Rescuing the Future

The book arose out of the outrage expressed by Senator D P Moynihan at the author's statement that the 'Cold War was the greatest intellectual failure of history'. In a reaction, Professor Stephen Cohen renewed his suggestion to compile the author's occasional writings. Stephen Cohen made the selection and grouped them into the following five parts: 'With Nehru', 'The Cold War and its Shadow', 'Fresh Water Diplomacy', 'Diplomacy between Unequal and Equal Neighbours' and 'Looking Ahead'. On the express suggestion of J N Dixit, the volume also includes a letter the author wrote on his book War and Peace on India's relations with Pakistan. The three-part essay on Non-proliferation was written at different times, but the last one after the US Congress approved the Bush-Singh Agreement on Civil Nuclear Co-operation. What binds these essays, written over twenty-five years, is that the consequence of technological gallop was not contemporaneously comprehended. Big countries and small aggravated the handicaps for two-thirds of mankind by their misconceptions. The author argues that in a nuclear world, professional diplomacy demands a more consistent adherence to the vision of a socially just and peaceful world. The old arrogance of size and conventional or nuclear military superiority has lost the old coercive capability. In the twenty-first century, democracy and transparent accountability has to supplement traditional means of security.