With the world focused on the nuclear crisis in Iran, it is tempting to think that addressing this case, North Korea, and the problem of nuclear terrorism is all that matters and is what matters most. Perhaps, but if states become more willing to use their nuclear weapons to achieve military advantage, the problem of proliferation will become much more unwieldy. In this case, U.S. security will be hostage not just to North Korea, Iran, or terrorists, but to nuclear proliferation more generally, diplomatic miscalculations, and wars between a much larger number of possible players.This, in a nutshell, is the premise of Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future, which explores what nuclear futures we may face over the next 3 decades and how we currently think about this future. Will nuclear weapons spread in the next 20 years to more nations than just North Korea and possibly Iran? How great will the consequences be? What can be done?

Audience: This book may appeal to national strategic policy analysts, political scientists, and students researching nuclear defenses, nuclear terrorism, and nuclear proliferation as part of pursuing an international relations degree.

Related products:

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, Volume XXVI, Arms Control and Nonproliferation can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/044-000-02673-2

Nuclear Weapons Materials Gone Missing: What Does History Teach? can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01130-3

Arms Control History collection can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/us-military-history/arms-control-history

Arms & Weapons collection can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/security-defense-law-enforcement/arms-...

HENRY D. SOKOLSKI is the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. He previ­ously served in the Senate as a nuclear and military legislative aide and in the Pentagon as Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy and as a full-time consultant on proliferation issues in the Secretary of Defense's Office of Net Assessment. Mr. Sokolski also served as a member of the Central Intelligence Agency's Senior Advisory Group, on two congressional nuclear pro­liferation commissions, and has authored and edited numerous volumes on strategic weapons prolifera­tion, including Best of Intentions: America's Campaign against Strategic Weapons Proliferation and Moving Beyond Pretense: Nuclear Power and Nonproliferation.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS:

ANDREW W. MARSHALL is the former director of the U.S. Department of Defense's Office of Net Assess­ment. Appointed to the position in 1973 by President Richard Nixon, Mr. Marshall was re-appointed by every president that followed. He retired in 2015. In the 1950s and 1960s, Mr. Marshall conducted strategic research at the RAND Corporation.