The Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute (CBACI) is an independent, nonprofit corporation established to promote the goals of arms control and nonproliferation, with a special, although not exclusive focus on the elimination of chemical and biological weapons. Established in late 1993, CBACI fosters its goals through an innovative program of research, analysis, technical support, and education designed to provide a strategic perspective and deepened understanding of contemporary arms control challenges to government, industry, and others. The institute's program is intended to alert decision-makers in government, industry, the media, and elsewhere to problems before they become crises, challenge conventional wisdom in light of new realities, and promote the integration of diverse perspectives into decision options that effectively balance competing interests. CBACI stresses, therefore, analyses and activities whose hallmarks are their anticipatory nature, action orientation, integrative approach, policy focus, and political realism.

Frank Sulloway (1996) has stirred up great debate with his thesis that birth order explains and predicts people's proclivity to rebel. Scientists, scholars, business writers, and the broad reading and talk-television public alike all have weighed in to discuss the value and veridicality of Sulloway's thesis. Though many think he may be on to something, certain voices—Frederic Townsend's included—argue that his opus is simply bunk.

On June 29, 2002, President George W. Bush invoked the United States Constitution's Twenty-Fifth Amendment, ratified in 1967. By so doing, he helped focus attention on the amendment's two disability provisions, Sections 3 and 4. Section 3 provides for voluntary transfer of power from the president to the vice president and is wholly dependent on the president's wishes. Section 4 provides for involuntary transfers of power, possibly over the president's objection. This controversial provision allows a vice president, with the assent of a majority of the cabinet, to become acting president. Critics have long argued that the vice president and cabinet officers, since they all owe their positions to the president, may be excessively reluctant to act even when action clearly is warranted. Therefore, some of these critics have proposed that a presidential disability commission be established at the beginning of every administration either to act under Section 4 in place of the cabinet or to provide formal and regular medical assessments so as to press for action in the event of presidential inability. I argue that such proposals are unwise and that their implementation would be counterproductive and even dangerous, both to the presidency and to the nation.

We model mates' interdependent parental investment decisions as a game of Chicken. An individual is better off (in terms of reproductive success) deserting one's offspring to start a new union if one's mate stays to raise the offspring, but better off not deserting if one's mate would in turn desert the offspring. Modelling the parental investment decisions as a game of Chicken leads to four hypotheses: An individual is more likely to desert if (1) the mate is more committed to the offspring, (2) the mate has more resources to invest in children, (3) the former mate is currently unmarried, and (4) the children are older (in sharp contrast to the prediction by both Trivers [1972] and Dawkins and Carlisle [1976]). Data from the 1992 U.S. Current Population Survey provide at least partial support for all hypotheses except Hypothesis 2. In particular, the data analysis strongly supports our prediction that individuals are more likely to desert older children than younger children even when time since separation is controlled for, and rejects the earlier prediction by Trivers (1972) and Dawkins and Carlisle (1976).

The response by Somit and Peterson to my earlier commentary in this journal (Corning, 2000), which sharply criticized their little-noticed 1997 book (by their own admission), must seem like old news that should be relegated to the obituary pages. On the contrary, it concerns one of the central political issues of our time—what sustains modern democracy, and what are its future prospects. Somit and Peterson in their modest book offered both a diagnosis and a prescription. I concluded in my essay that the result was disappointing—more for what was omitted than for any commissions. My critique involved a rather subtle argument, and, judging by the authors' response (Somit and Peterson, 2001), it seems to have been lost on them as well.