The Arms Control Delusion by Malcolm Wallop; Angelo Codevilla; Through the Straits ofArmageddon: Arms Control Issues and Prospects by Paul F. Diehl; Loch K. JohnsonReview by: Gregory F. TrevertonForeign Affairs, Vol. 66, No. 4, The Defense Debate (Spring, 1988), p. 872Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20043496 .

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872 FOREIGN AFFAIRS

THE NUCLEAR DILEMMA IN AMERICAN STRATEGIC THOUGHT. By Robert E. Osgood. Boulder (Colo.): Westview Press, 1988,

138 pp. $23.85. Published posthumously, this book returns to a lifelong interest of

Osgood's: American attitudes toward military force. His prose is clear and his insights are arresting?why, for example, should retaliatory use of nuclear weapons be regarded as of a morally different order than first use? The breadth of analysis reminds us how much we have lost with Osgood's passing.

THE ARMS CONTROL DELUSION. By Malcolm Wallop and Angelo Codevilla. San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1987, 220

pp. $16.95. THROUGH THE STRAITS OF ARMAGEDDON: ARMS CONTROL ISSUES AND PROSPECTS. Edited by Paul F. Diehl and Loch K.Johnson.

Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987, 279 pp. $32.50 (paper, $12.95). The Wallop-Codevilla critique of arms control from the right is familiar

but breezily put: the United States expected too much and got too little. In

particular, the book repeats the litany that America has "zero means for

enforcing" Soviet compliance with existing treaties. For the authors, arms control is preeminently a domestic matter; as Walter Lippmann said of the

run-up to World War II, "the disarmament movement has been tragically successful in disarming the nations that believe in disarmament." In this

perspective, not surprisingly, President Reagan's conversion to arms reduc tions amounts to virtual apostasy. The Diehl-Johnson volume is balanced, and the foreword by Dean Rusk is a treat?the elder statesman's skepticism about dramatic predictions from either right or left, about either weapons capabilities or the imminence of doom.

THE STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE: SHIELD OR SNARE? Ed ited by Harold Brown. Boulder (Colo.): Westview Press, 1987, 297 pp. $24.95 (paper). STAR WARS: THE ECONOMIC FALLOUT. Edited by Rosy Nimroody. Cambridge: Ballinger, 1988, 234 pp. STRATEGIC DEFENSE AND ARMS CONTROL. Edited by Alvin M.

Weinberg and Jack N. Barkenbus. New York: Paragon House, 1988, 263

pp. $24.95. STAR WARS AND EUROPEAN DEFENCE. Edited by Hans Gunter Brauch. New York: St. Martin's, 1987, 599 pp. $39.95.

For anyone who has missed the SDI debate and wants to catch up, the Brown volume is a useful primer. In their careful chapter on the macro

economics of SDI, Barry Blechman and Victor Utgoff estimate the oppor

tunity cost of a comprehensive defense as equivalent to a $570 annual tax

surcharge for citizens earning $30,000 to $50,000. The Nimroody book, the result of a Council on Economic Priorities project, presents a still

sharper conclusion, arguing that the Reagan SDI program "harbors . . .

serious threats to the economy," especially if early contracts build political momentum behind the program. Weinberg and Barkenbus make clear their moral preference for a defense-dominated nuclear world?specifically for a defense-protected arms build-down?but they are fair-minded enough to report their surprise that not all their contributors agreed; indeed their own epilogue is as good a synthesis of the defense-offense arguments as

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