This book describes the efforts of the United States and the former Soviet Union to resolve regional confrontations. It examines Gorbachev's inheritance in Latin America regarding Soviet-U.S. cooperation and conflict, and prospects for future Russian-U.S. cooperation.

This book describes the efforts of the United States and the former Soviet Union to resolve regional confrontations. It examines Gorbachev's inheritance in Latin America regarding Soviet-U.S. cooperation and conflict, and prospects for future Russian-U.S. cooperation.

Fifty years ago, the United States founded the United Nations, promoted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, used economic aid as a tool for creating stability, and viewed collective agreements and cooperation as the principal methods of sharing the costs and the risks of security. Today, under the leadership of George W. Bush, the main tool of foreign policy is military force, not diplomacy. America is going it alone, and paying the price, both abroad and at home, for the reckless endangerment of both national and international security.
In this comprehensive critique of the Bush administration's handling of international relations, Craig R. Eisendrath and Melvin A. Goodman, both senior fellows at the Center for International Policy, demonstrate the folly and the dangers of abandoning diplomacy and relying on military force as the chief means of conducting U.S. foreign policy. The authors argue that a policy of bullying will sow seeds of resentment and mistrust among our potential allies and encourage nations hostile to our interests to seek nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction as a last-resort method of protecting themselves against a belligerent world power. Eisendrath and Goodman foresee the international community becoming dangerously unstable, not more secure, under a Pax Americana maintained by military might.
On the domestic front, the authors warn that a policy emphasizing the power of the executive branch at the expense of Congress, and suspending long-standing civil rights under the pretext of national security, threatens the Constitution. Finally, the decline of government services for education, health, and the elderly, and the economic effect of huge military expenditures financed by deficit spending are already causing distress in large parts of our society.
This trenchant critique by two experienced foreign policy analysts will serve as a wake-up call to the dangerous militarism at the heart of the Bush agenda.

In the past four decades, the United States has spent $85 billion pursuing the fantasy of an effective missile defense system to shield our nation against the threat of a nuclear attack. Recent public tests, while less exotic than some of the original Star Wars proposals, were spectacular failures and call into question the whole prograM's rationale. Neither the land-based system proposed by the Clinton administration, nor the alternatives proposed by earlier administrations, would ever work--regardless of how much R&D money is channeled into the project. Rather than enhancing national security, these doomed efforts would provoke a new arms race and alienate key allies. The authors apply their extensive insiders' expertise to argue that thoughtful diplomacy is the only real answer to meet America's national security goals.

Like President Reagan with his Star Wars program, President Bush has again made national missile defense (NMD) a national priority at a cost which may exceed $150 billion in the next ten years. Defense experts Eisendrath, Goodman, and Marsh contend that recent tests give little confidence that any of the systems under consideration--land-based, boost-phase, or laser-driven--have any chance of effective deployment within decades. The interests of the military-industrial complex and the unilateralist views of the Bush administration are driving NMD, not a desire to promote national security.

Rather than increase U.S. security, the plans of the current administration, if implemented, will erode it. NMD will heighten the threat from China and Russia, alienate key allies, and provoke a new arms race and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, all in response to a greatly exaggerated threat from so-called rogue states, such as North Korea and Iran. Thoughtful diplomacy, not a misguided foreign policy based on a hopeless dream of a Fortress America, is the real answer to meeting Americas security goals. Designed to stimulate interest and debate among the public and policy-makers, "The Phantom Defense" provides solid facts and combines scientific, geopolitical, historical, and strategic analysis to critique the delusion of national missile defense, while suggesting a more effective alternative.

In this fascinating inquiry into the Soviet retreat from the Third World, Melvin A. Goodman analyzes GorbacheV's policy from the standpoint of disillusionment with the Third World. He cites, among other reasons for the retreat, the diminished strategic significance of the Third World to current Soviet leadership, the limitations for Soviet power projection in distant areas, and the dilemmas in MoscoW's relations with Third World regimes. Goodman contends that GorbacheV's foreign policy shift to achieve a more stable international arena and a less militant Soviet stance allowed Moscow to focus on its internal economic problems. This volume provides the first exploration of Afghanistan as a watershed in Soviet thinking on the Third World and discusses the current Soviet emphasis on conflict management and resolution in Third World states--particularly Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, and Nicaragua. "GorbacheV's Retreat" explains how cooperation with the United States improves MoscoW's image in the West and tends to stabilize Third World flash points. Up-to-the-minute data on Soviet military and economic assistance to the Third World as well as Third World responses to the new Soviet policy are also presented.

The volume examines Soviet retrenchment and retreat in the Third World; analyzes GorbacheV's decisions relative to Third World relationships; zeroes in on the withdrawal from Afghanistan; explores some of the reasons for Soviet power limitations; and assesses the regional implications of GorbacheV's New Political Thinking. "GorbacheV's Retreat" then looks at Soviet power projection and crisis management, Soviet military and economic aid, and Soviet retreat in the 1990s. The volume will be particularly useful to undergraduate and graduate courses in foreign policy and international relations as a discussion of the impact of the new Soviet policy in the Third World and the consequences for U.S.-Soviet relations. Regional studies specialists will find its in-depth analyses of the limits on Soviet actions in the Third World cogent and timely.

When Eduard Shevardnadze resigned as foreign minister of the Soviet Union in 1990, he ended one of the most remarkable and controversial political partnerships in modern history. Together with Mikhail Gorbachev and Alexander Yakovlev, Shevardnadze led the dramatic Soviet about-face in the 1980s that ended the Cold War and transformed the international political climate. While Gorbachev and Yakovlev focused on domestic reform, Shevardnadze redirected foreign policy. His willingness to act decisively made him the "moral force" of new thinking and the point man for the policies of perestroika. This major book is the first to take a critical look at the many battles Shevardnadze has fought at home and abroad throughout his remarkable career.

Carolyn Ekedahl and Melvin Goodman--veteran observers of the Soviet system--describe and analyze Shevardnadze's career, beginning with his Georgian past. They assess his responsibility for the Soviet collapse and the leadership role he continues to play in the independent state of Georgia. While sympathetic to what he has achieved, the authors show how Shevardnadze was a product of the Soviet system he sought to change but would help to destroy. He has proven a skillful politician who exploited available instruments of power to advance his career and further his policy objectives. For this book, the authors have interviewed many high-ranking American, Georgian, Russian, and Soviet officials, including Shevardnadze himself and former secretaries of state George Shultz and James Baker. Both Shultz and Baker credit Shevardnadze with convincing them that Moscow was committed to serious negotiations. They conclude that history would have been far different if it were not for the personal diplomacy of Shevardnadze.

As historians and specialists seek to explain the end of the Cold War in terms of endemic weaknesses in the Soviet system and the steadfast policies of the West, TheWars of Eduard Shevardnadze shows the folly of neglecting the essential role played by Soviet leaders who saw the need for reform and implemented policies designed to accomplish profound, but peaceful, change.