Dangerous Weapons, Desperate States: Russia, Belarus, Kazakstan, and Ukraine
Edited works on arms-export controls are usually not compelling reading for anyone other than experts. The result of an international collaborative effort, this work also has some long arid patches, including descriptions of bureaucratic procedures that may operate better in theory than in practice. But one comes away from this work with a renewed sense of just how porous those regulations are. The consequences of the leakage of Soviet military technology -- material and know-how for conventional and unconventional weapons alike -- are only now being felt. This book acknowledges the truly grim possibilities and informs the reader about the obstacles to effective control over this kind of proliferation. Worse yet, it may be too late to remedy much of the problem.
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The Clinton administration supports crippling economic sanctions that punish the Iraqi people but seems ready to live with the demise of international inspections to monitor Saddam Hussein's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs. Washington has it exactly backward. It should offer Baghdad a blunt trade: lightened sanctions in return for renewed, intrusive arms inspections. The sweeping sanctions regime does nothing to advance U.S. interests, undermine Saddam, or contain Iraq. Leaving Saddam's arsenal unwatched is folly. Better to have arms inspections without sanctions than sanctions without arms inspections.
As Cold War threats have diminished, so-called weapons of mass destruction -- nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and ballistic missiles -- have become the new international bugbears. The irony is that the harm caused by these weapons pales in comparison to the havoc wreaked by a much more popular tool: economic sanctions. Tally up the casualties caused by rogue states, terrorists, and unconventional weapons, and the number is surprisingly small. The same cannot be said for deaths inflicted by international sanctions. The math is sobering and should lead the United States to reconsider its current policy of strangling Iraq.
A raft of new books confronts a very real threat--the terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction--and propose vital, though moderate, responses.

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