The year 2003 was a watershed for today’s Coast Guard. The Coast Guard’s roles as a military service, as a federal law-enforcement agency, as a regulatory authority, and as a member of the new Department of Homeland Security place it squarely at the center of national initiatives to reduce security risks to our nation.

Russia/the Soviet Union

A Tale of Two Fleets
A Russian Perspective on the 1973 Naval Standoff in the Mediterranean
Lyle J. Goldstein and Yuri M. Zhukov

Newly available Russian sources suggest that the superpower naval confrontation during and immediately after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War was more dangerous than has been generally appreciated, and that the Soviet Navy had made remarkable progress in correcting the deficiencies revealed in the Cuban missile crisis only a decade before. The episode is a cautionary case study for the U.S. Navy, which today has another “upstart” navy to consider.

Dealing with Russian Tactical Nuclear Weapons
Cash for Kilotons
Timothy D. Miller and Jeffrey A. Larsen

An important, troubling, and unresolved legacy of the Cold War is the remaining stock of nonstrategic tactical nuclear weapons, many of them obsolete—a complex matter beyond the reach of traditional arms control or cooperative threat reduction, and that Russia, with the predominance of such weapons, is particularly reluctant to address. The West can reduce the threat in a free market manner: by simply buying Russia’s excess weapons and disposing of them.

Stalin’s Big-Fleet Program
Milan L. Hauner

In the 1930s, Joseph Stalin undertook to build one of the world’s largest navies, a Soviet fleet of battleships and battle cruisers. He did so in the face of well known impediments and shortfalls of geography, finances, and industrial capacity and capability—and in the absence of an obvious and compelling strategic rationale. Why?

Space Wei Qi
The Launch of Shenzhou V
Joan Johnson-Freese

Whether the United States chooses to return to the moon, go on to Mars, or something in between or beyond, it is not just where that is important, but how. To a large extent, how will involve implicitly or explicitly responding to the first Chinese manned space flight, on 15–16 October 2003. The United States can continue to exclude China from cooperative space efforts, commence a new manned-space-flight race, or initiate an incremental program of space cooperation including the Chinese. The interests of the space program and of the nation would be best served by cooperation.

The Submarine, 1776–1918
Frank Uhlig, Jr.

It developed slowly, then grew swiftly, triumphed astoundingly, and failed decisively.

Commentary

The Naval Historical Collection: Recent Acquisitions
Evelyn M. Cherpak

Review Essay

There Is No Substitute for Prudence
The Modern Prince: What Leaders Need to Know Now,
by Carnes Lord
reviewed by Vickie B. Sullivan

In My View

Book Reviews

America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy,
by Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay
reviewed by David Marquet

The Iraq War: A Military History,
by Williamson Murray and Robert H. Scales, Jr.
reviewed by F. G. Hoffman

The United States and Coercive Diplomacy,
edited by Robert J. Art and Patrick M. Cronin
reviewed by Richard Norton

Transformation under Fire: Revolutionizing How America Fights,
by Douglas A. Macgregor
reviewed by Ronald Ratcliff

Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security,
by Bharat Karnad
India’s Maritime Security,
by Rahul Roy-Chaudhury
reviewed by Andrew C. Winner

Effects Based Operations: Applying Network-centric Warfare
in Peace, Crisis, and War,
by Edward A. Smith, Jr.
reviewed by Roger W. Barnett

Dialogue Sustained: The Multilevel Peace Process
and the Dartmouth Conference,
by James Voorhees
reviewed by Rose Gottemoeller

Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point,
by David Lipsky
reviewed by Jonathan E. Czarnecki

Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning
of the Great War at Sea,
by Robert K. Massie
reviewed by David A. Smith

Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs:
Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World,
by Adrienne Mayor
reviewed by Zygmunt Dembek

Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography,
by Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin
reviewed by C. J. Krisinger

When I Was a Young Man: A Memoir,
by Bob Kerrey
reviewed by William Calhoun