Countdown The blinding future of nuclear weapons

"The United States is currently in the middle of a giant nuclear modernization program, reinvesting in its atomic infrastructure like it hasn't in decades" to keep up with the "modernization of China's and Russia's weapons," according to this evenhanded investigation. Science journalist Scoles (They Are Already Here) sheds light on how those within the nuclear establishment view America's efforts to update its arsenal. She profiles such figures as Tess Light, a physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory who monitors for possible foreign nuclear detonation tests and believes her work helps ward off conflict by ensuring nuclear treaties are obeyed, even as her colleagues at the lab upgrade America's nuclear weapons in preparation for their possible deployment. Interrogating opponents of the nuclear program, Scoles discusses the work of activist Marylia Kelley, who formed a watchdog group that "investigates the health and environmental effects" that the Lawrence Livermore lab in Livermore, Calif., has on those who live nearby. Scoles capably addresses the tension between these camps, providing nuanced portraits of nuclear scientists that find most "are neither hawks nor total doves." Scoles's measured final analysis occupies a similar middle ground, suggesting that upgrading America's nuclear weapons probably does discourage other countries from using theirs, even as doing so threatens to "foment a never-ending arms race." Readers on both sides of the debate will find much to ponder. Agent: Zoe Sandler, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc. (Feb.)

Worries about nuclear Armageddon, on the back burner for decades, seem to be reviving. In early November 2023, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia was revoking its ratification of the 1996 global nuclear test ban treaty. In this astute assessment of the current situation regarding nuclear weapons, Scoles, a contributing writer at Popular Science and author of Making Contact and They Are Already Here, offers a must-read overview of America's nuclear arsenal, emphasizing the technical details of keeping it up to date in the absence of testing, along with efforts at avoiding catastrophic surprises such as accidental explosions, unwanted actions by other nuclear powers, and simple theft of radioactive material for "trafficking or malicious use," which has occurred more than 300 times during the past 30 years. The author reminds us that by 1992, the year after the Cold War ended, the U.S. had performed 1,054 nuclear tests--and none since. Readers wondering if these complex devices still work after resting in warehouses for three decades may be encouraged to know that government officials are also concerned about their viability. The Departments of Defense and Energy have long supported immense, expensive research programs in arcane areas of nuclear chemistry and physics. As backup, the government will soon resume production of fresh plutonium "pits"--hollow spheres that form the heart of a hydrogen bomb--for the first time since the 1980s. In her interviews, Scoles discovered that few of these scientists, engineers, and bureaucrats are war hawks; instead, they're a mixture of people who constantly debate whether or not maintaining a nuclear arsenal deters a nuclear war. She also explores the work of antinuclear activists. Older readers who remember this debate from the Cold War years will not feel nostalgic; all readers will learn much vital information, some of it disturbing. Everything you ever wanted to know about the current nuclear-weapon landscape. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.