• Introduction


• Part I. The Impact of Nuclear Weapons


• 1. Effects


• 2. Overstating the Effects


• 3. Deterring World War III: Essential Irrelevance


• 4. Influence on History


• 5. Influence on Rhetoric, Theorizing, and Budgets


• Part II. The Spread of Nuclear Weapons


• 6. Arms Races: Positive and Negative


• 7. Proliferation: Slow and Substantially Inconsequential


• 8. The Modest Appeal and Value of Nuclear Weapons


• 9. Controlling Proliferation


• 10. Assessing the Costs of the Proliferation Fixation


• 11. Reconsidering Proliferation Policy


• Part III. The Atomic Terrorist?


• 12. Task


• 13. Likelihood


• 14. Progress and Interest


• 15. Capacity

John Mueller is the Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies and Professor of Political Science, Ohio State University. He is the author of Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them and The Remnants of War, winner of the Joseph P. Lepgold Prize for the best book on international relations in 2004, awarded by Georgetown University.

John Mueller reveals in this compellingly argued book that our obsession with nuclear weapons is unsupported by history, scientific fact, or logic. Examining the entire atomic era, Mueller boldly contends that nuclear weapons have had little impact on history. Equally important, Atomic Obsession reveals that current anxieties about terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons are essentially baseless. Demolishing half-truths and false assumptions, this is animportant argument that deserves a wide public hearing.