Matthew Evangelista examines the work of transnational peace movements throughout the Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev eras and into the first years of Boris Yeltsin's leadership. Drawing on extensive research in Russian archives and on interviews with Russian and Western activists and policymakers, he investigates the sources of Soviet policy on nuclear testing, strategic defense, and conventional forces.

Evangelista concludes that transnational actors at times played a crucial role in influencing Soviet policy - specifically in encouraging moderate as opposed to hard-line responses - for they supplied both information and ideas to that closed society.