This book, first published in 1991, provides a major analysis of the prelude to the US’s Cold War maritime strategy, showing how NATO’s maritime forces were organised in the period. It examines how the United States Navy and allied navies, particularly the Royal Navy, were incorporated into the Alliance’s nuclear and conventional deterrent forces. It looks at the structure of the main naval commands, the growth of Soviet maritime forces and the impact of the flexible response strategy on NATO’s naval posture in the 1970s. Drawing upon many declassified documents, this account fills an important gap in postwar literature on American seapower and its relation to European security. It also addresses important aspects of NATO strategy and organisation.

The author takes issue with the complacent belief that a happy mixture of deterrence, arms control and luck will enable humanity to cope adequately with weapons of mass destruction, arguing that the risks are ever more serious.

A leading international security strategist offers a compelling new way to "think about the unthinkable." The cold war ended more than two decades ago, and with its end came a reduction in the threat of nuclear weapons—a luxury that we can no longer indulge. It's not just the threat of Iran getting the bomb or North Korea doing something rash; the whole complexion of global power politics is changing because of the reemergence of nuclear weapons as a vital element of statecraft and power politics. In short, we have entered the second nuclear age. In this provocative and agenda-setting book, Paul Bracken of Yale University argues that we need to pay renewed attention to nuclear weapons and how their presence will transform the way crises develop and escalate. He draws on his years of experience analyzing defense strategy to make the case that the United States needs to start thinking seriously about these issues once again, especially as new countries acquire nuclear capabilities. He walks us through war-game scenarios that are all too realistic, to show how nuclear weapons are changing the calculus of power politics, and he offers an incisive tour of the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia to underscore how the United States must not allow itself to be unprepared for managing such crises. Frank in its tone and farsighted in its analysis, The Second Nuclear Age is the essential guide to the new rules of international politics.

Based on previously unavailable sources, this book reveals the Anglo-American intelligence effort to penetrate the most secret domain of the Soviet government—its nuclear weapons program.

Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Sergei G. Gorshkov was the product of a tradition unlike those of his Western contemporaries. He had a unique background of revolution, civil war, world wars, and the forceful implementation of an all-controlling communist dictatorship. Out of this background of violence and overwhelming transformation came a man with a vivid appreciation of the role and value of navies, but with his own unique ideas about the kind of navy that the Soviet Union required and the role that navy should play in Soviet military and national strategy. Western naval observers have persisted in attempting to define Admiral Gorshkov in Western naval terms. Many of these observers have been baffled when they found that the man and his actions simply did not fit conventional narratives. This book lays out the tradition, background, experiences, and thinking of the man as they relate to the development of the Soviet Navy that Gorshkov commanded for almost three decades and that was able to directly challenge the maritime dominance of the United States—a traditional sea power. His influence persists to this day, as the Russian Navy that is at sea in the twenty-first century is, to a significant degree, based on the fleet that Admiral Gorshkov built.