The Communist camp is composed of twelve states: the Soviet Union, China, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria, North Korea, North Vietnam, Albania, Mongolia. Jointly, the Communist-ruled states account for about 38 per cent of the world's population, 24.2 per cent of the world's area, and approximately one-third of the world's industrial output. During Stalin's lifetime the Communist bloc operated essentially through a relatively simple subordination of the various units to the dictator's will, generally expressed by indirect methods of police and party control. This somewhat informal organization reflected in part the old dictator's specific political style; in part it was a function of the relatively immature stage of the bloc's development. As a result, the “maturation” of the bloc coincided with the difficult post-Stalin period of transition within the USSR and was marked by major upheavals and tensions. By 1958-1959, however, the crisis had subsided, and a new and more complex image of the bloc became apparent. While the Soviet Union continued to exercise leadership, acknowledged at the November 1957 conference of the Communist parties and buttressed by Soviet international and technological prestige, the camp had developed more elaborate mechanisms and processes of cohesion that also contributed to its unity. Some of them dated back to the Stalinist days, but were now infused with new vitality. Others emerged during the post-Stalin phase.

THE year 1960 saw the first major open break in the Sino-Soviet alliance. Beginning with the Hongqi (Red Flag) articles of April 1 and 15, and receiving a quietus only after the November conference of 81 Communist parties in Moscow, the divergent views of the two Communist partners were laid bare to public view. Western observers have been virtually overwhelmed by this windfall of fascinating material, and speculation as to its meaning has been rampant.

This article proposes that there be discussed with the Russians the establishment (for each of us, separately, and perhaps for other countries) of a Special Surveillance Force. Its function would be to observe the enemy's behavior, at the enemy's invitation, and to report home instantly through authentic channels. The purpose is to help tranquilize crises that threaten to erupt into general war, particularly crises aggravated by the instability of strategic deterrence—by the urgency, if general war seems imminent, of starting it before the enemy does.

INTERNATIONAL relations, as a subject of instruction, has flourished more in the United States than elsewhere and more in recent years than ever before. What forces explain its growth and its present shape? How have methods of teaching it been affected by the goals of the teacher, by his relation to research, and by the formal organization of international studies in American colleges and universities? To what extent is the American experience so rooted in uniquely American conditions that it is unlikely to be repeated elsewhere? These questions will be considered in turn.

Military predominance in public life has a long and strong tradition in Turkey. Lybyer has told us: “The Ottoman government had been an army before it was anything else. … in fact, Army and Government were one. War was the external purpose, Government the internal purpose, of one institution, composed of one body of men.” And Gibb quotes el-Gazali, at the end of the eleventh century: “Government in these days is a consequence solely of military power, and whosoever he may be to whom the holder of military power gives his allegiance, that person is the caliph.”

In modern strategy no distinction has been labored more than that between deterrence and defense. Everyone now knows that to avert war is not the same as to protect the nation or win if war occurs. But what everyone knows vaguely, few may know well, and what the distinction implies for the mixture of military forces the nation should buy, still fewer may perceive. For deterrence and defense as military objectives overlap as well as diverge, complement each other as well as compete, so that a simple distinction can become complicated. Of special contemporary relevance, moreover, what is alleged to strengthen deterrence in the short run may jeopardize it in the long. About our military preparations, few queries are more important than “How will they influence the nature and intensity of the arms race, and therefore the prospects for arms control?”

Despite the extensive government apparatus for policy-making on problems of national security, the American President in the postwar period has, from time to time, appointed groups of private citizens to investigate particular problems and report to the National Security Council. Some of these groups have performed their task without the public's ever becoming aware of their existence; others have in one way or another come to public attention. Among the latter are those which have become known under the names of their chairmen: Finletter, Gray, Paley, Sarnoff, Gaither, Draper, Boechenstein, and Killian. President Truman made use of such groups, and the variety of tasks for which they were appointed grew steadily during the Eisenhower Administration.

SPECIALISTS on Chinese communism are in the habit of brushing responsibility for strange or abhorrent phenomena off onto Soviet Russia. This may be largely justified; communism is clearly a foreign import in China, whatever the reasons for its success or the extent of its adaptation. But to an observer whose understanding of communism is based primarily on the study of Soviet Russia, the history of Chinese communism—now a full decade of national rule, following nearly thirty years of evolution—presents a number of peculiarities. Comparison with Russia suggests several lines of interpretation which may shed light on the past and present status of communism in China and the Far East.

Social analysts have long been preoccupied with those features of traditional culture and belief which affect the direction of change and the receptivity of a society to innovation. In spite of the very considerable literature concerned with acculturation, there have been few efforts to examine different types of traditional systems with respect to the problems they pose for political modernization. We attempt this form of analysis here. The plan is to examine two countries, Ghana and Uganda, which are engaged in the effort to build a national society. Each is experimenting with constitutional forms and each has had to deal with the problem of traditionalism.

A consensus seems to have emerged among government decision-makers, military strategists, and scholars that an invulnerable nuclear retaliatory capability is a national goal of high priority, if not top priority. The Kennedy Administration, to a much greater degree than its predecessor, has given indication that the rationale and ingredients of a “second-strike” nuclear strategy are understood and being concretely programmed into defense planning. The agreed-upon goal is for the United States to be able to launch a devastating retaliatory nuclear attack against the enemy regardless of the size of the enemy's first strike against the United States. “As a power which will never strike first,” explained President Kennedy in his March 28 defense budget message, “our hopes for anything close to an absolute deterrent must rest on weapons which come from hidden, moving, or invulnerable bases which will not be wiped out by surprise attack. A retaliatory capability based on adequate numbers of these weapons would deter any aggressor from launching or even threatening an attack—an attack he knew could not find or destroy enough of our force to prevent his own destruction.”

During the decade of the 1950's, considerable popularity was won for the idea that the restructuring of the world economy into regional blocs would mark a great forward step in international economic relations, and might also help resolve certain major international political problems. As the new decade begins, and as a new Administration takes office in Washington, it is timely to reappraise the validity of this idea. To do so is not to suggest that regionalism is the most important aspect of foreign economic policy for the new decade. There come readily to mind at least five other major topics: aid for economic development; stabilization of international markets for primary products; the policy of advanced industrial countries toward imports of low-wage manufactured goods from developing countries; the treatment of trade and aid activities of the Communist bloc; and the reduction of the balance-of-payments deficit of the United States. With respect to broad structural relationships, however, the future of economic regionalism is evidently a matter of special importance.

Several hours before his assassination in 1948, Mahatma Gandhi submitted his proposal for revisions in the party constitution of the Indian National Congress. He suggested that the Congress dissolve, since partisanship appeared to him wrong, and convert itself into a Lok Sevak Sangh, an apolitical people's service association. The Congress did not in the event obey the testament, but no one thought the proposal funny or outrageous. More recently, a General Secretary of the Congress reiterated the non-partisan point of view underlying this proposal when he questioned whether the role of an opposition party was meaningful in India, and when he supported the idea of “a common national programme acceptable to all political parties, on the basis of which the administration of the country could be carried on.” “The Panchayat system in India,” the Secretary said, “was essentially based on this very principle of synthesis rather than antithesis. Economically underdeveloped countries like ours can hardly afford the luxury of opposition only for the sake of opposition.”

How stable, how deep, or how genuine is German democracy? The only answers we can provide at present are almost embarrassingly simple; but if instead of trying to arrive at answers we go into the further questions that the questions above raise, the picture becomes more complex—and more interesting.

When the American Founding Fathers set about the task of perfecting the constitution of their union, they turned to the theory and practice of the Old World for counsel and illustration. The Federalist Papers contain many references to Hume and Montesquieu, the British Constitution and ancient leagues. However, it was not copying from foreign examples that made such an outstanding success of the Constitution of the United States. Rather it was the authors' imaginative creativity that gave to this oldest of the still operating written constitutions its unique combination of stability and flexibility, effectiveness and efficiency.

Some of the 25,000 American businessmen, most of the 30,000 American missionaries, and all of the 33,000 public officials working abroad have received some form of training in “overseasmanship” prior to embarking upon their careers as technical assistants. This training was not supposed to make them better managers, Christians, diplomats, or technicians, but to enhance their usefulness in a strange cultural environment. Such training may be viewed as a specialized form of education designed to influence their performance or behavior. Conveying knowledge about foreign cultures or about the processes of change is an important form of training as well as a legitimate aspect of education; the distinction is one of purpose and focus. Employers are more sympathetic to offering “training” programs than to providing “education” for their overseas agents, even if the subject matter is essentially the same. They expect a specific result—better performance—from their training programs.

The point of view from which this article is written is that the world-wide trend toward increased use of oil involves Western Europe in greater risks of interruption of supplies than it does the other major world consumers (the United States and the USSR), who produce most of their own oil; and that the implications of permitting the trend to continue to develop at its present rate should be seriously reconsidered. The trend toward increased use of oil in Western Europe has been clear for some years, as it was for the United States a bit earlier and has become for the USSR more recently. What is somewhat alarming at the present time is that the process is speeding up in Western Europe and that resistance to it is weakening.

About the beginning of the present century, the economic historian Werner Sombart proposed an interesting generalization. The share of foreign trade in total national income, he said, was bound to decline in every country as it became more industrialized.

The heightened interest of many economists in recent years in the subject of economic development has been accompanied by their recognition of the importance of the role of non-economic forces in the initiation and pursuit of development. The present article is an attempt to explore the power of some of these forces and the circumstances under which they operate. I shall give particular attention to nationalist ideology and leadership, owing to their pre-eminence among non-economic forces. Throughout, the focus will be on underdeveloped countries outside the Western Hemisphere and outside the Communist bloc.

American experience with the ill-fated governments of the newer nations—most recently Turkey, South Korea, and Cuba—raises the question whether we can ever select a policy generally suited to the growth of stable, effective government among the developing nations. In all three of the cases mentioned, the United States followed the canons of conventional diplomacy while contributing substantially to monumental economic and social changes. Our commitment meant reliance on and support for the regime in office, although our own actions were gradually creating forces and sentiments favoring radical change in the internal political system. Whenever the pressures for political change were sufficient, adjustments were made with an abruptness that may well have left the United States in a worse position than if we had done little or nothing to assist long-term development.

The leaders of all modern states have appreciated to some extent the role played by historical studies in determining a citizenry's world outlook. The keenest sense of awareness has been exhibited by the authoritarian rulers, the self-chosen “men of destiny” who have felt compelled to fulfill—and to generate enthusiasm for—a “historic mission” whose execution would benefit a select people or mankind in general. Thus did the archracist among this century's European despots reflect on April II, 1942, with regard to his new subjects in the east: “To teach the Russians, Ukrainians and Kirghiz to read and write will eventually be to our own disadvantage; education will give the more intelligent among them an opportunity to study history, to acquire an historical sense and hence to develop political ideas which cannot but be harmful to our interests.”