Perceived images

Current thinking on arms control and disarmament has been dominated by the analysis of such "objective" factors as the number of weapons, their characteristics, technological developments and nuclear weapons deployment policies. Yet arms control negotiations have had little success so far. In this volume, Daniel Frei asserts that while such objective analysis is indeed indispensable, it needs to be supplemented by a careful, document-based description of Soviet and U.S. perceptions of one another and of the kind of assumptions that have thus far compelled their leaders to seek security in growing numbers of sophisticated weapons at ever-increasing cost.