THE END OF ALLIANCE

Many of the questions currently snatching sleep from thoughtful members of the leadership community are raised and discussed in this short book by Ronald Steel, Former Foreign Service Officer. To wit: has the stalemate in nuclear weapons reduced the effective influence of the post-war super-powers, America and Russia? Shall we, in fact, see some pragmatic cooperation between these two against an Asian enace Is NATO a sacred cow and will Europe emerge as a netural Third Force with its own nuclear deterrent to wave around? Taken from the top, the author's answers are, very roughly, yes. His exposition of these and other theses is lucid and leads him to propose ways in which America should face up to the changes now apparent with the passing of the Cold War Years. Instead of the bipolar world in which Russia was the #1 Enemy and Western Europe the #1 Poor Relation, her enemies and poor relations are now fragmented throughout Latin America, Africa, and most pressing of all, Asia, where the problem of containing China is replacing the problem of containing Russia. In other words, the ""special relationship"" with Western Europe must be put into global perspective and America must be about its business elsewhere in the world.