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Arms Races in International Politics: From the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century

confrontation with the most advanced powers of the day. This inevitably led to a marked reliance on ideology in its international operations and recruitment capability. Haslam’s study makes clear how this became a problem after the formal denunciation of Stalin in 1956 when attracting left-wing sympathies became more difficult (though not impossible) and greater reliance had to be placed on the often less effective techniques of bribery and entrapment. This sense of isolation also encouraged a defensive approach to ‘protecting the revolution’ and a marked emphasis on counter-intelligence skills and priorities, an emphasis which was sustained right to the end of the USSR. In addition to highlighting the negative ideological and political impact of Stalin’s denunciation outside the Soviet Union, Haslam, interestingly and correctly, goes on to chronicle the developing ‘loss of faith’ in the alleged superiority of the Soviet system from the 1960s onwards amongst Soviet citizens themselves. Inevitably, this had an impact on the behaviour and commitment of the KGB and GRU and on the efficiency and flexibility of the services. In the final stages of the Cold War, they suffered serious setbacks, often for ideological reasons where theWest had a clear edge. At the same time, as Haslam points out, the 1980s saw some striking professional successes for the KGB and GRU. How does one explain such success at a time of rapid national decline? Perhaps the secret lies in the quality of staff recruitment. To the end, the First Chief (foreign) Intelligence Directorate was recruiting ‘the brightest and best’ to its officer cadre. Perhaps too, this explains its prominent role in the successor state to the USSR. If this work has much to offer both the specialist and the general reader however, this reviewer also has some reservations. First, the detailed account of personnel and structural changes, especially in the 1920s and 1930s, is complex and difficult to follow. There may be too much detail and too many names. A small number of organograms might have helped. Second, Haslam’s impressive understanding of the Soviet worldview and motivation is not always equalled by a similar understanding of the US and UK and their respective intelligence activities. In this context, his account in the ‘Introduction’ of the British response to Alexander Litvinenko’s assassination in 2006 is open to question.