April 2016 Books of Note

International Cooperation on WMD Nonproliferation
Jeffrey W. Knopf, ed., The University of Georgia Press, 2016, 352 pp.

This book, edited by Jeffrey W. Knopf, examines the role that international initiatives play in focusing efforts and coordinating state actions to prevent the proliferation of nonconventional weapons. In the introductory chapter, Knopf, a professor and program chair of nonproliferation and terrorism studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, chronicles the growth of cooperative international initiatives and regimes that complement core nonproliferation treaties, such as the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Convention. He concludes that the treaties have not “removed every possible risk of proliferation,” spurring multilateral cooperation to address additional proliferation problems. Knopf also identifies seven factors that may prove relevant in explaining why states cooperate on certain initiatives. These factors include the norms and identity of a state as they relate to nonproliferation objectives, the state’s self-interest in nonproliferation cooperation, and efforts to induce or persuade the state to join initiatives. Subsequent chapters assess the effectiveness of the regimes in question. The regimes covered include the Nuclear Suppliers Group and other export control regimes, the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, the nuclear security summits, the Proliferation Security Initiative, and the Cooperative Threat Reduction program. In his concluding chapter, Knopf makes a number of recommendations, including increased integration and collaboration across different initiatives.—KELSEY DAVENPORT 

The Bomb: South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Programme
Nic von Wielligh and Lydia von Wielligh-Steyn, Litera Publications, 2015, 576 pp.

In this wide-ranging, sometimes personal account, a key scientist involved in South Africa’s nuclear program, Nic von Wielligh, and his daughter, Lydia von Wielligh-Steyn, review key developments in the global history of nuclear energy and proliferation with a particular focus on South Africa’s nuclear program from its origins in the 1950s to dismantlement of the weapons program during the 1990s. The book provides insider details on the workings and scope of South Africa’s apartheid-era nuclear weapons program, its ballistic missile program, its alleged role in a suspected 1979 atmospheric nuclear detonation, and the role of South Africans in the illicit proliferation network of Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. Von Wielligh, a physicist who began work on the South African uranium-enrichment program in 1975, became a key figure in the program at the time of South Africa’s accession to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1991. He was in charge of the complex task of putting together the country’s declaration to the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the book emphasizes the technical side of South Africa’s transition from a nuclear pariah to a responsible non-nuclear-weapon state. Unfortunately, the authors provide little insight or analysis regarding the momentous political decision by President F.W. de Klerk to shut down South Africa’s nuclear weapons program and make it the first and thus far only state to have developed nuclear weapons and then joined the NPT. In spite of this omission, The Bomb provides an important perspective on the once secret and extensive weapons program from one of its architects.—DARYL G. KIMBALL