THE WINDS OF WAR

...World War I would have been the war to end all wars except that a fanatic Charles William Maynes is the editor of Foreign Policy...

...When the Johnson administration dramatically escalated U.S...

...There could not be more powerful evidence of the influence that individuals can have on the course of history...

...involvement in the war, the two great powers of the region—China and Indonesia—were extremely hostile to the United States and were pursuing parallel policies...

...Frightened by the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union rule out nuclear confrontation...

...Finally, there are areas of the world where war over resources or religion could still take place, drawing in the major powers...

...He is willing to concede that while Stalin lived a "lunatic war was certainly conceivable...

...In both cases the response was decidedly nonthreatening...

...The British had difficulty sustaining popular support for the Boer War at the turn of the century...

...Mueller's thesis will gain greater credibility with most readers if he can demonstrate that the communist threat, either from the Soviet Union or China, is over...

...Whatever the actual threat at the time, the Cuban Missile Crisis discredited "crisis as a methodology...

...Certainly anyone, like the reviewer, who has lived for a period in the Soviet Union can attest that the popular fear of war there is pervasive...

...Indeed, it has gained so much strength in recent years that, for the first time since Yalta, the advantage that conservatives have enjoyed in discussing foreign policy before the electorate may be coming to an end...

...But he contends that since 1953 there has never been a real threat of war between the Soviet Union and the United States...

...At the turn of this century Theodore Roosevelt could delight his sister with descriptions of shooting a Spanish officer in Cuba and watching him double over "like a jackrabbit" Virtually no one feels that way after the experience of the two world wars...

...Nevertheless, the peace movement would be illadvised to fold up its tents and declare victory, for there are a number of countertrends to be considered...

...The smaller states copy the more pacific attitudes of the great powers, just as they copy their development patterns...

...naval peacekeeping force to replace the Americans...

...Central America may be another...

...The Soviet Union was concerned about the Pershing II missile because of the short flight time to Soviet soil...

...No one of any influence in America resembles such evil actors, but many American conservatives are not as convinced as Mueller that major wars are impossible or in some circumstances even undesirable...

...Basic Books, $20.95...

...participation in the 1980 Olympics and imposed the grain embargo, while the latter proposed a U.N...

...In none of these cases can one attribute the change in attitudes to the influence of television...

...So an attractive future unfolds...

...What about China...

...With improved accuracy and reliability, Soviet submarines cruising off America's coast are in a position to launch a decapitating strike...

...In its central thesis the book is correct: attitudes toward war have changed...

...The army counterattacked and murdered hundreds of thousands of communist party members, effectively eliminating the communist party as a political force in Indonesia...

...took over Germany and forced the world to relearn a lesson World War I had already taught: modern war has no rational purpose because the level of violence attained far exceeds any benefit obtained...

...The former canceled U.S...

...Many in the United States who lament this trend against war blame television for reducing the nation's will to fight by bringing the carnage into the nation's living rooms through direct broadcasts...

...In Mueller's view American military intervention in Vietnam may have played a role in warding off a more direct and more serious military contest with China...

...and Soviet leaders would live in a paranoid world where each might fear attack at any moment...

...The Middle East is one...

...And Mueller approvingly quotes recent studies suggesting that the odds of going to war even in that supreme crisis were "close to zero...

...Most strategists would join Mueller in at least conceding that nuclear war is not rational...

...Dazed by the insanity of the Cultural Revolution and sobered by U.S...

...Another troubling possibility is that technology may deprive leaders of the time to be rational or the ability to remain in control...

...Neither in the Kremlin nor in the White House have officials since been anxious to push the world to the precipice...

...Engrossed in glasnost and perestroika, the Soviet Union, too, finally leaves it behind...

...In time, major wars cease...

...Retreat From Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War...

...What if war itself is being abandoned by all major powers as an instrument of policy...

...Then China plunged into the Cultural Revolution and ceased to be a significant presence on the international stage for several years...

...As the neoconservative editors of The National Interest stated in 1985 in their premier issue (with Henry Kissinger on their editorial board), "The efficacy of military power in the conduct of foreign policy remains undiminished" Mueller's own treatment of the role of Hitler or the Japanese military elite in bringing on World War II should give him pause in this regard...

...These criticisms aside, this is an important book...

...In addition, governments have another reason to eschew war: nation states now seek economic prosperity more than political power...

...A communist coup in Indonesia failed spectacularly...

...To some, the Cuban Missile Crisis might seem the exception...

...Absorbing the experience of two world wars, the major states rule out war as a realistic option...

...But shortly after American troops arrived in Vietnam, the rationale for their presence ended...

...Jimmy Carter's response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan or Mikhail Gorbachev's answer to the presence of the U.S...

...fleet in the Persian Gulf offers eloquent proof of this point...

...Boers and neocons Is the argument convincing...

...Japan is the state others wish to emulate, not the United States or the Soviet Union...

...This is the thesis of Mueller's provocative book.* Its implications are profound not only for America's foreign policies but also for its domestic politics...

...One reason Ronald Reagan's vision of a space defense has seemed so dangerous is that any space weapon capable of destroying a rocket in its boost phase would also be capable of launching a surprise attack on an unprepared enemy...

...Although few leaders in the United States approach war with the enthusiasm of Theodore Roosevelt, many in the establishment Right do not view World War I or World War II as negative experiences...

...But new revelations have documented that Kennedy was prepared, if necessary, to make major concessions to avoid war...

...By his thesis they alone drove the globe into World War II...

...Meanwhile, as Mueller documents, the power of a liberal idea—the impermissibility of war—has been gaining strength...

...But Mueller is right in pointing out that the attitudes that the bellicose denounce developed long before television existed...

...The possibility of an accidental war under those conditions could increase immeasurably, even though Mueller is probably right in contending that a review of the historical record reveals no major war occurring by accident...

...steadfastness in Vietnam, China abandons the Cold War...

...Perhaps technology is changing history...

...Mueller's thesis, in brief, is the following: Woodrow Wilson would have been right except for one man—Adolf Hitler...

...If this technology were developed, U.S...

...John Kennedy believed that the chances of war were then one in three or one in two...

...But Mueller goes further than most strategists by arguing that the memory of World Wars I and II is enough to convince officials of major countries that war is now irrational...

...For decades conservatives and liberals have disputed whether Hobbes was right about man's nature, with conservatives usually able to point to the last war to prove that mankind was incapable of improving...

...Robert Sherwood called World War H "the first war in American history in which the general disillusionment preceded the firing of the first shot" The French people turned against the effort to maintain Vietnam as a colony...