Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Pry, a former CIA military analyst and now a staff member of the House National Security Committee, presents a hair-raising picture of the Soviet Union and of today's Russian Republic, where, since the 1980s, policies toward the U.S. have been shaped by the fear of a surprise nuclear attack. This concern dominated the Soviet general staff throughout the 1980s and has been aggravated by Russia's decline, Pry argues. Whatever the statements and intentions of the civilian leadership, the general staff today remains in the hands of unreconstructed Marxist-Leninist ideologues who are also ardent patriots-and they control Russia's still-formidable nuclear arsenal. Specifying that he uses unclassified and declassified material only, Pry describes a half-dozen recent incidents that inspired Kremlin discussion of using nuclear threats, or at least nuclear diplomacy, to compensate for diminished conventional military capacities. Most of these incidents involved the "near abroad," especially Ukraine and the Caucasus, or arose from internal conflicts like the coup attempts in 1991 and 1993. They nevertheless highlight Russia's instability at the highest levels of policy formation and implementation. Pry speculates as to what American reactions might be were the international situation reversed. Yet his argument that the risks of a Russian first strike are greater now than during the Cold War seems extreme. His conclusion that current U.S. approaches to Russia are based more on hope than reality nevertheless merits more serious consideration than the author feels it is likely to receive in Clinton's second administration.Publishers Weekly -
Pry, a former CIA military analyst and now a staff member of the House National Security Committee, presents a hair-raising picture of the Soviet Union and of today's Russian Republic, where, since the 1980s, policies toward the U.S. have been shaped by the fear of a surprise nuclear attack. This concern dominated the Soviet general staff throughout the 1980s and has been aggravated by Russia's decline, Pry argues. Whatever the statements and intentions of the civilian leadership, the general staff today remains in the hands of unreconstructed Marxist-Leninist ideologues who are also ardent patriotsand they control Russia's still-formidable nuclear arsenal. Specifying that he uses unclassified and declassified material only, Pry describes a half-dozen recent incidents that inspired Kremlin discussion of using nuclear threats, or at least nuclear diplomacy, to compensate for diminished conventional military capacities. Most of these incidents involved the "near abroad," especially Ukraine and the Caucasus, or arose from internal conflicts like the coup attempts in 1991 and 1993. They nevertheless highlight Russia's instability at the highest levels of policy formation and implementation. Pry speculates as to what American reactions might be were the international situation reversed. Yet his argument that the risks of a Russian first strike are greater now than during the Cold War seems extreme. His conclusion that current U.S. approaches to Russia are based more on hope than reality nevertheless merits more serious consideration than the author feels it is likely to receive in Clinton's second administration. Major ad/promo. (Apr.)Library Journal
Pry, a former intelligence analyst for the CIA and currently an adviser to the House National Security Committee, claims that since 1980 "the world has been undergoing an extended crisis" because the Soviet/Russian general staff believe that "nuclear world war is likely imminent"an assertion that was at the heart of a tortuous debate within the U.S. intelligence community. He examines five "war scares" since 1983 when the world came close to catastrophe. In each case, the Soviet/ Russian general staff was reputedly poised for a nuclear meltdown, fueled by relentless paranoia of the West. Although the text is spiced with explosive jots (such as the claim that the Russian president does not technically control the launch button for his nuclear arsenal), the lack of footnotes and bibliography handcuffs writer, reviewer, and readers alike. Stalin used war scares for purely internal political motives, and Pry's excursions into the politics of the fall of the USSR seem to contradict his thesis and reinforce this view. In each case study, the confrontation quickly dissipates without explanation. One wonders why years of this nuclear brinksmanship missed the front page. Good reading but not for skeptics.John Yurechko, Georgetown Univ., Washington, D.C.Kirkus Reviews
A cogent and informed assessment of how close the West came to nuclear war with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and how, contrary to general belief, the danger persists.Pry, for ten years (198595) an intelligence officer at the CIA responsible for analyzing Soviet and later Russian nuclear forces, and now an advisor to the House National Security Committee, contends that, through its failure to understand the deep suspicions of the Soviet political and military leadership of the 1980s and to correctly interpret the information of Soviet defectors like Oleg Gordievsky, formerly KGB London station chief, the West came very close to a nuclear exchange during the NATO exercises in November 1983. He argues that these dangers may have been exacerbated since the fall of the Soviet Union. The hostility and suspicion, amounting to paranoia, of the Russian General Staff continues. Despite the weakening of its army, at great sacrifice it is maintaining nuclear readiness. There is also inadequate political control over the decision to launch nuclear weapons. Indeed, Pry contends that on a number of occasions since the fall of the Soviet Union, nuclear war has been close—notably at the time of the launch of a Norwegian meteorological missile in 1993. This missile, a multistage rocket similar to the Pershing II, was interpreted by the Russians as the possible beginning of a major nuclear exchange—perhaps intended to set off a disturbance of the electromagnetic field, which would seriously incapacitate the Russian retaliatory force.
Pry may himself be guilty sometimes of exaggerations—there is a tendency to interpret each of the events as "the most dangerous nuclear crisis that the West ever faced" or "the single most dangerous moment of the nuclear missile age." But his insight into the minds of the Russian General Staff and his concerns about Western misunderstanding of it are important and salutary.