Book Review: Military and Scientific Affairs: Arms and Influence
| Published date | 01 March 1967 |
| Date | 01 March 1967 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206702200121 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEws
107
must
be
expressed
at
the
prohibitive
(to
an
individual) price
which
the
publishers
have
felt
obliged
to charge.
The
first four
volumes
will
stretch from
$19.75
to
$31.85
each.
This
compared with prices
ranging
from
U.S. $4.25
to
U.S.
$5.25
per
volume
for
Whiteman
which
latter
tend
to
be
somewhat
larger
in
page
content. The
days when
British-
manufactured
books
were
placed
on
the
market
at
advantageous
prices
seem
now
to
be
in
the
past.
Unsversity
of
Alberta
IvAN
L.
HEAD
Military
and
Scientific
Affairs
ARMS
AND
INFLUENCE.
By
Thomas
C.
Schelling.
1966.
(New
Haven:
Yale
University
Press.
Montreal:
McGill
University
Press.
viii,
293pp.
$7.50)
This
is
a
difficult
but
extremely rewarding
book.
Mr.
Schelling
has
taken
as
his
task the
analysis
of
the
"diplomacy
of
violence"
the
techniques
of
negotiation and
limited
conflict
in
the
nuclear
era.
The
subject
might
well
be
called
the
politics
of
fear,
the
process
of
bar
gaining
with
opponents
who
have
the
power
not
only to
fight
but
also
to inflict
considerable
and
in
some cases
unacceptable
harm.
"The
power
to
hurt
is
bargaining
power.
To
exploit
it
is
diplomacy
vicious
diplomacy,
but
diplomacy.
(p.
2)
In
a
series
of
essays more
or
less
related
to
this
theme
the
author
discusses
the
use
of
power,
the
awful
power
to
destroy
without
time
for
thought
or
reflection,
to
the
pleasure
of
the
theoretician
and
the
frustration
of
the
advocate.
Never
once does
he
lose
his
way
on
the
treacherous
ground
of
morality
or
admit
that
policy
is
his
concern.
The
result
often
seems
repetitious and somewhat
heavy-going,
but
his
insight
is
deep
and
his perspectives
illuminating.
This
is
a
book
on
strategy
written
by
a
historian
who seeks
his models as
much
in
the
prose
of
Herodotus
as
in
the
language
of
the
computer.
The
chapter
on
"The
Art
of
Commitment"
is
concerned
with
the
psychology of
fear
and
mistrust:
the
cultivation
of
an
image
of
irrational
behaviour,
manoeuvrmg
the
enemy
into
the
position
of
mak-
ing
the
first
move, of
convincing him
that
you
are
bound
to
fight
because
of
your
public
pronouncements or
your
desire to save
face
and
so
forth.
The
chapter
on
"Manipulation
of Risk"
describes
the
dangers
of
bnnkmanship
and
of
escalation
of
a
conflict
limited to
low
level
or
tactical
nuclear
weapons.
Here
is
an
example:
In
nuclear
exchange,
even if
it
nominally
involves
only
the
use
of
"tactical"
weapons
against
tactically
important targets,
there
will
be
a
conscious
negotiating
process
between
two
very
threaten-
ing
enemies
What
each
side
is
doing
with
its strategic
forces
would
be
the
main
preoccupation.
It
is
the strategic
forces
in
the
background
that
provide
the
risks
and
the
sense
of
danger-
it
is
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