The primacy that the United States has enjoyed since the end of the Cold War does not mean that it can act with impunity or achieve all its foreign policy objectives—in fact, primacy creates significant problems, and its effective exercise presents challenges. But it does bring the United States a margin of security and a range of choices that few Americans would want to live without.

Are U.S. Forces Unprepared and Underfunded?
Fact and Fiction
Lawrence J. Korb

Even before the attacks of 11 September 2001, many people were arguing that the armed forces could not carry out the national strategy. These claims, argues a distinguished national security scholar, are greatly exaggerated. The military’s performance in Afghanistan demonstrates exactly how good a shape it is in; such problems as exist are largely self-inflicted.

The Bay of Bengal

Burma and Superpower Rivalries in the Asia-Pacific
Andrew Selth

Burma has not attracted much interest among Western analysts and officials; an Australian scholar suggests that this may soon change. Should the United States continue to see its relationship with Beijing in terms of a “strategic competition” rather than a “strategic partnership,” Burma, with its close relationship with China, could become an integral part of larger Western security considerations.

The Indian End of the Telescope
India and Its Navy
Vice Admiral Gulab Hiranandani, Indian Navy (Retired)

The Indian Navy’s role, argues a retired admiral of that service, is modest and straightforward—to deter aggression from seaward by posing a threat of punitive damage. The far-reaching decisions that have governed its development are all the more remarkable in that they have had to survive the rigorous financial scrutiny that is characteristic of democratic governance.

“A Matter of Extreme Urgency”
Theodore Roosevelt, Wilhelm II, and the Venezuela Crisis of 1902
Edmund Morris

The Venezuelan crisis of 1902 had all the ingredients that attract scholars: drama, contradictions, and mysteriously destroyed evidence. Only a century later, however, has the full extent of the episode become clear—through private diplomacy TR sustained the Monroe Doctrine, threatened war and averted it, and then remained silent about his triumph to spare the vanity of an emperor.

In My View

Review Essays

Classical Masters
Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought,
by Michael I. Handel
reviewed by Douglas J. Macdonald

A World Explored
Does America Need a Foreign Policy? Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century,
by Henry Kissinger
reviewed by James Stavridis

Ideas and Persecution: The Easy Way to Explain Decision Making
The Army and Its Air Corps: Army Policy toward Aviation, 1919–1941,
by James P. Tate
The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security,
by Grant T. Hammond
reviewed by Stephen N. Whiting

Book Reviews

On Being a Superpower,
by Seymour Deitchman
reviewed by Tom Fedyszyn

Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox,
by Jonathan B. Tucker
reviewed by Xavier Maruyama

Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan,
Star Wars and the End of the Cold War,
by Frances FitzGerald
reviewed by Roger W. Barnett

The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost,
by the Russian General Staff, edited by Lester W. Grau, translated by Michael A. Gress
reviewed by Milan Hauner

MacArthur and Defeat in the Philippines,
by Richard Connaughton
reviewed by Cole C. Kingseed

The CSS H. L. Hunley: Confederate Submarine,
by R. Thomas Campbell
reviewed by William Galvani

Recent Books