Avoiding Armageddon: The Companion Book to the PBS Series

Rating:
Summary: A good book...if you're a Democrat
Review: I was very disappointed with this book. I was looking for a comprehensive review of all of the issues associated with WMD proliferation...something evenly balancing conservative and liberal policies/viewpoints and accomplishments over time (no one's perfect with respect to this stuff). But instead this book reads like a Clinton re-election speech. Should have known since it was funded by Ted Turner Documentaries.

To save you a little time (and money), let me summarize the main points in the book:
- Nunn-Lugar Act is good (that's the only bipartisan point I agreed with)
- Clinton's blanket waiver policy for the Russians to comply with Nunn-Lugar is good
- Bush's insistence that Russia comply before receiving billions of US $'s is bad
- Anything that Clinton did was good...and Gore would have kept it going
- Anything that either Bush did was bad...and Reagan was 50/50
That's about it. I just saved you from reading 330 pages of Democratic eyewash masquerading as journalism...unless that's what you're looking for. In that case, it'll be a good book for you.

Rating:
Summary: World issues...analysis and solutions....one view
Review: In a classic example to the power of anecdotal style of writing for discussing "serious" issues, Schram is successful in conveying the perils faced by the world (mostly from the Western, and more specifically from the US point of view). The book has been organized into distinct and independent sections covering various aspects of the terrorist threats. The author does manage to convey important ideas and some potential solutions (mostly utopian dreams) to the problems identified in each section (the identification of the problem and the analysis of the origins of the problems are well discussed and documented). Of particular interest were the section on nuclear threat in the South Asia, and the interview with terrorist "planner" from Al-Queda. In the former, the author provides a chilling array fo scenarios of what could happen if indeed a nuclear war does erupt in South Asia. The dangers of "fog of war" , quoting mostly Pakistani army personnel and US analysts makes for some compelling reading. The section also provides an interesting account of how the two main players - India and Pakistan became nuclear players from the seemingly innocent "atoms of peace" program. The role of the West (particularly US and Canada) in the case of India and the role of China (in Pakistan's program) is well discussed. The author fails to provide any "reasonable and practical" solutions to defuse the tense situations. The same holds true for most of the book - good discussions on problem statement and description, fairly good analysis, not-so-great proposed solution methods. There is also a section on what ordinary citizens and "world leaders" can do to decrease the threats mentioned in the book..makes for some interesting reading, but doubtful if any foreign policy framers would abide by it, given the political framework the foreign poliocy decisions have to depend on.

Overall, the book is well-organized, written for easy reading, avoids political hyperboles (though a tinge of leftist agenda is noticable at times), and provides an excellent summary pf the origins of most of the current threats we face as a world . A must read for anyone remotely interested in current affairs, foreign policy and modern history.