With Diplomacy at the Brink, David M. Watry has produced a trenchantly revisionist history of Dwight D. Eisenhower's foreign policy during his first presidential term. Watry contends that whereas Eisenhower has the reputation of a careful, methodical president who pursued policies based on mutual security pacts and the avoidance of risk, he in fact followed increasingly unilateralist foreign policy inspired by debates on the Republican right that “harkened back to the nineteenth century” and that “would ultimately destroy the ‘Special Relationship’” (3). The United States sought to halt the growth of Communism throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America even while maintaining its commitment to anticolonialism and the principals of national determination. This effort led to a hard-line approach to a variety of issues, such as protecting the rights and island possessions of Nationalist China, stopping the incursion of Communism in Indochina, and ousting unsympathetic leaders in Guatemala and Iran. Watry argues that this interventionist posture led to conflict with the United Kingdom government, which wished to maintain colonial possessions and British interests and was less concerned with the ideological Cold War battle, preferring negotiation.

This argument highlights a fundamental clash of worldviews. For Eisenhower, the protection of Chang Kai-shek's position as leader of Nationalist China extended to the small islands of Quemoy and Matsu, the contestation of which threatened to escalate into a full-blown war crisis. For the British, these were islands that could be bargained away to ease tensions. The fundamental differences of the two nations over Asia in the Cold War can be summarized by the fact that the British were happy to recognize the People's Republic of China, whereas the United States’ refusal to do so was part of an ideological and legalistic desire to draw firm Cold War lines in the sand. Likewise, Watry shows Eisenhower's distaste for the Geneva conference of 1954, while Antony Eden's successful negotiation of a settlement over Indochina was loudly proclaimed in Europe as a success for British diplomacy and victory for discussion and compromise over ideological posturing. Another area of friction was Eisenhower's apparent willingness to see nuclear weapons as “ordinary” weapons, whilst Churchill and Eden both thought the use of such weapons would see any conflict escalate into all-out war. Watry uses this nuclear disagreement to dramatize transatlantic differences: “While Eden feverishly worked on diplomatic initiatives in Geneva, Eisenhower confidently planned for global nuclear war” (68).

Watry builds to the Suez Crisis (1956) as the conclusion of the narrative of how the Special Relationship unraveled. Watry nicely points out that the fundamental positions taken up by Eisenhower and Eden reversed their positions on Indochina: “Eden claimed the Americans had tried to sabotage the Geneva Convention in order to intervene in Indochina. Eisenhower charged the British with deciding on military intervention and not pursuing every means possible for a peaceful resolution of the Suez Crisis” (124). The vast gulf in opinions on how to resolve the crisis, and the actions of Eisenhower in instigating financial reprises on the world money markets, are compellingly discussed, although the long-term significance of the crisis is probably overstated given the relative ease with which Macmillan was able to restore relations following Eden's departure.

Although the book makes a clear contribution to our understanding of this period in Anglo-American relations, Watry's rather strident arguments often go too far in stressing the differences between the two governments. In particular, ideas and discussions are often read as fundamental beliefs or strategies. This is particularly evident in Watry's handling of British assumptions and aims in the Cold War. On Asia, Watry argues that Churchill's “own deeply Eurocentric foreign policy erroneously dismissed the vital importance of Asia in the fighting of the Cold War” (40). We are not informed why Churchill's position was erroneous, and Watry seems reluctant to acknowledge that the British government had reasons to worry far less about Asia, whether that meant Indochina or Formosa, than it did about the threat of war with the Soviet Union. British policy was to preserve peace, and that meant negotiation with the Soviet Union rather than brinkmanship over places that were, to the British political mindset of the 1950s, of little importance. Rather, the reader is expected to accept criticism of the absence of Cold War ideology in the British position.

Watry does show that the United States and the United Kingdom collaborated over some issues, such as the deposing of Mossadegh from power in Iran, an occasion when British and American aims coincided. Similarly, both sides were determined that the intransigence of Syngman Rhee would not scupper the ceasefire negotiations in Korea in 1953, and accordingly plotted to intervene if needed. These actions show that although the United States and United Kingdom had different aims, both could use a variety of means to achieve them.