Product Description
Why do American intelligence officials maintain fallout shelters and private contingency plans to evacuate their families in the event of a Russian nuclear strike–even in today’s post-Cold War era of U.S.-Russian partnership? The frightening answer lies within the pages of War Scare, a terrifying assessment of the prospect for nuclear holocaust in our day. Written by Peter Vincent Pry, a former CIA military analyst, War Scare provides a history of our country’s little-known brushes with nuclear war and warns that, contrary to popular opinion and the assurances of our political leaders, the possibility of a Russian attack still exists. Nuclear deterrence has been the foundation of Western security for the last 50 years, but since the end of the Cold War, Russian military doctrine has become more destabilizing, and much more dangerous, than is commonly believed.
War Scare: Russia and America on the Nuclear Brink
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While nobody will dispute the dangers of nuclear war, I found the author tried too hard to link historical events to the end of the world. Every situation discussed is interpretted as bringing the world to the brink of war. I did enjoy many of the insights the author presented, but he tried to stretch his point too far on every occasion.
Rating: 1 / 5
I would like to say that this was an excellent book; I certainly thought so for most of it. Unfortunately, I can’t. Dr. Pry’s misstating of the facts in the last section, “The Future?” betrayed all the credibility he had built up with me in the preceding 228 pages. Dr. Pry starts this section off with a discussion of the various START treaties. I certainly disagreed with his analysis of those but at least it represented a defensible point of view. However, the next chapter, “Wining a Nuclear War” grossly misstates facts and does so with the obvious intent of misleading readers toward the writers point of view. Nobody in Government, that has had access to the seismic data (which is also available to the public through the CTBT organization) believes that the 1997 Novaya Zemlya event was a nuclear test. All the seismic data shows that this event had none of the signatures of a nuclear explosion and took place well out to sea. The rest of the chapter is filled with other misstatements of fact, all clearly biased. For example, why does Dr. Pry say that the new Russian ICBM, the SS-27, is twice as lethal as the SS-18? It might be true that an SS-27 is twice as lethal as a single SS-18 warhead-I don’t know myself-but there are 10 warheads on an SS-18 so even using Dr. Pry’s arithmetic, I would say that an SS-18 is five times as lethal as a SS-27. All this unfortunately takes away from the excellent body of the book-it certainly makes me worry that other facts Dr. Pry marshals for his argument might be wrong. However, Russia, and the Soviet Union before them, is clearly worried about its national survival. Dr. Pry makes a strong case that the threat of an inadvertent nuclear war is greater today than ever before. People should read the first five parts of this excellently written book for that alone. But read it with as much scepticism as you can muster.
Rating: 2 / 5
This was the first book I have read on the Cold War/Post Cold War between the US and Russia. The book was pretty good, but it seemed to be long a drawn out on some of the encounteres referenced in this book. However, this book did bring to light on how many close calls there really have been between the US and Russia. It was kind of shocking to see events and dates that I remember growing up and did not think twice about at the time appear in this book as “close calls” between the US and Russia.
Rating: 4 / 5
The idea of the book seems incredible at first. Is Russia actually more scared of the US and more ready to nuke us than they were in the 1980s? All those things the Generals say is just puff to get more budget money!
Unfortunately, this is not the case. The generals really believe this to be the case. Though the previous review said that Pry stretches his point, the more I read on the subject the more convinced I am that Pry is more or less right.
Another study of Russia’s current security doctrine can be found at: http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usassi/ssipubs/pubs2000/thrussec/thrussec.htm and it backs Pry up 100%. [I have no connection to the authors or publishers of either book]
All in all, I think this is a factual, and worrisome discussion of the Russian General Staff’s thinking, and I think that if you’re interested in the Russian military, US Defense or related issues this book is a must buy.
It’s best point is that it actually EXPLAINS WHY the Russians think this way, and forces you to understand why they think so. In all honesty, if I were in their mindset, I’d be rabidly scared too.
The sad thing is that, of course, the schemes they fear are completely untrue. They feel threatened by a country that does not threaten them.
Rating: 5 / 5
Though in places Pry seems a bit carried away, he does make hispoint- that Russia in its weakened state has not lost an ounce of itsGreat Power Illusion nor its xenophobia. His examples of near-war situations should, however, be looked at a bit skeptically. Perhaps the scariest example was the 1995 Northern Lights fiasco, which somehow teetered on the nuclear brink, in peacetime and without major crises (though Pry does try to make a case for Bosnia being a major sore point.) Overall, though, I found this most illuminating and certainly deserving of more discussion in the general media than it’s received to date.
Rating: 5 / 5