THE year 1960 saw the first major open break in the Sino-Soviet alliance. Beginning with the Hongqi (Red Flag) articles of April 1 and 15, and receiving a quietus only after the November conference of 81 Communist parties in Moscow, the divergent views of the two Communist partners were laid bare to public view. Western observers have been virtually overwhelmed by this windfall of fascinating material, and speculation as to its meaning has been rampant.

In modern strategy no distinction has been labored more than that between deterrence and defense. Everyone now knows that to avert war is not the same as to protect the nation or win if war occurs. But what everyone knows vaguely, few may know well, and what the distinction implies for the mixture of military forces the nation should buy, still fewer may perceive. For deterrence and defense as military objectives overlap as well as diverge, complement each other as well as compete, so that a simple distinction can become complicated. Of special contemporary relevance, moreover, what is alleged to strengthen deterrence in the short run may jeopardize it in the long. About our military preparations, few queries are more important than “How will they influence the nature and intensity of the arms race, and therefore the prospects for arms control?”

A consensus seems to have emerged among government decision-makers, military strategists, and scholars that an invulnerable nuclear retaliatory capability is a national goal of high priority, if not top priority. The Kennedy Administration, to a much greater degree than its predecessor, has given indication that the rationale and ingredients of a “second-strike” nuclear strategy are understood and being concretely programmed into defense planning. The agreed-upon goal is for the United States to be able to launch a devastating retaliatory nuclear attack against the enemy regardless of the size of the enemy's first strike against the United States. “As a power which will never strike first,” explained President Kennedy in his March 28 defense budget message, “our hopes for anything close to an absolute deterrent must rest on weapons which come from hidden, moving, or invulnerable bases which will not be wiped out by surprise attack. A retaliatory capability based on adequate numbers of these weapons would deter any aggressor from launching or even threatening an attack—an attack he knew could not find or destroy enough of our force to prevent his own destruction.”

Some of the 25,000 American businessmen, most of the 30,000 American missionaries, and all of the 33,000 public officials working abroad have received some form of training in “overseasmanship” prior to embarking upon their careers as technical assistants. This training was not supposed to make them better managers, Christians, diplomats, or technicians, but to enhance their usefulness in a strange cultural environment. Such training may be viewed as a specialized form of education designed to influence their performance or behavior. Conveying knowledge about foreign cultures or about the processes of change is an important form of training as well as a legitimate aspect of education; the distinction is one of purpose and focus. Employers are more sympathetic to offering “training” programs than to providing “education” for their overseas agents, even if the subject matter is essentially the same. They expect a specific result—better performance—from their training programs.

The heightened interest of many economists in recent years in the subject of economic development has been accompanied by their recognition of the importance of the role of non-economic forces in the initiation and pursuit of development. The present article is an attempt to explore the power of some of these forces and the circumstances under which they operate. I shall give particular attention to nationalist ideology and leadership, owing to their pre-eminence among non-economic forces. Throughout, the focus will be on underdeveloped countries outside the Western Hemisphere and outside the Communist bloc.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the rate of economic growth in India will have to be increased if the standard of living is to rise significantly within the foreseeable future. At the moment India is completing her Second Five-Year Plan. The objectives of the plan are indeed very modest. They provide for a 25 per cent increase in the national income and an 18 per cent increase in the per capita income over a five-year period. To reach these objectives, investment in the private and public sectors was to be increased to a rate of 10.68 per cent of the national income by 1961. An 18 per cent increase would raise the per capita income of India to only Rs 331 ($69.50) and the investment rate of 10.68 per cent may be just about sufficient for a take-off into economic development. Nevertheless, almost immediately after these targets were approved, doubts appeared whether the necessary funds for investment would become available. Although more foreign aid was provided than was originally expected, this was more than offset by the difficulties faced in mobilizing domestic resources. By 1958 the total objectives were revised downward by about 12 per cent.

Prosperity brings its own disorders. When American sociology, unregarded and undemanding, was pleased to be allowed an academic existence, it suffered from lack of self-confidence. The other academic disciplines thought little of it and it was unknown to the outside world. Its rustic naïveté and its simple enthusiasm aroused no antipathies within its own parochial confines. When, however, it began to thrive—when its output became more interesting intellectually, as it did in the i930's, and the attention of the great world, of foundations, governments, and publicists, was drawn toward it—it also began to suffer the malaise of the prosperous. Professor Robert Lynd was probably the first of those who found that the subject they had fostered had not kept pace with their own political development toward the radical populism which was one trend in the leftward movement of the 1930's. In Knowledge for What? he accused his sociological colleagues of the evasion of the responsibilities implicit in the potentialities of their discipline. He was strongly for planning, for equality, and above all for radical political engagement; American sociologists—indeed, American social scientists in general—were charged with indifference, academic triviality, and subservience to the reigning authorities of state and economy.

The relationship between economics and politics is a complex one. Economics no doubt has important areas of theory where politics does not play a significant role, yet politics enters into the picture whenever the question is raised of mobilizing human and physical resources for economic ends. What is true of economic activity in general is particularly true of economic growth, where changes in attitudes and methods of work lend great importance to organizational problems. In discussing this question much depends, of course, on what one means by “politics.” The term may be used in a very narrow and partisan sense or, much more broadly, be applied to policy-making in regard to strategic choices among alternate courses of action. It is in this broader sense that politics is inherent in all economic action, and policy-making in this realm may be handled by a variety of agencies. When it comes to studying different systems of economic growth, policy decisions must be taken into consideration as much as rates and levels of achievement.

Ranke remarks somewhere that defending its borders is not sufficient justification for a nation's policy; “the condition of its existence is that it provides a new expression of the spirit of mankind.” That, he added, is “its mandate from God.” In his new, monumental Deutsche Geschichte, Professor Michael Freund finds that German history never has been “providential” in this sense, as was Israel's, Greece's, or Rome's which, respectively, brought forth the ideas of justice, science, and law. Having surveyed “a terrifying chain of catastrophes,” he concludes, half in despair, half in resignation: “Nothing remains of German history but a quiet luminescence” (p. 780). The phrase belongs to Prince Oscar von Preussen, who fell in Russia as Hitler's soldier, and whatever his merits as a coiner of phrases may be, it cannot be an accident that his words in particular were chosen to conclude a volume adorned with over a thousand other apt quotations. It will be seen that Freund's sense of history has a Friderician ring, and this also explains his terminal evasion into aestheticism: “form” has been a comfort of last resort precisely for those German historians who have grappled most profoundly with the problem of freedom and power.

This volume consists of a series of essays that were published in substantially the same form in various scholarly journals in 1957-1960. In them, Schelling attempts to adapt game theory to sociologically relevant aspects of the strategic process not encompassed within the formal mathematics of the theory. Thus his book represents a strikingly original contribution to the literature. In general, the essays share the theme that formal game theory is not a sufficiently good tool for sociological analysis of the bargaining process that takes place in real life. (This contention would not be denied by orthodox game theorists, since they do not regard the provision of such a tool as the purpose of game theory.) Except for this unifying thread, the various aspects of Schelling's analysis do not seem to me to evince a consistent point of view. To press this point, however, would be pedantic, for in The Strategy of Conflict the reader will discover a number of illuminating and penetrating sociological analyses of strategic problems.