Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War

Despite large stockpiles of deadly arms and some significant ideological differences, the developed world has been at peace for a longer continuous period than ever before. Arguing that this state of affairs is no accident, this book offers a detailed history of public policies and attitudes to war in modern times. The author sets out to show that, in spite of two 20th-century world wars, major war as a policy option among developed nations has gradually passed out of favour. He also contends that nuclear weapons have not had an important impact on this trend, neither making a crucial contribution to nor severely threatening post-war stability. Tracing the major Cold War crises - Korea, Cuba, Vietnam - the book concludes that, despite their revolutionary and expansionist ideology, former Soviet leaders never visualized major war as a sensible tactic. Only in the Third World does war remain endemic, and even here the author is cautiously optimistic that the developed world's aversion to war might prove infectious.