona project. Continue reading →

Facing Nuclear War

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facing-nuclear-warI’ve heard many arguments about the morality of nuclear weapons, and I decided to read this book that presents a Christian viewpoint. The book (published in 1982) opens with the statement that, “Nuclear War has emerged as the chief moral issue of our time.” The author states that he is a social scientist, but he “…wrote this primarily as a Christian pacifist…I simply plead for God’s children to come halfway from wherever they are and at least agree on nuclear pacifism.” I appreciated the upfront declaration of where the author stands.

There is a question about why the author thinks this time is crucial, since it was more than three decades from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to when the book was published. He answers that the huge increases in stockpiles of nuclear weapons and deliverable weapons with the Multiple Independently-Targetable Reentry Vehicle (MIRV) had changed everything. The Soviets were soon also “MIRVing” their missiles. The MIRVs allowed the targets for U.S. missiles to increase to 1650 cities and military targets from the previous 550 targets without adding more missiles. Perhaps even more troubling to the author was that the missiles had become much more accurate. The U.S. missiles were said to be able to hit a target within 300 feet, which would equate to a bull’s eye with a nuclear weapon. That increased accuracy, the author believed, might lure one side into making a first strike with the hope of wiping out the others silos and missiles. Such a first strike could therefore overcome the restraint imposed by Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). “The U.S. policy of a counterforce or first-strike option gradually emerged over several years and was confirmed by Presidential Directive 59 issued by President Carter in August 1980.” Instead of MAD, planners began to talk about “…fighting small or limited nuclear wars.” Vice-President George H.W. Bush “…said a nuclear war could be fought and won.” Continue reading →

Nuclear Winter: The Evidence and the Risks

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nuclear-winterThis book by Owen Greene, Ian Percival, and Irene Ridge reminded me of Carl Sagan’s public campaign to frighten people about nuclear weapons while I wondered why what happened after a nuclear holocaust would be more frightening than the holocaust itself. I thought I should educate myself about what frightened people more than the direct effects of a nuclear detonation. The book mentions that the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences published a study in 1982 that the smoke from nuclear explosions could “…blot out nearly all the sunlight from half of Earth for weeks on end. The key factor that scientists had neglected for over thirty years was smoke!” The warning prompted five American scientists; Turco, Toon, Ackerman, Pollack, and Sagan (revered in Nuclear Winter circles as TTAPS) to calculate that “…summer could be turned into winter…” Nuclear explosions would ignite fires of everything combustible in and around cities. The smoke would combine with the ejected dust to create a long list of effects. Harvests would be reduced for two years or more, countless plants and animals would become extinct, there would be deaths from collapse of medical services, famine, and epidemics. “Human suffering would be world-wide and on a scale almost beyond comprehension.

The book presents a list of nuclear weapons stockpiles as of 1985 (predating India and China). The overall total was estimated at 49,600 with a total yield of approximately 15,000 megatons. For those who often question why there were so many weapons, there is a listing of “Targeting Categories” from the U.S. Department of Defense dated March, 1980. The listing which was said to be “only illustrative,” includes: Soviet Nuclear Forces (more than 2,000 targets), Military and Political Leadership (about 3,000), Conventional Military Forces (about 15,000),Economic and Industrial Targets (about 15,000)

Soviet priorities were said to “…be similar.” Continue reading →