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For most of the presidency of George W. Bush, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) has been among the most important, if not the most important, of the U.S. government's national security concerns. The most recent version of the National Security Strategy of the United States echoes the same report of previous years in stating that one of America's chief tasks is to "prevent our enemies from threatening us, our allies, and our friends with weapons of mass destruction." That document states further, "We do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur … . When the consequences of an attack with WMD are potentially so devastating, we cannot afford to stand idly by as grave dangers materialize." Thus, despite extensive criticism for going to war with Iraq based on what later proved to be flawed WMD intelligence, the Bush Administration has not backed down from its professed willingness to launch preventive wars against countries to forestall the use of weapons of mass destruction. Whether the United States should undertake military action to prevent Iran and North Korea from developing large WMD stockpiles is now among the most dire questions the nation faces.
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Lyle J. Goldstein's Preventive Attack and Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Comparative Historical Analysis is therefore most timely for those concerned about U.S. national security. Goldstein, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College, sets out to determine whether the development of small arsenals of weapons of mass destruction encourages or discourages international conflict. The most influential of the previous works on this subject has been Kenneth N. Waltz's Adelphia Paper of 1981, in which Waltz asserted that small WMD arsenals prevent wars. Waltz and other adherents of this view, commonly known as "deterrence optimists," contend that WMD in the smallest of quantities discourage countries from attacking the possessor because they create great fears of retaliation on the part of would-be military adversaries and that small arsenals as well as large ones are difficult to destroy preemptively. In contrast, "deterrence pessimists" perceive the proliferation of WMD as a source of international conflict.
Goldstein concedes that nuclear weapons can promote international peace and stability, but he takes the position of a deterrence pessimist in arguing that they do so only under certain conditions. When rival powers have roughly similar nuclear capabilities, he observes, they are unlikely to contemplate war with each other, but a country's initial development of a small WMD arsenal will make countries with large WMD arsenals more likely to attack the country in order to nip WMD development in the bud. In other words, "radical WMD asymmetry"—as Goldstein terms it—encourages preventive war by the stronger power. In contradiction of Waltz and others, Goldstein posits that small WMD arsenals do not instill great fear in the minds of adversaries. Only after a lengthy period of expansion does a country's WMD arsenal promote international peace.
Goldstein takes deterrence optimists to task for citing the scarcity of armed conflict among countries with WMD as proof that proliferation discourages war. Instead, one should examine whether WMD can create international instability—as evidenced by such phenomena as the threatened use of WMD, the consideration of strategic war plans by top leaders, and the mobilization of armed forces—that makes war more likely, though not inevitable. Goldstein emphasizes the existence of "close calls" arising from radical WMD asymmetry, in which instability almost led to war but did not because of various countervailing factors. Four such factors, Goldstein argues, generally account for the dearth of preventive wars under conditions of radical asymmetry: the possibility of a costly conventional war; the adversary's alliances; international norms of state behavior; and geographic considerations. Thus, ascertaining the impact of radical asymmetry on stability requires detailed examination of the effects of radical asymmetry on international antagonists.
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