Sci-fi book. humans spy an alien race through a man linked telepathically to one of the aliens, a militaristic race that might be hairy, out of fear of a direct conflict (read in the late 90's)

[Jose]

Earth had discovered FTL tech, but scientists felt that they lag behind in other tech, and they send probes across the universe trying to find races that might be a danger for Earth. If an alien touches the probe, it becomes linked telepathically to a human to act as an spy.
The story is about the attempts to avoid/win the war between both races. Aparently the aliens looked like sentient hairy mammals, and had a militaristic honor bound attitude.