How do states acquire the nuclear bomb? Vipin Narang’s Seeking the Bomb: Strategies of Nuclear Proliferation is a compelling new contribution that answers the question comprehensively and adds a new analytical toolkit to help us understand how states pursue the nuclear bomb. Narang proposes a pivot away from focusing on why questions to how questions. In doing so, he focuses on the choices of nuclear proliferation strategy that lie in front of states seeking to build a nuclear weapon. The book, thus, marks a welcome shift away from the previous focus of the literature on why states build the bomb to really examining the process of how they do it. Furthermore, by highlighting the role of domestic political variables in the ultimate choice of a proliferation strategy, the book moves away from the standard realist assumption of the state as a unitary actor in nuclear decision-making.

Contrary to the common perception that states sprint toward making a nuclear weapon as soon as they decide to acquire them, this book posits that states pursue different types of proliferation strategies: hedging (developing to build a bomb if required), sprinting (building the bomb as quick as possible), sheltered pursuit (using the cover of a patron major power to build a bomb), and hiding (secretly building the bo