The Game of Disarmament is the definitive account of the arms race and the militarization of our world by Sweden's former Minister of Disarmament and one of the world's outstanding citizens. This is a sobering and detailed account of why twenty-five years of disarmament discussions have failed and of the awesome cost of an arms race which has brought less and less security the faster it has escalated. Alva Myrdal masterfully explains why neither of the superpowers has ever seriously tried to achieve disarmament. She shows the forces within each country whose interests are served by an arms race, and how the two superpowers have used their strategic superiority to reduce other nations' independence. In analyzing the history of disarmament discussions in the post-war world, the book reveals how detente and SALT, despite all their rhetoric, have served to institutionalize the arms race rather than stop and reverse it; and why the nonproliferation treaty did not prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries. Underlying the debate over how many missiles each side will have, the nature of their warheads, the unpredictability of the activities of their submarines and airplanes, and the frantic attempts at verification of each side's weaponry, Alva Myrdal finds the real issues and explains what real security means.

The Game of Disarmament is more than a trenchant analysis of the arms race. It is also a program for disarmament, a series of proposals in all the major areas now under discussion in the United Nations. Steps toward regional cooperation to stop the arms race and the spread of nuclear weapons, proposals for eliminating biological and chemical weapons, ways to roll back the growing militarization of the oceans, and ideas for banning the use of cruel weapons are all carefully set forth.