Arms and Influence (The Henry L. Stimson Lectures Series) - Softcover

Thomas C. Schelling

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300002211 ISBN 13: 9780300002218

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1967

Synopsis

Traditionally, Americans have viewed war as an alternative to diplomacy, and military strategy as the science of victory. Today, however, in our world of nuclear weapons, military power is not so much exercised as threatened. It is, Mr. Schelling says, bargaining power, and the exploitation of this power, for good or evil, to preserve peace or to threaten war, is diplomacy—the diplomacy of violence. The author concentrates in this book on the way in which military capabilities—real or imagined—are used, skillfully or clumsily, as bargaining power. He sees the steps taken by the U.S. during the Berlin and Cuban crises as not merely preparations for engagement, but as signals to an enemy, with reports from the adversary's own military intelligence as our most important diplomatic communications. Even the bombing of North Vietnam, Mr. Schelling points out, is as much coercive as tactical, aimed at decisions as much as bridges. He carries forward the analysis so brilliantly begun in his earlier The Strategy of Conflict (1960) and Strategy and Arms Control (with Morton Halperin, 1961), and makes a significant contribution to the growing literature on modern war and diplomacy. Stimson Lectures. Mr. Schelling is professor of economics at Harvard and acting director of Harvard's Center for International Affairs.

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About the Author

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Review

..."a brilliant and hardheaded book. It will frighten those who prefer not to dwell on the unthinkable....This book on the diplomacy of violence is a fine example of...the growth of political-military thinking...."-New York Times Book Review

?...a brilliant and hardheaded book. It will frighten those who prefer not to dwell on the unthinkable....This book on the diplomacy of violence is a fine example of...the growth of political-military thinking....?-New York Times Book Review

.,."a brilliant and hardheaded book. It will frighten those who prefer not to dwell on the unthinkable....This book on the diplomacy of violence is a fine example of...the growth of political-military thinking...."-New York Times Book Review

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1967
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300002211
• ISBN 13: 9780300002218
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 303