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 idea that peaceful adjustment of the relations of states may result from contention among them Claude believes to be hopelessly outmoded. The presence of nuclear weapons means that any equilibrium of states, however stable it may seem, is not nearly stable enough. The task of the theorist and the statesman alike is to introduce order from above, to replace the “invisible hand” by which adjustments are contrived in systems of self-regulation with something a little more substantial. Here the juxaposition of our two authors enlivens the subject. F. H. Hinsley considers the notion of spontaneous equilibrium to be a liberating idea. He applies the eighteenth century's beautiful system of natural harmony to the world of the present and is delighted with the result. Though large-scale war would now be devastating, we need not worry. Nuclear power is absolute and nuclear states, competent to control the instruments of power at their disposal, deter each other absolutely.

Most historians of the Weimar Republic, fully occupied with the domestic affairs of the Brüining government in its crucial place between democracy and dictatorship, show little interest in Germany's foreign policy of the early 1930's. If they do devote some attention to it, their evaluation tends to be highly negative, regardless of their political or national sympathies. Observers who can be classified as liberals, socialists, Nazis, and nationalists—at odds among themselves on virtually every other question—all voice strong criticism of the Brüning diplomacy.

How large is the Soviet gross national product (GNP) relative to our own? A third as large? Half? Two-thirds? Which of the estimates is correct? As the unique solution, none of them, unfortunately. Nor need we search for other numbers: these are probably the best of the lot, and in any case, the reply would be the same. The problem is not one of data, or of definitions, or of estimating methods. Such problems do exist and present difficulties of their own, but the inescapable and immovable barrier to the unique solution in US-USSR national output comparisons is the crucial fact of differences in the structures of the American and Soviet economies. In general, in comparisons of different economies or of the same economy at different times, diverse structures create what the economist calls an “index-number problem.” The worst of it is, the “problem” is insoluble.

Between 1944 and 1948, six European countries experienced Communist seizures of power. Three were enemies and three friends and allies of Soviet Russia during the war; four were Slav countries; five were predominantly peasant with some remnants of feudalism; with the exception of industrial Czechoslovakia, their prewar record in democratic government was far from exemplary. In all of them, however, the Communists were successful.

What were the components of Communist success and democratic defeat? The case of Czechoslovakia shows clearly that the active interest and impressive display of Soviet power in contrast to the West's hesitant policy not only formed the background but were the chief bases for Communist successes in Eastern Europe. Careful, professional infiltration of democratic institutions and the wishful thinking of the democrats did the rest.

At a time when proposals for a European strategic force centering on Anglo-French nuclear cooperation are once again the subject of serious official discussions, it would seem appropriate to raise a number of more general issues about the making of defense policy in Western Europe today.

Political surprise provides a double stimulus for social scientists. An unexpected regime change, an unanticipated revolution—indeed, any political event that is both dramatic and unforeseen—forces us to analyze not just the origins of the change itself but the origins of our own amazement. The political surprises that emerged in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s have, accordingly, compelled us to ask not simply why events unfolded as they did but why our predictive theories left us unprepared. The five essays collected here address both of these questions and therefore offer insights about both politics and scholarship.

In a broadcast from Havana on October 15, 1967, Cuba's líder máximo told his audience, “Who could deny the significance to the revolutionary movement of the blow of Che's death? It is a fierce blow, a very hard one.” One week earlier the near-legendary ideologue of the Cuban Revolution had been captured and shot by Bolivian authorities in a tiny Andean village named Higueras. Troops had also taken into custody the French Marxist Régis Debray, who had gained attention with his interpretation of the Cuban revolution before joining the Guevara-led band of rebels in Bolivia.

Ethnicity is one of the less precise terms in the vocabulary of social science. Most frequently used in reference to language, its meaning is sometimes extended to cover common social, cultural, and physical characteristics transmitted as a matter of inheritance and capable of producing social solidarities based on affect. So defined, ethnicity has both subjective and objective dimensions, for it refers both to perceptible traits and to perception whereby the former assume social relevance.

The political scientist and the politician of our day both tend to be skeptical of international law. The political scientist, who is interested in studying the distribution of power, sees in the classic rules of international law neither an adequate description of the conduct of states nor an effective prescription for ordering national conduct. The politician, who is interested in the exercise of power, finds it difficult to realize what he considers vital national interests within the traditional legal framework. Both scholars and practitioners apparently feel that the older rhetoric of international law—nonintervention, peaceful settlement of disputes, the law of war—is to a great extent irrelevant to a world in turmoil. Bombings without declaration of war, illegal reprisals, campaigns of political assassination, and military intervention to crush internal revolt are accepted as part of the backdrop of world conflict. It seems increasingly clear that the classic rules of international law and the basic political and moral principles on which they rest are now used less and less by the great powers even as points of reference. Nothing sounds more old-fashioned than Secretary Stimson's remarks of less than forty years ago, in advising against the establishment of a national intelligence service, that “gentlemen don't read each other's mail.”

There are many means employed by the United States to maintain and advance its position throughout the world during the current period of bipolar conflict. The most conspicuous of these are subsumed under what is known as the Mutual Security Program. Nearly half of the approximately $4 billion budgeted during fiscal year 1962 for mutual security went into military assistance. Of this, about $125 million was devoted to the training of foreign military personnel. This Military Assistance Training Program, including the training of foreigners in the United States and that administered overseas by Military Assistance Advisory Groups (MAAG's), missions, overseas commands, and third countries, constitutes by far the largest effort the world has known on the part of one country to educate and train citizens of others. The number of foreigners given military assistance training in the United States each year—about 16,500 in 1960—exceeds the number trained here under the Fulbright, Smith-Mundt, and Agency for International Development (AID) programs combined.

It came as no surprise that First Secretary and Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the 22nd Party Congress predicted the next historical period will witness “the further increase in the role of the Party as the higher form of public and political organization, the strengthening of its directing influence in all sections of communist building….” What is the nature of this projected party role and how does it differ from past practice? What problems have been encountered by the Khrushchev regime in directing the state through the party apparatus and how has it attempted to cope with these difficulties? By focusing on the Party's changing role since 1953, what light can be shed on modifications in the composition, procedures, and structure of the Party during the Khrushchev era?

Before one can make conclusive statements about the causes of western imperialism, one must comprehend the network of political processes and administrative relations by which expansionist demands were fed into the political systems of imperial powers. The channels followed by demands which led to British and American imperial expansion are mapped through reference to historical studies based on a wide range of primary source materials. Expansionist demand channels are studied within the framework of Easton's concept of the political system, and of linkage theories concerning the relation of national political systems to the extra-societal environment. The British and American systems provide contrasting examples of simple and complex linkage. American expansion can be studied within the simple domestic-international linkage framework developed by contemporary authors; to comprehend the process of British expansion, one must consider the complicating factor of local imperial demands.

This review of eight recently published works on Yugoslavia suggests that although information about the country is constantly increasing, the conceptual approach of social scientists continues to limit our understanding of its politics. Focusing on a variety of problems of interpretation that arise out of the concept of ideology in each work, the author offers alternative interpretations of Yugoslav politics and assesses the current state of our knowledge.

Foreign policy, the very existence of which Soviet leaders admitted only hesitatingly during the green years of the Revolution—although they availed themselves of it as an indispensable tool from the moment they gained power—has become a primary weapon in safeguarding the interests of the “Socialist Fatherland” and propagating the struggle against “world capitalism.”

The theory of international relations of a new type characterizes Soviet-East European relations. Six functional aspects include pragmatic adjustments to polycentric communism; theoretical provisions for a transitional phase prior to the realization of communism on an international level; emphasis upon the East European subsystem as an indispensable core of Soviet national security; organizational efforts toward economic and political integration through COMECON and WTO; Communist summit conferences to forge and publicize unity; and the internationalist duty of socialism with special military obligations toward the territorial defense and security of Marxist-Leninist regimes. Faced with the unacceptable costs and military risks in forcibly expanding the international socialist system, the Soviets have concentrated on the maintenance of their East European subsystem: for as long as the Soviet Union maintains its exclusivist Marxist-Leninist doctrine, Eastern Europe will constitute the only dependable source of regime security and ideological fulfillment for the CPSU.