About book The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story Of The Man Who Sold The World's Most Dangerous Secrets...And How We Could Have Stopped Him (2007)
An incredibly pertinent look into horizontal nuclear proliferation and the amount of damage that just one renegade nuclear scientist can cause. Frantz and Collins offer an in-depth look at how Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan (often referred to as the "Father of the Islamic Bomb") managed to spread nuclear technology to Libya, North Korea, and Iran. As they point out, these are the three countries that we actually know about, and after taking into account the extremely secret nature of Pakistan's own development of the bomb alongside the network Khan later used to arrange nuclear deals around the globe, the number of countries that he influenced could be more.Nuclear proliferation, once thought of as individual governments building up their arms in efforts to both deter and intimidate rival countries (i.e. the arms buildup between the U.S. and the USSR during the Cold War), has taken an increasingly secretive and dangerous turn. The authors do an incredible job demonstrating the dangers posed by just one scientist who operated outside the limits of government control. While The Nuclear Jihadist will most likely be found in the Politics section of the bookstore, it could easily be moved to the Horror shelves of the same bookstore as it demonstrates just how irrelevant "international law" has been in the fight to stop nuclear proliferation.After the smoke had cleared from September 11th, administration officials trumpeted the threat that "terrorists with weapons of mass destruction" posed national and worldwide stability. One of the infamous justifications for the US-led invasion of Iraq was because Saddam Hussein supposedly had these weapons at his disposal. Given the context of the current geopolitical climate, Frantz and Collins' The Nuclear Jihadist will certainly raise some hairs on the back of your neck.
This is a great book for someone looking for an interesting read that still teaches you something about global nuclear non-proliferation efforts. There is a good description of how nuclear weapons are made and how that technology is developed (although intermediate level detail is left out, which is probably not what most people picking up this book are interested in anyway). Key historical events are identified that led to dangerous distribution of nuclear technologies give the book a nice historical context. One slight problem I have is that the title and some parts of the book try to attribute Khan's driving force to his hatred for Western civilization, while it appears that his greed for wealth and power were more integral.
Do You like book The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story Of The Man Who Sold The World's Most Dangerous Secrets...And How We Could Have Stopped Him (2007)?
This is the story of one man deadly legacy that spread around the world, how he manage to get away with it for so long and how nuclear seeds he plant could explode anytime, anywhere. There is no secret about this. Pakistan's nuclear program is based on borrowing, stealing, smuggling, and American money.....Khan;s bomb was for a nation and its military scatter by the humiliation of 1971 war by its hated neighbor and worse enemy. This book go to all extend narrating the level of ignorance shown by CIA which was aware of what s happening in Kahuta Nuclear Facility yet CIA told the World year after year that Pakistan is not making any bomb.
—Vikash Tiwary
