Book Review: Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons that Nearly Destroyed NATO
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00207020231198209 |
| Author | John Keess |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
In Macedonia, Podder examines the Mozaik bilingual immersion groups as a form
of peace education geared towards fostering intercultural dialogue. These groups were
successful enough to be institutionalized within a national agenda. However, Podder
highlights significant negative repercussions of that institutionalization, including
dwindling quality, financial cuts, and the politicization of teachers’employment. As
well, the successes in terms of behaviours around tolerance and harmonious
co-existence were often lost when young people transitioned out of the Mozaik
groups and into mainstream education. A major inhibitor to peacebuilding success
in Macedonia was the persistence of ethnic essentialism. Thus, Podder emphasizes
the need for intergenerational healing of long-standing anxieties to allow a younger
generation to socialize freely across the inter-ethnic divide in Macedonia.
Overall, Podder highlights a tension that exists insofar as existing monitoring and
evaluation measures often capture only the immediate and short-term effects of a
project, which in turn reflects one of the main pitfalls of peacebuilding initiatives
that are delivered within the framings of a liberal peace model. In conclusion,
Podder’s examination of peacebuilding legacies in Sierra Leone and Macedonia
raises the question of whether the change that follows from her analysis can indeed
be accomplished within the binds of peacebuilding’s status quo. From her in-depth
research in either country, Podder concludes that the long-term sustainable success
of peace initiatives is dependent on parallel changes in political, cultural, economic,
and social institutions. However, the positivist approach of a liberal peace often intrin-
sically fails to capture the complexity of human interactions, culture, and existing
social norms, which Podder suggests is necessary for building sustainable change.
Thus, Podder opens up an interesting debate on how appropriate a technocratic
approach is when aiming for a more transformative peacebuilding agenda.
Susan Colbourn,
Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons that Nearly Destroyed NATO.
Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2022. 408 pp. $36.95 USD (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-1-501-766-022
Reviewed by: John Keess (johnkeessRMC@proton.me), Royal Military College, Kingston,
Ontario, Canada
DOI: 10.1177/00207020231198209
The late 1980s presented strange challenges for NATO military planners and policy
wonks. After a period of heightened tensions early in the decade, President Ronald
Reagan and Premier Mikhail Gorbachev defied their own national security establish-
ments to eliminate a whole class of nuclear weapons when they signed the
Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987. Meanwhile, the Warsaw Pact
was crumbling along with the satellite states that supported it. Yet the discussions
492 International Journal 78(3)
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