Flawed Logics

Flawed Logics: Strategic Nuclear Arms Control from Truman to Obama by James H. Lebovic [opens] the reader's eyes to the complex and chaotic process of American policymaking during the Cold War... highly recommended to students of all levels of expertise, as well as politicians and members of academia.

James Lebovic's Flawed Logics is a thoughtful, penetrating, and disturbing book, well worth the interested reader's attention. It offers a thorough review and analysis of how American officials and advisers shaped U.S. arms control policies on nuclear weapons in negotiations with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, with brief consideration given as well to U.S. arms control policymaking since George H.W. Bush's presidency.

For anyone interested in a sophisticated history of US arms control efforts, James Lebovic's Flawed Logics provides a fine starting point... Lebovic avoids the quantitative methods, airtight logical typologies, and parsimonious theorizing that dominate much of contemporary international relations scholarship. Instead, he sticks to a qualitative reading of the policy debates over nuclear arms agreements and nuclear strategies within each presidential administration since Harry S. Truman's.

[Lebovic's] book provides a new perspective through which students can have a thorough picture of the history of nuclear arms control negotiations. The book is also of interest to experts and policy makers who would like to deepen their knowledge about the role of beliefs and ideas in the field.

James Lebovic skillfully dissects the opposing viewpoints in the U.S. arms control community during and after the Cold War and demonstrates that both sides of the debate exhibited perversely illogical inconsistencies. The book is extremely well written, well organized, and thoroughly researched.