Planning the Unthinkable

Peter R. Lavoy is Director, Counterproliferation Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and Assistant Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. Scott D. Sagan is Associate Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University. James J. Wirtz is Professor of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School and author of The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War, also from Cornell.

This important volume breaks new ground by moving past a focus on the reasons why international actors acquire unconventional weapons... For the statesperson, the volume acts as an admonition to refrain from treating all proliferators alike; for the scholar, it serves as an exceptional example of the analytical robustness that results from a willingness to use multiple theoretical approaches to explain complex phenomena.- Dennis Foster, Pennsylvania State University (The Journal of Conflict Studies)