cover image Calculated Risks: A Century of Arms Control, Why It Has Failed, and How It Can Be Made to Work

Calculated Risks: A Century of Arms Control, Why It Has Failed, and How It Can Be Made to Work

Bruce D. Berkowitz. Simon & Schuster, $18.45 (221pp) ISBN 978-0-671-60087-7

Berkowitz (American Security) argues that the Incidents at Sea Treaty, the Hot Line Agreement and the 1968 Nonproliferation Treaty ""probably account for the vast share of whatever success arms control can claim.'' His study is about how arms-control negotiations are shaped by domestic factors, how countries usually respond to arms-control treaties and how there must be a better way to go about it. He advocates as a first step the presidential appointment of a ``czar'' with near-total authority over U.S. arms-control policy. A former visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution and the Hoover Institution, Berkowitz analyzes the past and future problems presented by technology in the arms-control field. ``Controlling arms,'' he argues, ``is in large part a problem of controlling technology.'' The study includes a useful summary of arms-control negotiations and agreements over the past century. (November)