We All Lost the Cold War

In their study of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and the 1973 confrontation between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. during the Arab-Israeli war, the authors refute the popular notion that the U.S. policy of nuclear deterrence prevented war between the superpowers in both crises and convinced the Soviet leadership that this country would not tolerate aggression. Lebow and Stein reconstruct the calculations of the leaders on both sides to show that the U.S.'s threat-based deterrence strategy was more provocative than restraining in 1962, that it was irrelevant in '73 and that Washington's faith in the efficacy of showdown diplomacy actually prolonged the Cold War. In this significant addition to the literature of international crisis management, the authors urge greater appreciation of the risks of threat-based strategies and greater attention to the mutual clarification of interests. They suggest that these lessons be applied to the prevention, management and resolution of conflict in the post-Cold War era. Lebow is a professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh; Stein is a professor of political science at the University of Toronto. (Feb.)