Command and Control

It is impossible to leave this book without a strange feeling of awe that, as Schlosser writes in his concusion, “none of the roughly seventy thousand [!] nuclear weapons built by the United States since 1945 has ever detonated inadvertently or without proper authorization.” Over the roughly 480 pages of raw text, there are too many accidents, including many explosions and fires, to recount. Still, if by intricate safety design or sheer luck, an actual detonation has so far always been avoided. So is it reassuring to know that things have always turned out benign as yet, or is it actually frightening to know just how close we came so many times?

The grander narrative of how US nuclear armament and policy developed from 1945 to the end of the Cold War is interspersed with a granular depiction of the 1980 explosion of a Titan II rocket carrying a W53 warhead, the most destructive ever used by the US. While these chapters provide a welcome break from the birds-eye view of the grand narrative, they can be somewhat frustrating too. At least I found it sometimes hard to remember exactly who did what and where whenever we were dropped back in Damascus after having spent the last couple dozen pages with, say, the Eisenhower Administration.

Speaking of which, I was left somewhat confused by this president in particular. There are various times in which Schlosser will recount Eisenhower's distaste for nuclear weapons and how false or overstated intelligence coupled with corporate pressures lead him to his famous warning of the Military-Industrial Complex. Yet it seemed like, in the end, he would always give in to demands of further armament and less civilian control. I realize that these chapters were an overview of each Administration, but still those parts in particular left me wanting more explanation of the rationale behind Eisenhower's decisions.

That said, as a starting point into the world of nuclear weapons and how to mitigate their threat, you can do a lot worse than this eminently readable book.