The concept of a“strategic triangle” is useful in an analysis of the internal logic of the relationship between the United States, the Soviet Union, and China. The preconditions for a triangular relationship are that each player recognize the strategic salience of the three principals, and the relationship between any two will be affected by each player's relationship to the third. Within the triangle, there are three distinct pattern dynamics: the ménage à trots, consisting of mutually positive relationships among all three; the stable marriage, consisting of a bilateral relationship excluding the third, and the romantic triangle, consisting of one pivot player playing off two suitors. Each of these pattern dynamics has specific rules of rational play. The shift from one pattern dynamic to another is a function of the attempts of the players to freeze a given configuration through commitment to a treaty or a common ideology, interacting with periodic crises that test their commitments.

The World Bank has encountered serious difficulties as it has moved from an almost exclusive concern with capital infrastructure into social sectors of development, such as rural development and population planning. The present study, based on an intensive examination of the Bank's experience in the population sector, concludes that the Bank's effectiveness has been constrained by its institutionalized commitments to (i) its clients, the finance and planning ministries of developing countries; (2) its technology for rendering assistance as embodied in its project lending procedures; and (3) its independence from other organizations that provide development assistance. Instead of modifying these commitments in order to improve the Bank's performance in the population field, its officials have recently reorganized the population program in a way that preserves the Bank's basic priorities and procedures without necessarily advancing its population objectives.

A“political” explanation of collective political activity is examined in the light of 58 varied historical cases. The cases support a description of these activities as largely rational, collectively arrived at, and heavily influenced by recent changes in motives and opportunities.“In” groups are most likely to act collectively when newly threatened,“out” groups when new opportunities present themselves. Emotion and frustrated expectations do not seem to be the best variables on which to base predictive hypotheses. Violence is not strongly associated with communal groups or with emotion as such, but it does seem to be associated with“bad times.” While action is usually based on collectively made decisions, its occurrence does not depend on strong organization; the latter seems, however, to be a condition of continuing and durable effectiveness.

In a framework for analyzing more deeply and comprehensively the question of leadership in the Soviet political system, the roles and functions of the top leader within the collective leadership are considered; so is the problematic relationship of the leadership to the party elite and other functional elites in adopting and implementing major policies calculated to modernize (make more efficient) the operation of highly bureaucratized administrative structures. There is a reciprocal impact of these issues upon public attitudes and motivations as both are perceived by the leadership. Incorporated in the framework are a number of basic analytical concepts from a variety of literatures. The conflict between the requisites of modernization and the imperatives of the political culture is discussed, and matters for the research agenda are noted.

Images of the United States as nuclear adversary presented in official Soviet commentary provide useful clues in the analyses of Soviet strategic policy. Hard, high-threat images stressing the continuing danger of nuclear war are functionally associated with conservative policies emphasizing the need for efforts to improve war-fighting capabilities. Less militant adversary images appear associated with more moderate defense policies. In the 1970s, sharp divergences in adversary images appeared in official Soviet commentaries, indicative of disagreement within the Soviet Union on the defense policy implications of SALT. The policy implications of shifts in adversary images and the location of the political leadership in terms of conflicting moderate and conservative images are examined for the period 1969–1979.