Synopses & Reviews
The Cold War may be over, but you wouldn’t know it from the tens of thousands of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction still held by Russia, the United States, and other world powers. Arguing that the time has come to dispense with incremental approaches to arms control, Admiral Stansfield Turner, the former head of the CIA and an experienced senior military commander, proposes a practical yet safe plan that would move the world into a new and secure millennium.Turner carefully analyzes how many nuclear weapons are really needed to maintain our national security, regardless of how many weapons of mass destruction other nations may have. He then offers a dramatic, unilateral American initiative—to place all the world’s nuclear warheads in “strategic escrow” whereby none would be ready for immediate use; to initiate a pledge of “no first use” and call on other nations to do the same; and to build national defenses against nuclear attack when they become cost-effective.The paperback edition of this widely acclaimed work has been updated to consider the implications of such a build down if applied to non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Specifically, Admiral Turner details how a plan for weapons reduction could be carried out for biological and chemical weapons and what tactical and strategic differences exist between de-escalation of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons.The Turner Plan achieves genuine international security and has the potential to achieve wide, bipartisan support. It deserves to be widely studied, debated, and, finally, implemented.
Synopsis
A key player in the cold War national security establishments calls on the United States to boldly lead the world into a new era of nuclear disarmament.
The Cold War is over, but you wouldn't know it to look at the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons still held by Russia and the United States. The danger is real, and the time has come to dispense with the incremental approaches to arms control perfected to a stultifying degree in the Cold War. Admiral Stansfield Turner, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency and an experienced senior military commander, has a profoundly practical yet safe plan for moving the world into a new millennium that will be more secure than anything now imaginable.
First, Turner carefully analyzes how many nuclear weapons we really need to maintain our security, no matter how many weapons of mass destruction other nations may have. Then he makes a bold proposal for a dramatic, unilateral American initiative -- to achieve radical reductions in nuclear weapons by setting an example for the world to follow and calling upon the nations of the world to sign a pledge of "no-first-use" of nuclear weapons.
The Turner Plan achieves genuine international security and has the potential to achieve wide, bipartisan support. It deserves to be widely studied, debated, and finally, implemented.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 150-155) and index.
About the Author
Stansfield Turner is the former head of the CIA and an experienced senior military commander. He is the author of Secrecy and Democracy and Terrorism and Democracy.