Status Updates From Arms and Influence (The Hen...

The 2008 forward is a really useful contribution

Very difficult read, very strong arguments

Time to re-read this banger

Dense. Transformative. Wintry.

Oh boy, I love learning how to break my enemies into manageable pieces

Worth revisiting, surely now, but struggling with the writing.

Nice.

may have to finish this book when I have spare time, since it wasn't on the syllabus to do so

Not an easy read, but an important and informative one.

I'd really hoped to finish this this weekend. :(

Making progress about 30 pages at a time. This book is hugely important, but boy is it dense.

Read for an MSFS Intl Relations Theory class; a linked concept that most are familiar with is that of nuclear deterrence. I argued quite a bit against deriving a policy based on these ideas as it's better to act the way you wish the world to be in certain cases where motivations are not clear ( so as not to escalate issues to engage in a conflict no one wanted but didn't back down from)

"What else can Iran accomplish, except possibly the destruction of its own system, with a few nuclear warheads? ....What nuclear weapons have been used for, effectively, successfully, since August 1945, has not been on the battlefield or on population targets: they have been used for influence."

"I expect that we may come to a new respect for deterrence. If Iran should, despite every diplomatic effort or economic pressure to prevent it, acquire a few nuclear weapons, we may discover again what it is like to be the deterred one, not the one doing the deterring.... I also consider it crucial that Iran's leaders, civilian and military, learn to think... in terms of deterrence."

"We depend on nonproliferation efforts to restrain the production and deployment of weapons by more and more countries; we may depend even more on universally shared inhibitions on nuclear use. Preserving those inhibitions and extending them, if we know how to preserve and extend them, to cultures and national interests that may not currently share those inhibitions will be a crucial part of our nuclear policy."

"...there are perceptual and symbolic phenomena that persist and recur and that help to make the nuclear phenomenon less puzzling. And I find it remarkable how these perceptual constraints and inhibitions cross cultural boundaries."