Ballistic Missiles in Modern Conflict

Seth Carus's book is a unique combination of scholarly discipline and astute political judgment. This is a succinct and insightful analysis of one of the most vital security challenges of this century. Janne E. Nolan Senior Fellow The Brookings Institution Since the vivid images of SCUD missile attacks on Israel and Saudi Arabia were flashed on television screens all over the world, many have wondered how a country like Iraq could acquire and use such long-range ballistic missiles. Although Iran and Iraq had fired these missiles at each other many times during their 1980-88 war, the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's missiles was not fully realized until the SCUDs began raining down on Israel, and Saudi Arabia at the start of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. This timely book by missile expert W. Seth Carus, written in cooperation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and including a foreword by Edward N. Luttwak, contains an alarming assessment of the missile threat worldwide. An up-to-the-minute postscript on the American-Iraqi war and its effects on further ballistic missile proliferation throughout the Third World is also included. Carus presents the facts behind the spread of ballistic missiles and their technology to Third World countries and suggests plausible responses for the United States and its allies. Various developing nations--among them Iran, Iraq, Libya, North and South Korea, Brazil, Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia, India, and South Africa--already possess large numbers of ballistic missiles and no longer rely on the superpowers alone for their weapons procurement or production. Carus covers all aspects of ballistic missiles--their capabilities and disadvantages, their possible fitting with chemical or nuclear warheads, their attractiveness for Third World leaders, and the responses of Third World countries to missile arsenals in neighboring states. The success of cruise missiles and anti-missile missiles (such as Patriots) in the Persian Gulf War make these missiles of even greater interest to Third World countries. Carus warns of the dire consequences of ignoring the spread of missiles and their technology to areas of the world where future wars are likely to occur.

W.SETH CARUS is an Olin Fellow at the Naval War College Foundation in Newport, Rhode Island. He is currently preparing several papers on missile proliferation in the Third World.