The New Diplomacy (review)

264 SAIS REVIEW Techno-Bandits: How the Soviets are Stealing America's High-Tech Future. By Linda Melvern, Nick Anning, and David Hebditch. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1984. pp. 305. Reviewed by Sheila Bindman, M.A. candidate, SAIS. Techno-Bandits: How the Soviets are StealingAmerica's High-Tech Future is promoted as a book that reads like a fast-paced international thriller, and indeed, authors Linda Melvern, Nick Anning, and David Hebditch substitute a large measure of sensationalism and espionage-cum-anecdote for factual reporting and concrete analysis. The book begins with a quote from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and then proceeds relentlessly from there: It is a compilation of vignettes about Western business executives who betray their countries for "Soviet gold." Despite an interesting history on emerging American export controls, interagency rivalry in Washington, and increasing tensions among the Western allies, the book never quite makes the transition from "mission impossible" to serious study. While a number of chapters are devoted to "The Trader Spies" and "A Bandit Family Tree," only in their conclusion do the authors raise any significant questions about the assumptions, objectives, and viability of Western export controls, and the motivations of those who work assiduously to contravene them. The role of the businessman in East-West rivalry is never clearly articulated, and the Soviets are portrayed as mere backstage manipulators, presenting shopping lists and then checks to those calculating British, German, and Austrian spies and greedy American manufacturers who exploit Western economic abundance and intellectual freedom. Moreover, no clear distinction emerges between the patent infringement rampant in today's microchip industry and Russian efforts to acquire the benefits of Western technology minus the costs of research entailed. Soviet actions seem mere industrial espionage writ large. The inconsistency of American policy towards East-West trade is better documented, veering from active encouragement during détente to sometimes overzealous supervision under Reagan, and the authors examine the bureaucratic mismanagement and lack of prosecution that hamper export control efforts. Still, the book's tone fluctuates between stern condemnation and amused condescension, and the issue of technology transfer is depicted as both a serious threat and a comedy oferrors. For a study purporting to be an in-depth exposé of East-West technology transfer, Techno-Bandits unfortunately provides more on the bandits and less on the underlying issues. The New Diplomacy. By Abba Eban. New York: Random House, 1983. pp. 401. Reviewed by Steven Kasten, M.A. candidate, SAIS. In international politics, "success is relative to perceived possibilities and diplomacy is the art of appraising the feasible." Abba Eban's book represents a call for the acknowledgment of the limits of the contemporary international system, limits that preclude the realization of Utopian aspirations regarding arms control, U.S.-Soviet rapprochement, and international legal organization. BOOK REVIEWS 265 Eban's modest appraisal of the possible does not necessarily translate into cynicism. On the contrary, more ambitious and unrealistic goals seem to obscure what actually can be accomplished given a system of sovereign states pursuing national interests. For instance, Eban points out that while "incantations" against Soviet violations of human rights may be repetitive and self-evident, their absence "can only serve to demoralize those in the Soviet Union who strive to humanize the regime within the limits of feasibility." Similarly, Eban is able to indicate the weaknesses of international institutions without denying the potential and necessity of these international organs in addressing fundamentally global issues. Eban's work entails little that is novel in the literature on postwar U.S. foreign policy, U.S.-Soviet relations, arms control, or the Middle East. However, this does not detract from the value of his overall analysis. Some sections shine with insight, such as Eban's comment on the plight of the modern diplomat, squeezed into obscurity by the coincidence of the rise of mass media and the growth of ministerial foreign policy. Such bright spots in and of themselves render this work worthwhile. The Troubled Alliance: Atlantic Relations in the 1980s. Lawrence Freedman, ed. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984. Reviewed by William Hoffman, M.A. candidate, SAIS. The recent internal struggles of nato over the deployment of intermediaterange nuclear missiles...