Oil and water : cooperative security in the Persian Gulf /

Moller, a senior research fellow at the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute, has assembled a useful collection of papers on strategic issues in the Middle East. Despite the book's subtitle, this volume does not always focus on the Gulf and includes interesting studies pertaining to Israel, Turkey, and the Caspian Sea. Missing is any extensive analysis of Saudi Arabia, which detracts from effective coverage of the Gulf. On the other hand, many of the contributors provide sophisticated perspectives on American policy in terms of whether the US is a threat to regional states or a defensive counterweight to the perceived aggressive designs of Iraq and Iran. The American policy of "dual containment" is examined, as is "unipolarity" as a consequence of the end of the Cold War. Clearly, Russia is no longer viewed as an important actor in the Gulf. Although offering considerable insight, this volume unfortunately is marred by disorganization in the sequence of topics and by the lack of information on European and Japanese dependence on Gulf oil. Also problematic is the poor index, which has no subcategories, no entries for Iraq or Iran, and which contains several spelling errors. Overall, Moller's edited work should be of value to graduate students and advanced undergraduates. A. Klinghoffer Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Camden