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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2019
The Author sees the conflict between Russia and the US as becoming more and more dangerous. He describes in particular the cyber war as a very new factor. His approach is to make leaders understand that both sides of a conflict have to be acknowledged.
In his effort to follow his own recipe he describes viewpoints on both sides of the conflict but falls short in analyzing the real factors of aggressive foreign policies, at least on the side of the US. For him it seems to be natural for the US to have several hundred military basis around the world. He neither questions the post-WW2 world order of containment versus the alleged aggressive Soviet Union nor the extension of this type of behavior in the world after the demise of the Soviet Union. However, he tries to explain the Russian viewpoint and thinks the West should take that into consideration.
In details he omitted some unpleasant facts. When he writes about the Helsinki Accord of 1975 that determines that changes of borders only are legitimate by peaceful means he should have pointed out that the first breach of this Accord was the war against Serbia in order to break Kosovo out of that country.
The Charter of Paris of 1990 ended the Cold War and established the reason for ending military alliances in Europe. Of course, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved but not NATO. Beebe does not provide a good reason for this difference.
Minutia:
The secret channel between the CIA and the KGB was called Gavrilov after a Russian 19th century poet.
Litvinenko was a MI6/Chechen militant who got killed in London.
In his effort to follow his own recipe he describes viewpoints on both sides of the conflict but falls short in analyzing the real factors of aggressive foreign policies, at least on the side of the US. For him it seems to be natural for the US to have several hundred military basis around the world. He neither questions the post-WW2 world order of containment versus the alleged aggressive Soviet Union nor the extension of this type of behavior in the world after the demise of the Soviet Union. However, he tries to explain the Russian viewpoint and thinks the West should take that into consideration.
In details he omitted some unpleasant facts. When he writes about the Helsinki Accord of 1975 that determines that changes of borders only are legitimate by peaceful means he should have pointed out that the first breach of this Accord was the war against Serbia in order to break Kosovo out of that country.
The Charter of Paris of 1990 ended the Cold War and established the reason for ending military alliances in Europe. Of course, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved but not NATO. Beebe does not provide a good reason for this difference.
Minutia:
The secret channel between the CIA and the KGB was called Gavrilov after a Russian 19th century poet.
Litvinenko was a MI6/Chechen militant who got killed in London.
