Book Review: Military and Scientific Affairs: American Strategy. A New Perspective
| Date | 01 March 1967 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206702200123 |
| Author | Theodore Ropp |
| Published date | 01 March 1967 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REvIEws
109
in
fact
they
have
merely
repeated
m
different
terms
what
has
already
been
said
Thus
F 0.
Miksche
in
the
first
paragraph
of
his
con-
tribution
to
this
collection
of
papers
prepared
for
an
international
symposium held
at
the
Institute
for
the
Study
of
the
U.S.S.R.
in
Munich,
in
October
1964.
How
right
he
is!
The
amount
of
academic-strategic
verbiage
that
has
been
expended
on
the
subject
of
nuclear
weapons,
and
on
the
effect
their
existence
has
on
anything
imaginable,
is
pro-
digious.
The
Munich
conference,
and
this
book
which
is
the
result
of
it,
has
liberally
added
to
the
flood.
Some
of
that
gobbledygook
is
completely
unintelligible.
I
would
invite
anybody
to
read
the
top of
p.
7
(or
other
parts
of
John
Erickson's
"Introduction"
for
that
matter)
or
the
concluding
paragraph
(on
p.
238)
of R.
D.
Crane's
contribution,
and
tell
me
what
they
mean.
And
these
are
only
two examples
from
a
good
many.
Crane,
incidentally,
has
come
up
with
something
new-
psychostrategy.
The relevance
of
this
"new
concept" would
be
difficult
to
discern,
even
if
one
understood
what
it
is.
Under these
circumstances,
it
was
an
excellent idea
of
the
Editor's
to
include
one piece
of
extraneous
matter,
a
short
article
on
Anti-
Missile
Systems
and
Disarmament"
written
by N.
A.
Talensky
for
the
Moscow
magazine,
International
Affairs.
General
Talensky
was
at
one
time perhaps the
most
influential
Soviet
military
theorist,
and
he
is
obviously
still
close
to
the
seats
of
power. His
argument
may
be
called
overly
simple,
but
it
reflects
the
clear
and
straightforward
thinking
of
those
who
are
responsible
for
the
wielding
of
military
nuclear
power.
It
is in
refreshing
contrast
to
the mental gyrations
of
the
inhabitants
of
ivory towers.
There
are
some
more
interesting
pieces,
that
already
mentioned
of
Miksche's,
for
instance,
which
is
a
debunking
job
on
the
classical
concept
of
nuclear
deterrence,
by
now,
of
course,
already vastly
modified;
and
Raymond
Garthoff's,
Herbert
Dinerstein's,
and
Nikolai
Gallay's-the
last-named with
reservations-
which
all
deal
with
Soviet
foreign
policy
albeit
from
different
viewpoints.
Among
good
presentations
of
comparatively
well-known
matter
is
R.
V
Burks'
article
about
the
de-satellization
of
the satellites,
and
David
Rees'
about the
evolution
of
the
McNamara
Doctrine.
Rees,
incidentally
con-
siders
the present
U.S.
Secretary
of
Defense
the
"greatest
civilian
administrator
of
defence"
in
this
century.
He
may
be
right,
but what
about
Leon
Trotsky?
There
is
also
a
Canadian
contribution,
William
Rodney's
"Neutralism
and the
West"
It
suffers
from the
author
saying
so
much
about
what neutralism
is
not
that
in
the
end
one
does
not
know
what
he
thinks
it
really represents
on
the international
political
scene.
Toronto
JOHN
GELLNER
ANMRICAN
STRATEGY-
A
NEW
PERSPEcTIvE.
The
Growth
of
Politico-Military
Thinking
in
the
United
States.
By
Urs Schwarz.
1966.
(New
York:
Toronto:
Doubleday.
xiv,
179pp.
$5.00)
This
summary
deserves
Dr.
Henry Kissinger's
prefatoiial
claim
that
it
is
the
best yet
written
on
this
subject. The
subtitle
and contents
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