Synopses & Reviews
In 2002, Scott Ritter told the world that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration ignored him, and led us into a disastrous war on false pretenses. In 2006, he said claims of an Iranian weapons program were greatly exaggerated. A recent National Intelligence Estimate corroborated his claims. Now, Ritter tells us where the real threats lieand provides a sometimes shocking and always sobering analysis of deteriorating world order.
In Dangerous Ground, Ritter chronicles his visits to the hot zones of the twenty-first centuryAsia, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union. He introduces us to the arms dealers, the corrupt government officials, and intelligence operatives who are making the world an unsafe place to live. These encounters underline Ritters core thesisthat arms control will be the issue of the twenty-first century.
Dangerous Ground is based on more than a decade of Ritters experience analyzing intelligence risks. He is able to pinpoint the major challenges to international security in the post-Bush era, and he presents a blueprint for confronting them. He offers a series of concrete proposalsranging from the creation of an international corps of weapons inspectors under the aegis of the United Nations to a call for the U.S. to abandon the unilateralist actions of the Bush yearsthat any incoming administration would be wise to heed.
Synopsis
One of the worlds leading experts on arms control and proliferation travels to the some of the earths most troubled regions and forecasts where and how the wars of the twenty-first century will begin.
Synopsis
From one of the worlds leading authorities on arms control, a probing look at Americas failed attempts at arms control, from the Truman administration to the present
Synopsis
In
Dangerous Ground, Scott Ritter, one of the worlds leading experts on arms control, tells a bold and revisionist account of the inseparable histories of the post-World War II American presidency and nuclear weapons. Unpacking sixty years of nuclear history, Ritter shows that nuclear weapons have become such a fixture that they define present-day America on economic, military, political, and moral grounds. And despite fears of global nuclear proliferation, the greatest threat to international stability, Ritter argues, is the USs addiction to nuclear weapons.
Even in light of Barack Obamas historic speech in April 2009which called for the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons America continues to guard a significant and dangerous nuclear stockpile. The notion that we are more secure with nuclear weapons is deeply entrenched in the American psycheand virulently protected by forces in the US establishment. As long as this paradigm persists, Ritter suggests, there will be no fundamental US policy change, and as such, no change in global nuclear proliferation.
About the Author
Scott Ritter is an intelligence specialist with a distinguished career in government service. From 1984 to 1996 he was an intelligence officer for the U.S. Marine Corps, where he was assigned to some of the world’s most troubled regions, including the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. As a chief weapons inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, he was in charge of searching out weapons of mass destruction within Iraq. His previous books include Iraq Confidential and, most recently, Target Iran. He lives in Delmar, New York.