New Weapons, Old Politics: America's Military Procurement Muddle by Thomas L. McNaugherReview by: Gregory F. TrevertonForeign Affairs, Vol. 68, No. 5 (Winter, 1989), pp. 209-210Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20044221 .

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RECENT BOOKS 209

late?just as the nuclear issue recedes?but is nonetheless welcome. The

Chayes-Doty volume is a meticulous treatment by distinguished contribu tors of a very specific question: assuming that nuclear deterrence will continue to depend on second-strike retaliation, how can the assuredness,

provided by the paucity of strategic defense on both sides, be preserved?

COLLECTIVE DEFENSE OR STRATEGIC INDEPENDENCE? Edited by Ted Galen Carpenter. Washington: Cato Institute/Lexington (MA):

Lexington Books, 1989, 310 pp. $40.00. Those who are familiar with the work of the Cato Institute will not be

surprised by this volume. Its main chapters by institute stalwarts Earl

Ravenal, Christopher Layne, Alan Tonelson and the editor make the case for disengaging and limiting commitments. However, the volume does

present other views, and if the chapters are uneven, they still amount to a

thought-provoking attempt at assessing American interests and capabilities in a period of change.

SOVEREIGN ACTS: AMERICAN UNILATERALISM AND GLOBAL SECURITY. By John Tirman. Cambridge: Ballinger, 1989, 256 pp. $24.95.

It is hard to know what to make of this book. It is an argument for

restraint, not action, so its title misleads?in its use of the word "unilater alism" particularly. Those whom Tirman, a former editor for Time and also the Union of Concerned Scientists, calls "the technicians" will think he treads familiar ground without quite realizing it?for instance in discussing the difficulties of arms control or nonproliferation policy. Others will be

put off by the faintly Marxist analysis of American intervention even if they acknowledge that the analysis is not entirely wrong. Tirman's urging an

"organic" view of security, one that sees the connectedness of things, is

interesting, but his specific guidance is modest.

AMERICA'S DEFENSE. Edited by Michael Mandelbaum. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1989, 334 pp. $45.00 (paper, $24.95).

This carefully edited survey, originally a product of the now-defunct Lehrman Institute, takes up the issues that confront American defense

policy?from reforming procurement to what to do about the navy. The authors are the best of a generation that can still be called "younger" who know their subjects, who are mostly conservative but are not ideologues, and who are influential around and in some cases (Dennis Ross, for

example) in the Bush Administration.

NEW WEAPONS, OLD POLITICS: AMERICA'S MILITARY PRO CUREMENT MUDDLE. By Thomas L. McNaugher. Washington: Brook

ings, 1989, 251 pp.

Criticizing weapons procurement by comparison to private enterprise is

wrong-headed, for the system "has been shaped by a sustained and

necessary interaction with the political system"; indeed, that interaction is

responsible for the system's most controversial features, some of which "even protect the public interest." This terse history, a pleasure to read, argues for shifting investment away from production toward research and

development. It only begins to help the reader think about the politics of

reform, but it does begin. For instance, extending competition through

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210 FOREIGN AFFAIRS

R&D would give politicians a choice between two weapons, not merely between nothing and something (usually something with subcontracts

spread through every relevant congressman's district).

AMERICA'S SECRET POWER: THE CIA IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCI ETY. By Loch K.Johnson. New York: Oxford, 1989, 344 pp. $24.95. INTELLIGENCE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE 1990s: COLLECTION,

ANALYSIS, COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AND COVERT ACTION. Ed ited by Roy Godson. Lexington (MA): Lexington Books, 1989,269 pp. $45.00.

Johnson's book is a welcome addition to a spate of books published recently on this subject. An experienced congressional overseer of intelli

gence, he writes in clean, easy prose about the covert actions that grab the headlines but, happily, his book ranges across the agency's functions. It is imbued throughout with good sense about how secret intelligence and

democratic society can be made to coexist. The Godson volume, a product of the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, is dominated by the

perspective of intelligence practitioners in the executive branch, but its

chapters and discussion are a useful summary of the issues that confront American intelligence.

General: Economic and Social

William Diebold, Jr. SOLVING THE GLOBAL DEBT CRISIS: STRATEGIES AND CON TROVERSIES FROM KEY STAKEHOLDERS. Edited by Christine A.

Bogdanowicz-Bindert. New York: Harper & Row, 1989, 272 pp. $39.50. Bankers, officials and politicians in debtor and creditor countries make

up most of the contributors whose "positions and prescriptions . . . are

irreconcilable," as the editor says. With experience going back to Zaire's debts in the 1970s, she gives shape to the book by a perceptive, clear

analysis justifying her conclusion that "pessimism is called for."

THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY SYSTEM. Edited by Omar F. Hamouda, Robin Rowley and Bernard M. Wolf. Armonk (NY): Sharpe, 1989, 223 pp. $39.95.

Digging deeper than most, this volume includes several long analyses of the debt problem and good statements of the case for an international

monetary system based on paper, commodities, gold, purchasing power

parity and modified Bretton Woods principles, among other things. Younger experts appear along with such veterans as Edward Bernstein, Albert Gailord Hart and Robert Triffin. More than one is, as Robert

Solomon calls himself, "a reformed international monetary reformer."

Naturally there is no consensus but many are attracted by that elusive

pimpernel, the coordination of macroeconomic policies.

DEPENDENCE, DEVELOPMENT, AND STATE REPRESSION. Edited

by George A. Lopez and Michael Stohl. Westport (CT): Greenwood Press, 1989, 286 pp. $47.95.

The editors prudently refrain from trying to draw general conclusions from these very diverse papers, most of them case studies. However, the contributors have many ideas about the links between a country's political

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