Synopsis
Christoph Bluth provides a comprehensive and timely analysis of strategic nuclear arms policy in the United States and Russia, and examines the collaborative efforts to reduce nuclear weapons through arms control and render nuclear weapons and fissile materials in Russia secure. He concludes that the end of the Cold War has created new and unprecedented dangers, and that these dangers require a greater political will and cooperation which have so far been lacking.
Booknews
The author of (Dartmouth, 1995) interprets "the strategic paradox" that characterizes the end of the Cold War: i.e. the looming security threat of remaining vast arsenals of strategic nuclear weapons, especially in light of post-socialist economic and social crises. Bluth (U. of Leeds) contends that the neo-realist camp errs in its analysis of the East-West conflict and its aftermath by failing to look beyond national rivalries to more fundamental socioeconomic and political differences. Basing his assessment on that of the J.F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard U. (not indexed), he weighs past and current threat reduction options for "co-operative denuclearization" given that such weapons are now held by the Newly Independent States as well as mother Russia. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)