Hot Off The Presses

Highlights of several recent books by members of the Belfer Center community.

A Case for Climate Engineering

By David Keith, Professor of Public Policy, Boston Review Books

MIT Press (October 2013)

Climate engineering—which could slow the pace of global warming by injecting reflective particles into the upper atmosphere—has emerged in recent years as an extremely controversial technology. And for good reason: it carries unknown risks and it may undermine commitments to conserving energy. Some critics also view it as an immoral human breach of the natural world. The latter objection, David Keith argues is groundless; we have been using technology to alter our environment for years.

A leading scientist long concerned about climate change, Keith offers no naïve proposal for an easy fix to what is perhaps the most challenging question of our time; climate engineering is no silver bullet. But he argues that after decades during which very little progress has been made in reducing carbon emissions we must put this technology on the table and consider it responsibly. That doesn’t mean we will deploy it, and it doesn’t mean that we can abandon efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But we must understand fully what research needs to be done and how the technology might be designed and used.

The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die

By Niall Ferguson; Board Member

Belfer Center Penguin Press (June 2013)

Symptoms of decline are all around us today: slowing growth, crushing debts, increasing inequality, aging populations, antisocial behavior. But what exactly has gone wrong? The answer, Niall Ferguson argues, is that our institutions—the intricate frameworks within which a society can flourish or fail—are degenerating.

The Great Degeneration is an incisive indictment of an era of negligence and complacency. While the Arab world struggles to adopt democracy and China struggles to move from economic liberalization to the rule of law, our society is squandering the institutional inheritance of centuries. To arrest the breakdown of our civilization, Ferguson warns, will take heroic leadership and radical reform.

No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security

By Thomas M. Nichols, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

Haney Foundation Series, University of Pennsylvania Press (December 2013)

In No Use, national security scholar Thomas M. Nichols offers a lucid, accessible reexamination of the role of nuclear weapons and their prominence in U.S. security strategy. Nichols explains why strategies built for the Cold War have survived into the twenty-first century, and he illustrates how America’s nearly unshakable belief in the utility of nuclear arms has hindered U.S. and international attempts to slow the nuclear programs of volatile regimes in North Korea and Iran. From a solid historical foundation, Nichols makes the compelling argument that to end the danger of worldwide nuclear holocaust, the United States must take the lead in abandoning unrealistic threats of nuclear force and then create a new and more stable approach to deterrence for the twenty-first century.

“…[A] convincing case for … relying on conventional deterrence and compellence to deal with nuclear proliferators.”

“A succinct and well-written account of an important and much-debated national security issue. Nichols makes a convincing case for abandoning nuclear threats and relying on conventional deterrence and compellence to deal with nuclear proliferators.”

—T.V. Paul, McGill University

The Politics of Nuclear Non-Proliferation: A Pragmatist Framework for Analysis

By Ursula Jasper, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom, CSS Studies in Security and International Relations

Routledge (October 2013)

Drawing upon the philosophical and social-theoretical insights of American pragmatism, The Politics of Nuclear Non-Proliferation provides a theoretically innovative and practically useful framework for the analysis of states’ nuclear proliferation policies. Rather than recounting a parsimonious, lean account of proliferation, the framework allows for the incorporation of multiple paradigms in order to depict the complex political contestation underlying states’ proliferation decisions. This pragmatist framework of analysis offers ways of overcoming long-standing metatheoretical gridlocks in the IR discipline and encourages scholars to reorient their efforts towards imminent “real-world” challenges.

Diplomatic Counterinsurgency: Lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina
By Philippe Leroux-Martin, Former Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project

Cambridge University Press (January 2014)

War does not stop when the armed conflict ends. This compelling eyewitness account of a key political crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2007 demonstrates how interventions from foreign powers to end armed conflict can create new forms of conflict that are not only as determined and resilient, but can lead groups to challenge the power of fragile states through political and legal means. Countering such challenges is an integral but often ignored part of peace processes. How do these nonviolent wars evolve? How can the power of fragile states be challenged through nonviolent means in the aftermath of armed conflict? And what is the role of diplomacy in countering such challenges? This book offers key insights for policy makers dealing with fragile states who seek answers to such questions.

“…[A] most useful and original contribution to one of the most pressing foreign affairs questions ….”

“This book makes a most useful and original contribution to one of the most pressing foreign affairs questions of our time. How can the international community be wiser and more successful in preventing war and creating peace after conflict….”

—Lord Paddy Ashdown, former High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina