The Foreign Service Journal, June 2006

is confined to assistance programs, and runs only from 1990 to 2003. Also, it does not address the effective- ness of public diplomacy. As diplomats and assistance practi- tioners, we must strive to understand the country we are working in and to offer our best counsel as to how to advance democracy — whether through technical programs, through public American leadership or, in some environments, through a less visible American role. The study is available at: http:// www.usaid.gov/our_work/democracy _and_governance/publications/pdfs/ impact_of_democracy_assistance.pdf Ted Craig, an FSO since 1991, has served in Guatemala, Botswana, Boli- via and Washington, D.C. He is cur- rently on a one-year Rusk Fellowship at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. He joins the State Department’s Policy Plan- ning staff this summer. A True Turning Point The Last Battle of the Cold War: An Inside Account of Negotiating the INF Treaty Maynard W. Glitman, Palgrave- MacMillan, 2006, $69.95, hardcover, 272 pages. R EVIEWED BY D AVID T. J ONES Throughout the 45-plus years of confrontation with the Soviet Union following World War II, the United States grappled with how to secure Western democracy and freedom — and avoid a nuclear Armageddon. We fought in tertiary areas of the globe via proxies (Angola, El Salvador) or alongside the forces from one side confronting the surrogates of the other (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan). However, in the most pivotal potential battleground, Europe, we successful- ly maneuvered to maintain a Western unity that was the best assurance against a Soviet invasion. We bal- anced military deterrence, combining conventional and nuclear forces, with diplomatic efforts to negotiate arms control agreements to reduce East- West tensions and, ultimately, to lay the groundwork for a mutually bene- ficial peace. Perhaps the most dramatic of these struggles came during the peri- od between 1976 and 1987, when Soviet deployments of mobile inter- mediate-range nuclear missiles in Eastern Europe generated unprece- dented tension. There were profound disagreements within NATO over whether the West should counter Soviet INF systems with comparable U.S. missiles or accept the USSR’s dominance. After much debate, NATO sought an appropriate military counter, but also took a crucial addi- tional step. Rather than accepting the status quo, the U.S. packaged the short-term stationing of those weapons within a diplomatic agree- ment that would ultimately eliminate them worldwide. Maynard (“Mike”) Glitman, a career Foreign Service officer, was a key figure throughout this decade. As the leader of the INF negotiating team that concluded the INF Treaty and orchestrated its Senate ratifica- tion, Mike Glitman not only has an incredible story to tell, but tells it well. The Last Battle of the Cold War: An Inside Account of Negotiating the INF Treaty is an adroit combination of careful diplomatic detail and insight- ful anecdote. For instance, he paints a damning portrait of how the Soviet Union’s brutality and the ritualized duplicity of Soviet leaders were reflected in their negotiators. He also walks the reader through the politico-military circumstances of the mid-1970s and the factors leading to the decision to deploy U.S. INF missiles to Europe. He explains the tit-for-tat U.S./NATO Alliance negoti- ating proposals juxtaposed with Soviet ploys designed to retain their military advantage and split the Western alliance. Equally interesting, he examines internecine Washington battles over such questions as how much verifica- tion was necessary to fulfill the Reagan-era maxim of “trust but veri- fy.” He concludes with an account of the Senate ratification debate that is a classic of the genre. Particularly instructive for current U.S. policy, however, is Glitman’s detailed account of the exhaustive (and exhausting) public diplomacy campaign to maintain the NATO alliance’s cohesion. Even when facing a concrete threat like intermediate- range nuclear weapons, alliance main- tenance will always be equivalent to herding cats. It is even harder if the threat is as abstract and distant as ter- rorism is today. All too often we mistake a bend in the road of history for one of its major turning points. The INF Treaty, how- ever, was a true turning point. It elim- inated an entire class of nuclear weapons, created new paradigms for verification and strengthened NATO’s solidarity. The Last Battle of the Cold War provides a precise account of how politico-military resolve and diplomat- ic calculation, epitomized in an astute arms control agreement, helped close down the global threat of Soviet mili- tary power. Diplomatic efforts such as those Mike Glitman led were pivotal to Western success. n David T. Jones, a retired Senior For- eign Service officer, is a frequent con- tributor to the Journal . J U N E 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 61 B O O K S u