Unclear Physics

“For some years I have been puzzling over the question of why some countries that want nuclear weapons succeed in building them and others don’t… What happened with the failures, Libya and Iraq? A good deal of sporadic reading has long persuaded me that one way or the other both countries had or had acquired sufficient means to pursue a program-in the case of Libya there were financial resources and in the case of Iraq both financial and scientific resources. The Libyans started with almost nothing, but the oil boom enabled them to buy what they needed. Yet both countries had leaders-Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi-whose feelings about these weapons were ambivalent and always secondary to preserving the ideology of the regime. Now there is an excellent new book, Unclear Physics: Why Iraq and Libya Failed to Build Nuclear Weapons, by the Norwegian political scientist Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer, that is the most detailed study of these two programs that I have seen. “-Jeremy Bernstein, New York Review of Books “In Unclear Physics, Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer offers an alternative interpretation of nuclear history in Iraq and Libya. Her well-researched analysis draws on an impressive set of interviews and archival sources. Anyone interested in nuclear politics will find interesting insights contained in this important book, which is one of the most comprehensive treatments of these two nuclear programs available.”-Matthew Fuhrmann, Texas A&M University, author of Atomic Assistance: How “Atoms for Peace” Programs Cause Nuclear Insecurity “Rich in detail and innovative in theory, Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer’s book provides an original and persuasive analysis of the Iraqi and Libyan nuclear programs. It adds enormously to our understanding of nuclear proliferation and of authoritarian states and their leaders. Unclear Physics is a great contribution.”-David Holloway, Raymond A. Spruance Professor in International History, Stanford University, author of Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956

Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo.