The Evolution of an International Actor by Reinhardt RummelReview by: Gregory F. TrevertonForeign Affairs, Vol. 69, No. 5 (Winter, 1990), p. 189Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20044615 .

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RECENT BOOKS 189

THE GERMAN NUCLEAR DILEMMA. By Jeffrey Boutwell. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press, 1990, 247 pp. $29.95. THE CHANGING POLITICS OF GERMAN SECURITY. By Stephen F. Szabo. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990, 170 pp. $45.00. THE BUNDESWEHR AND WESTERN SECURITY. Edited by Stephen F. Szabo. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990, 265 pp. $55.00.

Whither Germany? The question, in a new form, will be with us for

years. Boutwell provides a thoughtful assessment of West German nuclear

politics during the governments of those two very different Helmuts, Kohl and Schmidt. He details the apparent breakdown in Germany's security consensus during the 1980s, and he outlines unified Germany's nuclear future. Will Germany be tempted to go nuclear? He thinks not: "A German nationalism that has been truncated for forty-five years will express itself

politically, culturally and, above all, economically, rather than militarily." Szabo's book is broader and briefer (and dearer); he examines public attitudes and the security policies of the major West German parties. His edited volume focuses on the German army, the Bundeswehr, but its authors necessarily keep returning to the broader strategic currents that surround it.

THE EVOLUTION OF AN INTERNATIONAL ACTOR. Edited by Reinhardt Rummel. Boulder (CO): Westview, 1990, 354 pp. $45.00 (pa per).

Whither Europe? This is a sourcebook on Western Europe's transition in the 1980s from Euro-sclerosis to Euro-phoria. Its authors range across

nations and political persuasions, but they all leave the reader wondering whether Euro-phoric integration is up to the task of coping with a unified

Germany, Eastern Europe and large-scale migration from both east and south.

AT THE HEART OF THE BOMB: THE DANGEROUS ALLURE OF WEAPONS WORK. By Debra Rosenthal. Reading (MA): Addison-Wesley,

1990, 244 pp. $18.95. Half travelogue describing the Los Alamos and Sandia nuclear weapons

laboratories, half interviews with those who build bombs, Rosenthal's

purpose is to investigate the specialness of the choices confronting these

people. What is striking instead, in unusual surroundings, is the ordinari ness of those choices?hopes and dreams colliding with divorces, mort

gages and college bills.

SUPERPOWERS IN ECONOMIC DECLINE: U.S. STRATEGY FOR THE TRANSCENTURY ERA. By Richard Cohen and Peter A. Wilson. Bristol (PA): Crane Russak, 1990, 276 pp. $49.50 (paper, $27.00).

This is heavy on consulting-company jargon (i.e., "transcentury") but

intriguing nonetheless. America's defense possibilities depend on whether it can restore its national economy. The authors' detailed proposals amount to forgoing current consumption for future advantage; in the area of

defense, this is recommended as a hedge against an uncertain Soviet threat. It is easy to quibble with the proposals?a long disintegration of the Soviet

Union, for instance, seems more likely now than when the authors wrote?

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