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Cover Page -- Half Title Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents Page -- Preface Page -- Part I Visions of Conflict and Peace -- 1.1 The End of History? -- 1.2 Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War -- 1.3 The Clash of Civilizations? -- 1.4 The Strongmen Strike Back -- Part II International Realism: Anarchy and Power -- 2.1 The Melian Dialogue -- 2.2 Doing Evil in Order to Do Good -- 2.3 The State of Nature and the State of War -- 2.4 Realism and Idealism -- 2.5 The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory -- 2.6 Hegemonic War and International Change -- 2.7 Power, Culprits, and Arms -- Part III International Liberalism: Institutions and Cooperation -- 3.1 Perpetual Peace -- 3.2 Peace Through Arbitration -- 3.3 Community of Power vs. Balance of Power -- 3.4 Liberalism and World Politics -- 3.5 Power and Interdependence -- 3.6 The Obsolescence of Major War -- Part IV Psychology and Culture: The Human Mind, Norms, and Learning -- 4.1 Why War? -- 4.2 How Good People Do Bad Things -- 4.3 War and Misperception -- 4.4 Spirit, Standing, and Honor -- 4.5 Warfare Is Only an Invention-Not a Biological Necessity -- 4.6 People Must Have a Tribe -- 4.7 Men, Women, and War -- Part V Economics: Interests and Interdependence -- 5.1 Money Is Not the Sinews of War, Although It Is Generally So Considered -- 5.2 The Great Illusion -- 5.3 Paradise Is a Bazaar -- 5.4 Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism -- 5.5 Imperialism and Capitalism -- 5.6 War as Economic Policy -- 5.7 Structural Causes and Economic Effects -- 5.8 Trade and Power -- Part VI Politics: Ideology and Identity -- 6.1 Democratization and War -- 6.2 Nations and Nationalism -- 6.3 Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars -- 6.4 The Troubled History of Partition -- Part VII Military Technology, Strategy, and Stability -- 7.1 Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma.

Preface -- Introduction: from Cold War to hot peace -- Policy milestones: Cold War roots of consensus -- Confused interventions: puttering with primacy -- New threats of mass destruction: capabilities down, intentions up -- Terrorism: the soft underbelly of primacy -- Striking first: well-lost opportunities -- Big small wars: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam -- The main events: the rise of China and resurgence of Russia -- Civil-military relations: a special problem? -- Plans and results: is strategy an illusion? -- A disciplined defense: regaining strategic solvency -- Conclusion: selecting security

Combining study with experience, Richard K. Betts draws on three decades of work within the U.S. intelligence community to illuminate the paradoxes and problems that frustrate the intelligence process. Unlike America's efforts to improve its defenses against natural disasters, strengthening its strategic assessment capabilities means outwitting crafty enemies who operate beyond U.S. borders. It also requires looking within to the organizational and political dynamics of collecting information and determining its implications for policy. Betts outlines key strategies for better intelligence gat.

In numerous crises after World War II--Berlin, Korea, the Taiwan Straits, and the Middle East--the United States resorted to vague threats to use nuclear weapons in order to deter Soviet or Chinese military action. On a few occasions the Soviet Union also engaged in nuclear saber-ratling. Using declassified documents and other sources, this volume examines those crises and compares the decisionmaking processes of leaders who considered nuclear threats with the commonly accepted logic of nuclear deterrence and coercion. Rejecting standard explanations of our leader's logic in these cases, Betts suggests that U.S. presidents were neither consciously blufffing when they made nuclear threats, nor prepared to face the consequences if their threats failed. The author also challenges the myth that the 1950s was a golden age of low vulberability for the United Stateas and details how nuclear parity has, and has not, altered conditions that gave rise to nuclear blackmail in the past.

Long before Germany's blitzkrieg swept the West, European leaders had received many signals of its imminence. Stalin, too, had abundant warning of German designs on Russia but believed that by avoiding "provocative" defensive measures he could avert the attack that finally came in June 1941. And the stories of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Korean War, and three Arab-Israeli conflicts are replete with missed opportunities to react to unmistakable warnings. Richad K. Betts analyzes surprise attacks during the mid-twentieth century to illustrate his thesis: surprise attacks occur, not because intelligence services fail to warn, but because of the disbelief of political leaders. "Although the probability is low that the United States will fail to deter direct attack by the Soviet Union," Betts says, "the intensity of the threat warrants painstaking analysis of how to cope with it." His own investigation of the historical, psychological, political, diplomatic, and military aspects of his subject heightens understanding of why surprise attacks succeed and why victim nations fail to respond to warnings. In discussing current policy he focuses on the defense of Western Europe and applies the lessons of history to U.S. defense planning, offering detailed recommendations for changes in strategy. Obviously some of the potential dangers of military surprise cannot be prevented. The important thing, he emphasizes, is that "without forces that exceed requirements (the solution Moscow appears to have chosen), it is vital to ensure that what forces exist can be brought to bear when needed.

Some educated guesses are necessary to guide de­ fense planning. Without them, procurement, doctrine, and military organization become arbitrary, the result of inertia rather than strategy. This article offers a few arguments to challenge inertia: • The benign security environment of the 1990s abets domestic political confusion about which potential types of conflict should govern military planning.