A FAMILIAR sight in the newspapers and weekly magazines is a world map (often, I regret to say, on the Mercator projection) on which population, oil production, or similar information is shown by rows of small men, barrels, or other appropriate symbols. These maps are often interpreted in caption or accompanying text as indices of national power. No one denies that such information is relevant to power, but no reader of this journal needs to be cautioned that such information is only a first step toward an evaluation. The present paper spells out that caution and tries to take another step or two. Its thesis is: An estimate of national power has two aspects which are related, in a figurative way, like the two rays of a triangulation. Either ray gives direction, but it takes the two to give distance. A better analogy, perhaps, is that of two searchlight beams groping through the dark until they intersect on the target. One ray or beam is the conventional inventory of the elements or factors of power. It gives the power resources of a nation, using “resource” in a broad sense. The other ray is here called “national strategy.”

American policy toward postwar Germany has gone through two major phases from the stand point of military affairs. Until 1950 Germany was kept disarmed; since 1950 the United States has sought the rearmament of Western Germany. The problems of information policy raised by the change, and the attitudes of the old German military elite in the face of this volte-face, have considerable interest for the student of political communication.

There is not a great deal to be said about economics which is truly universal. One can say that economics is the study of economic systems. Economic systems can be defined as systems of human actions concerned with the production and the distribution of goods and services which are scarce relative to the wants of the community. But statements of this kind, which attempt to define the economic aspect of human society in universally valid terms, are far too general to serve as premises from which an economic theory, useful for understanding actual economic problems, can be logically deduced. To have theory, one must start with premises and assumptions about some particular economic system, historically given, or some particular kind of economic system. The great bodies of economic thought of the Western world—mercantilism, classical and neo-classical economic liberalism, and the various schools of Marxist economic—have been theories relevant to particular economic systems: those, let us say, of the Western world in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

The prospect of a European federation has aroused great enthusiasm in the United States, but at the same time the difficulties encountered in its realization have generated a host of frustrations. It is not unusual, after five years of costly effort, to hear that the moment of crisis has arrived; that we must either push ruthlessly toward the goal, or abandon not only integration but possibly assistance to Europe as well. Perhaps these are the only alternatives that confront the United States. But before we fasten on to them irrevocably, it may be well to ask once more: What is the nature of the area that we are attempting to integrate, and how has our thought on the subject developed? Some appreciation of the recent history and problems of Europe, and of the circumstances that inspired postwar American policy, may help to determine whether or not the range of choice is as narrow as it looks at present to the United States.

A FEW months before the French National Assembly was to consider the ratification of the European Coal and Steel Treaty, a board member of the National Council of French Employers, the president of the Association of Engineering and Metal-processing Industries, wrote confidently: “This treaty, drafted as it is with the definite, though unavowed and hence shamefaced, intention of destroying the very principle of business representation, will be rejected by the French parliament. …” A year later, the treaty, ratified without any modification, had obtained force of law for the six participating countries and opened the way for the operation of the common market.

The origins of the Winter War cannot be explained solely by reference to the hectic days which followed the Nazi attack upon Poland in September 1939. Issues then debated in both Helsinki and Moscow had deeper historical roots. Neither country could forget the bitter days of revolution, counter-revolution, and civil war in 1917–1918. Neither party had been fully satisfied with the Treaty of Dorpat (1930) which drafted the territorial lines of demarcation and specified mutual rights and obligations.

TRaditional China was characterized by a remarkable homogeneity of mores, institutions, and values. In this it resembled the simpler societies in which, as Maclver has pointed out, the institutions are in broad accord with the mores, and one system of values prevails, being reaffirmed in every aspect of life. During the past hundred years, China's perdurable synthesis of doctrines and institutions has been slowly but certainly undermined. While the impact of the Western powers and Western technology forced the modification of Chinese institutions, the subtle penetration of Western ideas altered or destroyed every long-accepted value. The past century of China's history can be seen as a continuous struggle to regain its ancient homogeneity. That century is marked by repeated attempts to create groups of modified institutions to meet the challenge of Western power, together with groups of modified values which, it was hoped, would support the new institutions and check the spread of divisive Western ideas. These efforts failed, and with each failure more and more traditional institutions and values were abandoned as incapable of existing in amalgam with Western elements. In this process, different social groups reacted differently to the persisting appeal of the old and the attraction of the new and, in so reacting, further undermined the old synthesis of values and institutions.

We are looking for an explanation of the German miracle. Only yesterday an outcast among the nations, eternal troublemaker, never to be trusted, Germany is today the eagerly sought ally of the Western world, next to Great Britain apparently the most stable of the European states. How has this transformation occurred?

EXPANSION of internal trade and a wider market for its products are generally considered necessary conditions for the economic strengthening of Western Europe. Obviously, creation of a wider market presupposes at least some liberalization of trade. Liberalization of intra-Western European trade might be part of some broader scheme, such as a world-wide liberalization of trade, or the establishment of a huge block of interlocking preferential areas, as advocated by the Strasbourg Plan; or it might be restricted to Western Europe alone. At all events, it is clear that the economic consequences of liberalization will depend on the areas to be liberalized and on the character of the agreements that pertain to the mutual removal of trade restrictions.

During Stalin's lifetime Soviet writing, with his encouragement, presented him as a master theoretician, without a living peer. The more recent tendency on the part of his successors to reduce reference to this and others of his roles has not amounted to a denial of the earlier theme of intellectual greatness. It may therefore be of some importance, even after his death, to investigate Stalin's theoretical writings, not only to clarify his function and accomplishments as an intellectual, but also to gain further insight into Bolshevik and Soviet patterns of thought. A particularly interesting subject for such an investigation is Stalin's last and most widely heralded theoretical writing, the article, “Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”

Wars and rumors of wars are always with us. Today, and for the foreseeable future, they include the prospect of heavy enemy attack on the cities of the United States, a prospect which creates problems in public policy never before faced. It is the purpose of this article to sketch some lines of research which will be useful in understanding and dealing with these problems, and which are of a character that can be undertaken by academic social scientists and discussed in public.

One of the most volatile political frontiers in the world today is that which separates Israel from her Arab neighbors. Laid down in 1949 along cease-fire lines, this border has remained closed to all traffic since that time—a symbol of the continued bitterness between the two peoples.

Examining the literature relating to the United Nations Organization is, in a way, like reading a doctor's case-book on a remarkably sick patient. There are references to serious pathological disorders, to teething troubles, and so on, and a number of remedies are recommended, ranging from a major surgical operation such as removing the “veto” to aids such as “sticking teeth” into the Charter. The analogy is useful if it impels us to make an accurate diagnosis. But much of the advice of interpreters of the UN is of a contradictory character, and one is led to suspect that it is based on a serious misapprehension of what the UN is really capable of doing.

In Central and Eastern Europe, roughly ninety million people live in a political setting labeled as “People's Democracy.” The area constitutes a bloc which stretches from the Elbe and the Baltic to the Black Sea and includes six countries: Poland, Eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria. According to official Communist interpretation, these countries are in a phase of transition toward socialism; they have not yet attained the “summit” of development as represented by the Soviet Union. While the People's Democracies are traveling along the road to the form of organization of society established by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the period of time within which complete adoption of the Soviet system is to be achieved has not been defined.

TENSION is not of itself an evil. Indeed, certain levels of tension are necessary if either life or social processes are to occur. Therefore, tensions may be either functional or dysfunctional. Dysfunctional tensions produce an inaccurate orientation to reality, impede or prevent the attainment of desired goals, or permit their realization at an unnecessarily high cost. Dysfunctional tension is, in general, undesirable, although it may at times be an appropriate instrument of policy. It should not be assumed that international tension is a cause of war, at least in a simple or direct fashion. Dysfunctional international tension is, however, usually productive of undesired consequences.

Of Some 45.5 billion dollars in aid which the United States has provided to foreign countries in the postwar period from July 1, 1945, through June 30, 1953, roughly 75 per cent is recorded as grant assistance, the remainder as assistance in the form of credits. Examination of the statistics in these two categories suggests that there really is a third category, in which some of the aid listed in each of the two might properly be put. Thus, transactions listed as “grants” have realized some repayments; others have been renegotiated into cash or credits. On the other hand, there are “loans” which are obviously part grants; other loans remain loans only because of our grants to the same country.

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.