More than 30,000 nuclear warheads, most of them more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, remain ready to launch unimaginable destruction around the globe. Yet, since the end of the cold war, few people give a second thought to the risk of atomic attack. The nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in 1998 were a reminder that these weapons are still around. In the United States, proposals for a "son of Star Wars" defensive system have become an election issue, which has required politicians to bone up on possible proliferation by Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Yet most of the vast arsenal is held by the United States and Russia, with the other three declared nuclear weapons states - France, China and Britain - making a small contribution. Such discussion as there is about how to handle the nuclear security issue remains within a small elite. Many strategic thinkers of the cold war have reassessed their deterrence thinking in the light of the past decade, but they have had limited effect on political agendas.

The dozen contributors to Alternative Nuclear Futures are the wise old men of nuclear thinking. They range from Colin Gray, a strong advocate of the continuing utility of nuclear weapons, to Michael McGwire, who argues that a nuclear weapon-free world is essential and achievable. Despite such a range of views, a reasonably coherent thread to the argument has been achieved by the editors. The book starts with Gray attempting to deliver a pre-emptive strike against the more temperate contributions. He categorises the arguments of the abolitionists as eight nuclear fallacies and proceeds to tilt at his windmills with glee. The editors, who tend towards a more optimistic view of what may be possible in future disarmament, ensure that the book moves progressively towards the abolitionist case. Yet many of the chapters support some of Gray's reservations about the practicality or desirability of wholesale disarmament.

George Quester argues that nuclear weapons will remain important to some nations. He believes that arms control must recognise this fact. Michael Quinlan, for a long time the nuclear guru of Whitehall, dismisses the gesture politics of nuclear no-first-use declarations. He warns against too much enthusiasm for minimal armouries or de-alerting schemes, and is not yet ready for a nuclear weapon-free zone in Europe. Lawrence Freedman looks at the politics of disarmament. He reminds us that appeals for international disarmament have a largely unsuccessful history. Decommissioning missiles has proved to be a slow and expensive process and he advises abolitionists to be more pragmatic in their approach. Making nuclear weapons of marginal importance combined with intensive trouble shooting is a more practical approach to the problem. Freedman believes that there is little choice but to contain and manage the nuclear problem. John Baylis, one of the editors, places himself in the middle with a search for a fashionable third way. He believes that policy-makers must try to strike a better balance between prudence and morality. He goes further than Freedman in his hopes that some of the abolitionist schemes, such as virtual nuclear arsenals, will be worth exploring even if this means taking risks.

The particular problems of the Middle East and of South Asia are examined in some detail. Efraim Karsh argues uncontroversially that the Middle East may be one of the last regions to negotiate away nuclear weapons. Nor is there much encouragement from Ramesh Thakur's look at Indian and Pakistani security concerns. He believes that both India and Pakistan have diminished their prestige and security as a result of becoming declared nuclear states. Harald Muller explores the case for an incremental approach to nuclear disarmament. He acknowledges the risks of wider nuclear proliferation, but is optimistic about the beneficial effects of the trend towards greater numbers of democratic states. Complete nuclear disarmament must be the goal, but it can only be achieved by a step-by-step approach.

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The final four contributors to the book were all members of the Canberra commission on the elimination of nuclear weapons, which reported in 1996. McGwire is a former British naval officer, Robert McNamara was the US secretary of defence in the 1960s, Lee Butler was commander-in-chief of the US Strategic Command responsible for all American nuclear deterrent forces and Robert O'Neill served in Vietnam as an Australian army officer, was director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and is professor of the history of war at Oxford. The commission concluded that nuclear weapons must be eliminated. They advocated some immediate steps to be taken, which included reducing readiness, numbers and types of weapons. The immediate actions would then be reinforced by measures to reduce the opportunities for nuclear proliferation. For the future, they advocated the spread of nuclear weapon-free zones and the preservation of the integrity of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. They declined to set a precise timetable for the elimination of nuclear weapons, but advocated that targets be set to keep the political process moving.

Butler gives a very personal view of the changes in thinking that he, as a former airforce officer, has undergone over the years of being involved at the practitioner level of nuclear strategy. This is an important dimension that is all too often forgotten in arcane academic theories of deterrence. In the end, military people have to live every day with the reality of possible nuclear war. In his concluding chapter, O'Neill examines the risk of sub-national nuclear actors and why that makes elimination more urgent, and potentially more attractive to major powers.

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Since the contributors penned their pieces, the world has moved on and not in the direction that they might have wished. The US seems set on a national missile defence system that will need major renegotiation of, or withdrawal from, the key ABM treaty. Congress has also declined to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty. Russia, with its conventional force weakness, has moved towards a greater reliance on nuclear first use in its doctrine. It is also coupling its willingness to reduce nuclear weapons numbers with US moves on the ABM treaty. China, which is given too little critical examination in the book, is also reacting to the possible effect of missile defences on its nuclear posture. It has also shown an increasing interest in military operations over Taiwan. The book would have been a more comprehensive survey if it had included the US Republican view, a Russian perspective and a more pessimistic commentary on possible Chinese developments. It will be useful to any student of international relations, but is perhaps unlikely to appeal to a wider readership.

Air Marshal Sir Timothy Garden is a former nuclear bomber pilot and author of Can Deterrence Last? He has recently returned from discussions about missile defences in Beijing.