The Cold War as Cooperation (review)

180 SAISREVIEW limits to wielding and projecting power. At the heart of the inquiry, Goodman finds that the Soviets have not been successful at translating military muscle into diplomatic and political influence. Under Gorbachev, the Kremlin has recognized that "a greater military presence in the Third World does not assure greater political security for either the USSR or its clients." Thus, he argues, a reduced political role of the military in the Third World is imminent. The Soviets, according to the author, offered military and economic assistance to Third World nations to counter Western influence in Asia, Africa and the Middle East since 1950; military assistance has been the primary instrument for increasing the Soviet presence in developing countries and those of socialist orientation. He argues that the Soviet Union promoted military and diplomatic dependence through its weapons sales, and once was the largest exporter of military hardware to the Third World. The Soviet Union's need to earn massive amounts of hard currency for its own shocking domestic demands also, in Goodman's mind, explains these sales. Although the Soviet Union is the second leading exporter of arms behind the United States, its arms transfers have dropped since 1988, and have dropped dramatically in recent months. A steady decline in willingness and capability of some Third World states to import Soviet military weapons systems reflects their own basic requirements: weapons and bullets have been given a lower priority to more pressing problems, such as civil and social projects. The whole subject of assistance to the Third World in fact appears to be under scrutiny in the Soviet Union, as we have seen Gorbachev cut military aid to Cuba and alter the terms of subsidies. Goodman concludes by assessing Soviet policy in the 1990s, emphasizing that economic failure, social unrest, and political upheavals in the Soviet Union mandate a deepening withdrawal from the Third World and account for much of what has occurred thus far. He argues that the Soviets can no longer afford to maintain their security positions abroad, nor their huge defense budget. The Soviet departure from Cam Ranh Bay is cited as a strong example of Soviet disinterest in its overseas facilities. Perhaps the most important result of Gorbachev's policy evolution is increased Soviet cooperation with the United States, which has helped stabilize regional conflicts. The Persian GulfWar, the superpowers' agreement to withhold military aid to their Afghanistan clients, and joint superpower participation in the Middle East peace conference underscore advanced East-West relations. The Cold War as Cooperation. Edited by Roger E. Kanet and Edward A. Kolodziej. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. 439 pp. $48.50/ Hardcover. Reviewed by David Schatsky, ??. Candidate, SAIS. Looked at as a kind of cooperation between the two superpowers, the Cold War offers lessons on how to increase cooperation and reduce conflict in the world. This is the most compelling aim of The Cold War as Cooperation, but not the one at which it best succeeds. BOOK REVIEWS 181 A collection of articles by thirteen scholars from ten institutions, The Cold War as Cooperation emphasizes the importance to the evolution ofthe superpower conflict of the many regions in the world where the superpowers have faced off. A chapter on each of twelve regions (Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, North, Central and Southern Africa, the Caribbean/Central America, South America, South Asia, Southwest Asia, Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia) analyzes the history of superpower interaction and illuminates distinctive regional factors that have influenced superpower behavior. One contributing scholar, Victor A. Kremenyuk, of the Institute for the Study of the USA and Canada of the Academy of Sciences ofthe USSR, provides the moral impulse for this volume with his belief that the Cold War "has to be understood as cooperation, if it is to be successfully surmounted by the United States, the Soviet Union, and other leading nations of the world." But this goal is undermined by the fact that the contributors don't all agree on the meaning of "cooperation." The book starts with two chapters that attempt to explain the special sense ofthe word "cooperation" used by the volume's editors. Drawing on game theory, cooperation is...