Fateful Visions: Avoiding Nuclear Catastrophe by Joseph S. Nye; Graham T. Allison; AlbertCarnesaleReview by: Gregory F. TrevertonForeign Affairs, Vol. 67, No. 1 (Fall, 1988), p. 180Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20043686 .

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180 FOREIGN AFFAIRS

have made a specialized study of the institutions through which such advice is conceived, sifted and transmitted. Individual case studies tell how the

system has worked in Britain, France, West Germany, the United States, Canada and Australia; more general chapters deal across the board with

"systems of advice," particularly in the key fields of economics and foreign policy. The authors name names, but the book would pique the reader's interest more if the descriptions of planning boards, advisory staffs, minis tries and eminences grises were enlivened by examples of vital decisions

brilliantly made or badly bungled.

ESSAYS ON A HALF-CENTURY: IDEAS, POLICIES, AND ACTION. By W. W. Rostow. Boulder (Colo.): Westview Press, 1988, 190 pp. $29.95.

Essays, articles and speeches over some forty years, introduced by an

autobiographical report done for the 50th reunion of the class of 1936 at Yale. In general the pieces follow themes for which the author is known from his major works and his public career, but some take the reader, with

benefit, off that beaten track. The book should be welcomed by fans of Walt Rostow and all who appreciate a sharp and fertile mind.

General: Military, Technological and Scientific

Gregory F. Treverton

FATEFUL VISIONS: AVOIDING NUCLEAR CATASTROPHE. Edited by Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Graham T. Allison, Jr., and Albert Carnesale.

Cambridge: Ballinger, 1988, 284 pp. $19.95. This latest product of Harvard's Avoiding Nuclear War Project takes

off from the premise that deterrence is not likely to fail soon but will not

last forever. The contributing authors thus examine long-term paths to a more stable world, ranging from the technology of strategic defense or more discriminating weapons to the politics of Soviet decline and improved U.S.-Soviet relations. The analysis is careful, the conclusions thoughtfully modest. Not surprisingly, no path is a panacea: the world could be safer, for example, if the Soviet Union declined gracefully like the British Empire, but could be more dangerous if the decline were akin to that of the Austro

Hungarian Empire. The book's editors put their faith, in the short run, in

policies and force postures to "lengthen the fuse" to nuclear weapons and, for the long term, in an evolution of U.S.-Soviet relations.

U.S.-SOVIET SECURITY COOPERATION. Edited by Alexander L.

George, Philip J. Farley and Alexander Dallin. New York: Oxford, 1988, 746 pp. $42.00 (paper, $18.95).

These Stanford authors share their Harvard colleagues' premise that if

the threat of nuclear Armageddon has been mostly responsible for pre

venting war between the superpowers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union ought to be able to turn their shared security interest into cooperation, tacit or

explicit. This impressive volume mines the postwar history of such efforts in Europe, in arms control and in dealing with regional conflict. While the

relationship is and will remain fundamentally conflicted?only in Europe have the two superpowers developed a set of assumptions and agreements that amount to a security regime?still, they share incentives to cooperate: each senses it is vulnerable to modern war and that unilateral measures to

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