Many boomers still remember the recruits under their school desks in repeated bomb exercises during the Cuban missile crisis - a clear representation of how disappointed the United States is with the nuclear war. We have so far succeeded in preventing such a catastrophe, in part because of the various treaties signed in the 1960s that abandoned the use of nuclear technology for military purposes.

Gregor Malard in Fowl seeks to understand why some countries agree to these restrictions on their sovereign will - and why others have not. Builds its investigations into the 1968 signing of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which, while binding in nature, has not been adhered to by all signatories.

Malard regards Europe's respect for treaty rules as opposed to the three rules of the global nonproliferation regime: Israel, India, and Pakistan. It seeks to find reasons for these contradictions, and makes it a compelling case that the authors of the treaty and the method of writing the rules - transparent, ambiguous or non-transparent - have been of great importance in how the rules are interpreted and whether they are followed.

Refused as regulations changed. In promoting this important part of the story, Malar is not only presenting a new perspective in our diplomatic history, but more importantly, drawing important conclusions about possible conditions that could facilitate the inclusion of the rest of the NPT impediments.

Implications is an important and timely book that is sure to be of interest to policy makers, activists and citizens alike.