With the world focused on Iran, it is tempting to think that addressing this case, North Korea, and the problem of nuclear terrorism is all that matters and is what matters most. Perhaps, but if states become more willing to use their nuclear weapons to achieve military advantage, our security could be held hostage not just by Pyongyang, Tehran, and terrorists, but to nuclear proliferation, miscalculation, and wars between a much larger number of possible players. This, in a nutshell, is the premise of Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future, which explores what we think about this future and what we may actually be up against. The book has already received critical praise from SURVIVAL, Eric Schlosser (author of Command and Control), Andrew Marshall (former Office of Net Assessment), and a number of university professors including Robert Jervis (Columbia University), Peter Feaver (Duke) and Ambassador Robert Gallucci (Georgetown).
Henry Sokolski is the Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization founded in 1994 to promote a better understanding of strategic weapons proliferation issues among policy-makers, scholars and the media. He currently serves as an adjunct professor at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C.
He previously served in the Pentagon (1989-1993) as Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy and received a medal for outstanding public service from Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. He also worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Office of Net Assessment, as a consultant to the National Intelligence Council, and as a member of the Central Intelligence Agency's Senior Advisory Group. In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Sokolski served as a special assistant on nuclear energy matters to Senator Gordon Humphrey (R-NH), and as a legislative military aide to Senate Armed Service Committee member Dan Quayle (R-IN).
In 2008, Congress appointed him to serve a two-year term as a member of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. Congress previously appointed him in 1999 to serve on the Deutch WMD Proliferation Commission. Mr. Sokolski has authored and edited a number of works on proliferation, including Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future (2015); Best of Intentions: America's Campaign Against Strategic Weapons Proliferation (2001); Nuclear Weapons Security Crises: What Does History Teach? (2013), The Next Arms Race (2012), Nuclear Power's Global Expansion: Weighing its Costs and Risks (2010); Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writings of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter (2009); Falling Behind: International Scrutiny of the Peaceful Atom (2008); Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran (2005); and Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice (2004).
