Inspectors for peace: a history of the International Atomic Energy Agency

Abstract

War context of the midto late twentieth century. He asserts that Kissinger’s later claim that the Sino-US thaw drove and justified US policy towards Pakistan was a partial truth. In fact, until late April 1971, when the Pakistani backchannel produced a Chinese invitation for a US envoy visit, the US policy was ‘characterized by inertia’ (p. 87). Somewhat more surprisingly, however, Pilkington does not engage with arguments made by fellow scholars Bass or Raghavan (particularly about the United States’ role in the war), and neither book is barely even mentioned. This, unfortunately, limits the sense that the author has engaged with the existing scholarship, and potentially undermines some of his claims to originality. The final chapter, bringing together the strands established in the preceding three sections, examines comparisons and – more tantalisingly – interconnections between US, British, and Canadian policy towards Pakistan and South Asia. I would have liked to have seen some of these ideas developed further – this chapter is quite brief – as they seem to provide a particularly unique perspective on the conflict, with potential significance for thinking not only about Western engagement with South Asia, but also the complexities of interrelations within one bloc of the Cold War. This chapter opens potential avenues for further investigation and particularly brings to mind Lorenz Lüthi’s recent reinterpretation of the Cold War as a series of regional, sub-systemic, and often overlapping or interconnected Cold Wars. Pilkington’s study hints at several Cold Wars: not just one involving US grand strategy, but also another within South Asia (and its foreign relations), and even more prominently, potentially another within the Western bloc, where – as he shows – independent issues (not necessarily alliance politics) drove United States, Canadian and British political elites. The West and the Birth of Bangladesh is a careful, detailed study of US, Canadian and British foreign-policy making, demonstrating that self-interest, rather than a more universalist sense of morality, frequently drives (Western) state decision-making. This is not necessarily a history for readers looking to extend their understanding of the war in East Pakistan, the nature of the accompanying humanitarian crisis (and debates about whether the Pakistan army’s actions constituted a genocide), or how Bangladesh achieved its independence. Rather, it is better suited to historians interested in Western foreign policy who are willing to take a deep dive into one specific case study.