Military Review English Edition March-April 2016 | Page 129

BOOK REVIEWS

language of the legal courts, and is well cited. The historical
background of the formulation and progression of military
governing laws over the years is extremely informative.
However, I would limit my recommendation mainly to
JAG students or other legal profession members.
Lt. Col. George Hodge, U.S. Army, Retired,
Lansing, Kansas

UNMAKING THE BOMB: A Fissile Material
Approach to Nuclear Disarmament and
Nonproliferation
Harold A. Feiveson, Alexander Glaser, Zia Mian,
and Frank N. von Hippel, MIT Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 2014, 296 pages
Ad bellum pace parati: Prepared in peace for war.
Si vi pacem para pacem: If you want peace,
prepare for peace.

T

hose two Latin phrases form an interesting
contrast. The first phrase is the motto of the
U.S. Army Command and General Staff
College, the school located just east of the Military
Review offices. The second phrase graces the inside front cover of Unmaking the Bomb: A Fissile
Material Approach to Nuclear Disarmament and
Nonproliferation. Each upholds a deep
belief about our world, and a belief
about what we must prepare for.
Which of the two beliefs you hold may
determine your reaction to this book.
The authors discuss nuclear war, and
how we can eliminate the possibility of
nuclear war by eliminating the primary materials used to make a nuclear
bomb: the fissile materials.
The book is an accessible and interesting look into the mind of disarmament proponents. It is written with
minimal technical language and no
math. If you can remember your high
school physics, you will be comfortable
with everything in this book. It is interesting because
it documents the world of fissile material production,
storage, and security. There are 470 endnotes that
MILITARY REVIEW  March-April 2016

superbly lay out the sources of information for each
technical assertion made by the authors. They definitely
know their subject in great depth.
The book envisions a post-fissile world where all
fissile materials are eradicated—or at least made inaccessible without enormous effort. The authors begin by
extensively documenting their estimate of the current
amount of fissile materials held throughout the world.
They sum it all up to about 1,900 tons of fissile material
in 2013: 1,400 tons of highly enriched uranium and 500
tons of separated plutonium. Since they estimate it only
takes approximately four kilograms of plutonium or
twelve kilograms of uranium to make a nuclear weapon, there is enough fissile material on earth now for
more than one hundred thousand weapons. It is hard to
not to agree that this is far more than is needed. Some
current studies predict a nuclear winter after as few as
one hundred nuclear detonations. The authors maintain that those large stockpiles may not be very safe in
terms of thefts or attacks. They point to a study that
postulated raiders of a storage facility could produce
and detonate an improvised nuclear bomb before security forces could arrive to stop them. Even if decision
makers are opposed to the complete elimination of
fissile materials, they may still acknowledge a need to
reduce the total quantity of those materials.
The authors propose a four-step action plan for
complete elimination of fissile materials. First, gain
transparency of all stockpiles so we
know exactly what quantities are in
existence. Second, stop all further
production of fissile materials. Third,
eliminate the materials in an irreversible method (various methods are
proposed). Finally, ensure international verification of all these actions.
In principle, this is a simple plan, but
the difficulty is in the execution of
the steps.
The vision of a world without the
need for, or stockpiling of, nuclear
fissile materials and thence no nuclear
power plants and no nuclear weapons
is thought provoking. It is also unlikely to be universally embraced, as even today there are
new power plants and breeder reactors under construction in some countries still committed to nuclear
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