The Cool War by Sean M. Maloney PhD – DEFENCE READING
BOOK REVIEW
BY RICHARD MARTIN
Dr. Sean M. Maloney’s The Cool War: Nuclear Forces, Crisis Signaling, and the Russo-Ukraine War, 2014–2022 (Naval Institute Press, 2025) is a timely and authoritative analysis of how nuclear signalling functions in the twenty first century. While the book examines Russian nuclear behaviour from 2014 to 2022, it also offers a broader argument. Modern deterrence has migrated into a global information environment where military movements, political statements, social media narratives, and open-source intelligence blend into a continuous strategic dialogue. Maloney calls this the “Cool War,” and he convincingly shows that today’s deterrence dynamics are faster, more visible, and more publicly present than those of the Cold War.
Maloney is exceptionally qualified to write this study, as one of Canada’s leading historians of the Cold War, nuclear strategy, and modern warfare, with foundational work on Canadian nuclear policy and award-winning research on the United States Emergency War Plan. A prolific author whose career includes teaching at RMC, he brings the depth and operational literacy required to interpret today’s rapidly evolving strategic environment.
The book’s thesis is that nuclear deterrence now operates inside a global information system that shapes how signals are perceived and interpreted. Maloney argues that this information environment is not merely contextual. It is the battlespace in which strategic competition takes place. Visibility, perception, and interpretation now carry as much weight as destructive potential. A bomber flight with its transponder switched on, a submarine surfacing in an unusual region, or a snap missile exercise is not only a military action but a public communication. Nuclear forces signal almost continuously, whether intentionally or through the meaning that observers attach to their activities.
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The book is organized into three parts. The first provides essential ideological, doctrinal and historical context, tracing Russia’s nuclear thinking and force posture after the collapse of the Soviet Union while also assessing NATO and American adaptations after 1991. Maloney makes clear that the Cool War is not defined solely by Russian behaviour. Western states operate within the same environment and engage in signalling of their own.
The second part is the empirical core of the book. Maloney reconstructs the nuclear signalling cycles of the Russo Ukrainian crisis with remarkable granularity. He tracks Russian bomber flights, submarine movements, ICBM dispersals, and strategic exercises, along with NATO bomber task force deployments, United States Navy SSBN port calls, NORAD intercepts, aerial refuelling orbits, and nuclear C3I aircraft. He shows how these actions interact as reciprocal signals, shaping the expectations and decisions of each side. The October 2022 overlap of Russia’s Grom nuclear exercise and NATO’s Steadfast Noon emerges as a particularly dangerous moment, one Maloney compares to the early 1960s.
The final part draws the conceptual conclusions. Maloney argues that nuclear signalling has become constant in modern international politics because the information environment is constant. The boundaries between deterrence, reassurance, compellence, and political messaging have blurred. Nuclear forces are used as communicative tools whose meaning depends on context, audience, and interpretation.
Maloney’s methodology is one of the book’s major strengths. He understands that strategic intelligence is now global and often decentralized and public, with many key observations appearing first in open sources. Civilian ADS-B receivers track strategic aircraft, amateur satellite analysts spot missile convoys, ham radio operators notice unusual HF traffic, and maritime observers follow AIS signatures. Maloney weaves this entire ecosystem into a coherent framework, correlating diverse sources, matching signals to actions, and grounding his interpretations in doctrine.
The book’s wider contribution is its revival of Clausewitz’s insight that war is a contest of wills fought on both the physical and moral (i.e., psychological) planes. In the nuclear information age, the moral plane has expanded dramatically. Military actions are interpreted primarily as messages. Canadian soldiers with peace support experience will recognize this logic. For instance, in Bosnia a single APC could stabilize a situation not through firepower but through the meaning conveyed by its presence. Maloney shows that nuclear forces now function the same way at the strategic level. Their combat potential is psychological as much as physical.
The Cool War is required reading for defence professionals. It offers a rigorous framework for understanding strategic signalling in a world where everything is visible, everything is interpreted, and everything is contested. Maloney has mapped the terrain of the new deterrence environment. It is now up to practitioners to navigate it.
Richard Martin is Founder and President of Alcera Consulting Inc. Visit www.alcera.ca for more information.
