The Vietnam teach-ins are passé, but severe questioning and criticism persist in both the popular and semipopular press and, significantly, in the imposing array of books issued by commercial publishers. Unlike the realist-idealist dichotomy of the late 1940's and early 1950's, which was confined to the academic community, the result of our present involvement in an Asian war is a debate of national proportions, not only about Vietnam but about the nature of America's role and responsibility in international life and about priorities in domestic and foreign policies. Inevitably, much of the literature is polemical, hammering on the major theme: the Johnson Administration has led American foreign policy astray; thus alternatives must be sought.

Afarm leader in an inland state talks about surplus wheat rotting at the railroad sidings, and his words create bitterness among hungry people in countries far away; a promise made by the leader of a powerful nation may raise their hopes. A film produced for an American audience may stir envy of our comforts among the people of Western Europe and contempt for our materialism among the intellectuals of Asia, yet a book, or, indeed, another film, may combat false notions of American life and institutions. Race prejudice in one country repels the people of a second country and makes them more receptive to the blandishments of a third. The achievements of a nation—whether in technology, science, economic productivity, or military preparedness—may influence the attitudes and actions of both leaders and masses abroad.

KTO KOVO?” asked Lenin. “Who governs?” echoes a contemporary American political scientist. The question is of perennial interest. The “who's” have the capacity to influence the behavior of others. They include political leaders, who customarily exercise power through public or governmental bodies, and non-political leaders, who may exercise power through the command of other values, such as wealth, income, expertise. Political leaders and non-political leaders together constitute the elite; they lead the masses, who, needless to say, greatly outnumber the elite.

ARE there any connections between epistemological theories and JTXpolitical doctrines? This question is of more than theoretical interest. If such links exist, it follows that concrete political events are influenced, not only directly by political ideologies, but also, at least indirectly, by abstract philosophical beliefs.

The oil crises of the 1970s ended a distinct historical period in the control of oil. While the demise of the first oil regime is clear to all, the nature of that regime itself is less well understood. What, in particular, was the distribution of power among the actors in the regime? What were the structures and goals of this system during the long period (approximately the first seventy years of the twentieth century) during which petroleum became vital to industrial society and emerged as the most important commodity in world commerce?

The student of World War II, even if he confines his study to a limited period or a narrow aspect of the purely military side of the war, is confronted with an enormous body of records and an imposing array of published works and official documents. The testimony, exhibits, and other data assembled by the Joint Congressional Committee investigating the Pearl Harbor attack, for example, filled 39 thick volumes; the published record of the Nürnberg Trials, 56 volumes. For the World War II years alone, the Army, it has been estimated, retained more than 17,000 tons of records, and also possesses an undetermined but large quantity of prewar records essential to an understanding of the wartime period. When to this total is added the extant records of the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marine Corps, the result is a truly staggering mass of paper calculated to dismay rather than hearten the historian.

The publication of John Conway's book, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933–45 may be a suitable moment for a comprehensive look at the wider subject of Nazism and Christianity and the recent literature about it. Ever since Rolf Hochhuth's Deputy with its travesty of the tragedy of the Jews of Europe, the world has resounded with clamor about the silence of the Deputy of Christ at the time when the blood brothers of the founder of the faith were being slaughtered.

On July 28, 1949, the French parliament ratified the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; a week before, it had given its assent to the treaty establishing the Council of Europe. On May 9, 1950, M. Robert Schuman proposed the creation of a European coal and steel community.

None of these arrangements for the defense of the free world and the unification of Europe altered France's status as one of the “big three” of the West: her sovereignty was not going to be substantially reduced by the institutions then created or planned.

Mahan wrote protractedly about sea power, although certainly not more than his notable subject deserved, without using an unqualified “Sea Power” as the title for any of his works. His “Sea Power in Its Relation to the War of 1812,” for example, was published in two volumes totaling 860 pages. Held against this standard of thoroughness, any book entitled “Air Power” and running a modest 200 pages should perhaps be suspect at the outset. The purchaser should nevertheless be entitled to anticipate that such a book would in fact concentrate on discussing air power, that air power would be defined and placed in perspective as an instrument of policy, and that knowledgeability would be exhibited with respect to existing and projected national air forces. The reader might also expect a full awareness of the scientific and technological revolution now proceeding at so accelerated a pace that air power in some respects has to repeat its coming of age almost annually. Some expectation might be justified that the author would make his own contribution toward concepts and philosophy touching the use of air forces and the place of air power. If the author was English, as is Mr. Lee, the reader could also confidently expect some appreciation of future British air power, more especially as the United Kingdom has unequivocally replaced its ancient reliance on sea power with a new reliance on air power as the military fulcrum of its national strategy.

We live in a world that cannot possibly satisfy our highest expectations. For these expectations must envision a universal society in which man would be forever secure from the exercise of arbitrary power; a truly reasonable world governed by harmonious action and not by conflicting interests; particularly, a world in which life would not seek to dominate life and the threat of violence would disappear. Machiavelli once described this world of the imagination as one where statecraft could be based solely upon considerations of “charity, integrity, and humanity, all uprightness, and all piety.” In point of fact, however, it would be a world in which statecraft would be altogether unnecessary. But not only is statecraft necessary; there are limitations imposed upon the possibilities of political action and these limitations must have an important, even a decisive, bearing upon the various strategies open to the political actor.

In the process of reviewing three recent books on international monetary developments, this article focuses on both positive and normative aspects of the “exchange-rate crisis” and its effects on policy formulation in both developed and developing countries. It attributes short-run exchange rate volatility mainly to shifts in expectations and movements in international interest rate differentials; at the same time, it links long-run exchange rate movements to the current account positions of various countries. The article also focuses on the policy implications of such volatility in a world characterized by real as opposed to monetary disturbances and discusses the alternatives open to policy makers in that context. Finally, it critically evaluates the argument that flexible exchange rates among industrialized countries have benefited the less developed countries, and discusses the implications of these developments for their choice of exchange-rate regime.

A Characteristic of warfare is that it has changed with the arrival of new weapons and concepts to produce a series of distinct pasts, each of which in its time proved surprising in terms of the past once removed. Although critics have generally been able to observe that the generals were prepared for the last war, they might with greater insight have noted that the generals were prepared not just for the last war, but for all the past wars, and hence were seldom at a loss except on encountering foes better equipped than themselves. Cortez was prepared for Montezuma; Montezuma, up against new notions and gadgets, was not prepared for him.

Self-Criticism has been a characteristic of NATO ever since it was established. We are perhaps too inclined to pull up our institutions by the roots from time to time to see how they are growing. But whether this is a good habit in the ordinary way or not, it is something that was virtually bound to happen in 1957, after the most critical twelve months that the Western nations had experienced since the Second World War. Nineteen fifty-six began with a widespread feeling of relief that the danger of a major war in Europe (the only kind of war that seemed possible) had greatly receded. Before this feeling of relief had time to wear off, there supervened a series of crises that shook NATO to its foundations. There was a virtual state of war in Algeria (itself a part of the NATO area), and many of France's best troops were withdrawn from Europe to fight it; there was an increasingly bitter dispute involving three members of NATO over the future of Cyprus; there was the Suez crisis, which also involved both NATO interests and troops from the NATO area; and there was the Hungarian revolution, which greatly damaged, if it did not destroy, the hesitantly re-emerging belief in Soviet good faith.

The Council of Economic Mutual Assistance (CEMA) was established by the USSR in 1949 to co-ordinate the economic activities of its newly acquired empire in Eastern Europe. CEMA's true role in intra-Bloc relations has undergone significant changes since the death of Stalin. These changes, and their implications for Soviet foreign and domestic policies, are the subject of speculation in this article.

Until recently, most of the literature on political development has centered primarily on nation building. Relatively little expenditure of time and energy has been directed toward some of the most gnawing political problems that confront leaders in industrializing societies: how to remain at the apex of power; what steps must be taken to create and then preserve public authority; and by what means leaders mobilize support and secure compliance with policy decisions when their brittle governmental structure is simultaneously confronted with crises of integration, mobilization, and distribution. The imperative need is to raise questions concerning (i) how authority is built and maintained, and (2) the means by which political leaders implement policy when they are confronted with a skeptical and volatile population. Those are the ends toward which this article is directed.