The view that America and Russia have burned their candles on security cooperation with respect to nuclear weapons is simply mistaken. This timely study identifies twelve themes or issue areas that must be addressed by the United States and Russia if they are to provide shared, successful leadership in the management of nuclear world order. Designed as supplementary reading in upper division and graduate courses in national security policy, defense, and nuclear arms control, it is also suitable for courses taught at military staff and command colleges and-or war colleges.

The view that America and Russia have burned their candles on security cooperation with respect to nuclear weapons is simply mistaken. This timely study identifies twelve themes or issue areas that must be addressed by the US and Russia if they are to provide shared, successful leadership in the management of nuclear world order.

The twentieth century is often described as a century of total war, ranging from the two World Wars to countless civil wars and terrorist conflicts. As the century draws to a close, Stephen J. Cimbala wonders how the nature of warfare has changed over the years. His starting point is a simple observation by Carl von Clausewitz, the great Prussian philosopher of war, that wars are inseparable from politics. The Politics of Warfare explores how Clausewitz stands up against the historic experience of our century and anticipates what we might expect as we enter the next.

Cimbala admits that wars are still political creatures, but he argues that they are often politicized in ways that Clausewitz did not foresee. Among the wars Cimbala singles out for study are the two World Wars, the Cold War, Vietnam, and the Gulf War. He considers the roles of intelligence, special operations, and military persuasion. He draws mainly, though not entirely, on U.S. experience. Overall, The Politics of Warfare suggests that wars of the largest and smallest kind are the most subject to political and military distortion; wars of intermediate scope and stake are more likely to be fought within a proper frame of civil and military reference

.Written by a seasoned observer of military strategy, The Politics of Warfare questions many assumptions about the nature of war. Cimbala's conclusions gain added significance in the confused terrain of our post-Cold War world.

In Military Persuasion, Stephen J. Cimbala reconciles two central approaches to war and peace studies. In the study of crisis management and war termination, the security literature overwhelmingly emphasizes the making of credible deterrent threats and coercive bargaining, while peace studies and conflict resolution literature focuses on conciliation and the offering of acceptable terms prior to or during a conflict. Cimbala contends that both threats and accommodation have their place in successfully preventing and ending conflicts.

Military Persuasion is particularly welcome in the 1990s, as policy makers and scholars debate whether nuclear deterrence deserves credit as a positive factor in the avoidance of military confrontation between the superpowers during the Cold War years. Cimbala examines several cases of great-power decision making before, during, and after the Cold War to demonstrate that deterrent threats alone have not successfully avoided war during this century. In some important instances, such as the months leading up to World War I, threats have actually fed into a chain of miscalculation that ultimately led to war. Cimbala also considers the Berlin crisis of 1948, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and the Gulf War of 1991, the first major post-Cold War conflict. Military Persuasion makes a significant contribution to war and peace studies, firmly grounded in a realistic appraisal of the human dimension to crisis management.