Word politics

In 1968, the West was stunned and horri fied when the Soviet Union announced the Brezhnev Doctrine of Limited Sover eignty and claimed the right to invade Czechoslavakia. Few western observers noted, however, that the Doctrine faith fully echoed the spirit, and frequently, the very words used by the United States in pronouncing its right to impose its will on Guatemala in 1954, Cuba in 1962, and the Dominican Republic in 1965. In thinking out our policies, this book argues, Washington has failed to "listen to ourselves as if we were the enemy speaking" and has more than met the Soviets half way in devising a reciprocal "two-ghetto system" for Central America and Eastern Europe.

This incisive full-scale analysis of the role of "word politics" in international affairs looks at the many ways verbal strategy has been used and misused by the superpowers. The authors emphasize that the method a state uses to explain the principles behind its actions may be as strategically important as the actions themselves, and should be just as care fully planned. They are critical of the cost-benefit analysis applied by Washing ton in times of crisis because it fails to calculate the long-range costs of princi ples invoked for short-term gain.

The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia dramatically illustrates the interplay of "word politics" between the two great powers. But this book goes beyond this event and its antecedents to study the role of enunciated principles in the man agement of crises and the development of credible deterrence. It surveys their effect on international images and the climate of diplomacy and assays their importance in shaping, deliberately, an international sys tem and in encouraging the emergence of a functional new international law.

By demonstrating effective new ways in which verbal strategy can be made to serve the national interest and world peace, Professors Franck and Weisband have made an important and original con tribution to American foreign policy.

Thomas M. Franck is Professor of Inter national Law at the New York University Law School and Director of the Center for International Studies.

Edward Weisband is Assistant Director of the Center for International Studies and Assistant Professor of Politics at Washington Square College. New York University.