If the passing of the European age is not to mean the passing of the democratic way of life, democrats must be better equipped than they now are to carry on the struggle for the minds and hearts of men who dwell beyond the confines of the Western, democratic world. Indeed, if democracy is to maintain itself against the forces which threaten it from within, democrats must reexamine the bases of their belief. The struggles to make the world safe for democracy and to make democracy safe in its traditional Western homelands are indeed so intertwined that the task is as urgent on the one front as it is on the other.

It is important, in the light of the continuing debate concerning the interpretation of agreements, to clarify the underlying assumptions of contextual methodology and to determine its theory of meaning. The issues have recently been probed in some detail in Gidon Gottlieb's critique1 of the philosophic underpinning of the framework for the interpretation of agreements adopted by Myres S. McDougal, Harold D. Lasswell, and James C. Miller. It is the thesis of this paper that in significant respects Gottlieb's alternative solution and the framework of McDougal and Lasswell admit a similar need for analyzing extra-textual data to facilitate nonarbitrary decision-making.

Any attempt at the formulation or critical review of American policies in Europe is conditioned by our historical conceptions. Whether we try to define American policy with regard to Germany, the economic recovery of Europe, or the protection of western Europe against further Russian inroads, we are consciously or unconsciously influenced by what we consider to be the “normal” organization of Europe, and are thereby led to direct our political actions as much as possible toward the restoration of the traditional order. There exists, on the other hand, a general awareness of radical changes in world politics and especially European affairs, and our practical political experiences demonstrate that we are constantly driven to adopt unprecedented measures which run counter to what we still envisage as the historical pattern of Europe.

Senator Fulbright's recent excursion into the analysis of1 foreign policy has been hailed as a breath of fresh air that sweeps away the cobwebs of cant and misunderstanding. The history of postwar foreign policy explains why such a study is needed. The inspiring successes and inventive genius of the first Truman Administration—an era unparalleled in American history for resourceful and courageous adaptation to changing circumstances—have been succeeded by disarray and confusion in American foreign policy. Both the early postwar stereotypes and the grand design of policy are breaking down. Thus the Senator's objective—an objective of unmasking old myths and clarifying new realities—is necessary and salutary.

Power politics and opportunism go hand in hand. Picking the right time to act involves a clear perception of the alternatives, a close estimate of the risks, and a clever gamble on the odds.

The Russians have shown themselves adept at the game. Their use of force or the threat of force has been unusually astute. They try to move when the deck is stacked in their favor.

The relations between art and politics have rarely been discussed either in contemporary aesthetics or in political science. Since Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Arts, the analysis of art styles as the sensuous objectifications of cultural attitudes has been worked out in detail. But the same method has not been applied to the sensuous objectifications of political action. The removal of art from social life to the museum has also removed it from among the integral concerns of political science. Accepting the popular dichotomy between art and politics, modern political science has long lost its senseof art as techne, as a practical instrument of communication and coercion. An older political science did indeed consider “art” an instrument of coercion, curbing what Freud liked to call “the rebelliousness and destructive passions” of the masses and binding them to their rulers. Indeed, perhaps Freud alone among modern masters of social science comprehended art as one of the weapons of coercion in the arsenal of culture. “Works of art,” Freud writes, “promote the feelings of identification” and identification is, in the Freudian theory, the modality of authority.

It is a distressing paradox of our time, when we are concerned as never before with military problems on whose solution may depend our national existence and even the survival of civilization, that we should turn our backs on history and deny that the lessons of the past have any validity for the present.

There are many reasons for this. The problems we face are enormously complex and highly technical; the weapons on which we must rely and which threaten our existence are so revolutionary in character as to make past experience seem highly irrelevant. And there are few to tell us that this is not so, for military history has never really been seriously studied in this country. The historian has stood on the sidelines while his academic colleagues, the political scientists, the economists, the physicists, and others, have become increasingly active, officially and unofficially, in the study of national security problems.

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.

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.

Theoretically and etymologically, “communism” means “from each according to his abilities and to each according to his needs.” Marxian literature looks to a future society in which, influenced by the appropriate economic, political, and social institutions, the individual will conform to this precept in his production and consumption activities. As Communist parties have striven for and achieved political power in the twentieth century, their tactical maneuvers at what presumably are way-stations along the road to pure communism have overlaid the term “communism” with a bewildering array of political and economic dogmas and practices.

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.

Ever since arresting the progressive deterioration of the physical habitat emerged as a live political issue in the United States in the early 1960s, it has been a subject of continuing disputation—both as to the urgency of repair and protection, and as to who should bear responsibility for deciding what and how much to undertake or to leave undone. Since all societies, especially industrial societies, are exposed to proliferating damage and hazards from diverse sources, environmental programs compete for support with a multiplicity of other claims on disposable resources. Since nearly everything that is done to maintain a decently livable physical habitat affects to some extent the distribution of income within and among nations, public authority has become increasingly the focus of environmental repair and protection, and the budgetary decisions of government the core of that focus—claims of some economists and other specialists to the contrary notwithstanding. The four books compared in this article consider these and related issues from various perspectives, both domestic and international.

The contradiction between Israeli and Palestinian goals and Israel's refusal to negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization have caused a profound diplomatic impasse. Moreover, the PLO's dependence on Arab hosts has embroiled it in secondary-level conflicts with Arab states. Although the PLO has gained their moral, diplomatic, and financial support, it has posed a threefold challenge: rulers resent the military cost of confronting Israel; Palestinian raids precipitate Israeli retaliatory actions against host territories; and the presence of autonomous Palestinian political and military forces undermines the host regimes' sovereignty and legitimacy. The review essay explores the ramifications of these Palestinian-Israeli and Palestinian-Arab dilemmas, and assesses the likelihood of a compromise settlement by creating a Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Few scholars have utilized contemporary social science theory in designing research on Communist countries. And fewer still have in systematically incorporated data from Communist countries into the existing body of social science theory. That is, middle-range theories such as organization, development, and socialization theory have not significantly shaped Western research on Communist systems. And surprisingly few one-, two-, and multivariable generalizations from the existing social science literature have been confirmed, rejected, or refined—even tentatively—with data from Communist countries.

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.