Extract:

Trust is a central issue in international relations (IR), and that centrality is exemplified in the most important struggle of the second half of the twentieth century, the Cold War. The book of Andrew Kydd is about the role of trust and mistrust in international relations and the Cold War. Its basic assumption is that when states can trust each other, they can live at peace, provided that they are security seekers, uninterested in expansion for its own sake. States that are security seekers therefore pay close attention to the motivations of others, attempting to determine who is a fellow security seeker and who is more inherently aggressive. Trust, in this book, is defined as a belief that the other side is trustworthy, that is, willing to reciprocate cooperation, and mistrust as a belief that the other side is untrustworthy, or prefers to exploit one’s cooperation...