Reviews of new research at public agencies and private institutions
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. "National Guard: Peacetime Training Did Not Adequately Prepare Combat Brigades for Gulf War."
U.S. General Accounting Office, P.O. Box 6015, Gaithersburg, Md. 20877. 55 pp. No charge.
(GAO/NSIAD-9 1-263)
Since the mid-1970s, the U.S. Army has been critically de- pendent on its reserves. Not only was the Army Reserve given vital support responsibil-ities (e.g., transportation) but Army National Guard combat units...
A SL~IJ~J
of Recent Articles
From its birth in 1917 until its death last summer, Soviet communism had a pro-found impact on Western political thought and behavior. The Soviet Union was not just another nation, but history's first fully "socialist" society. The Russian Revolu- tion, Martin Malia, a professor of Russian history at Berkeley, notes in Commentary (Oct. 1991), became "the great polarizing event in 20th-century politics," turning the division between Left and R...
? gundi (Fall 1991), Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
In the very hour of its greatest triumph, in the very nation that has been its champion, liberal capitalism is in an alarming state of decay. "[Tlhe signs of impending break- down are unmistakable," warns Lasch, an iconoclastic historian and author of The True and Only Heaven (1991). "Drugs, crime, and gang wars are making our cit- ies uninhabitable. Our school svstem is in a state of collapse. Our [political] parties a...
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thought, would overcome the individual man's selfishness. Today, even "the higher selfishness of marriage and parenthood" is losing its influence.
"Liberalism promised progress, abun- dance, and above all privacy. The freedom to live as you please, think and worship as you please-this privatization of the good life was liberalism's greatest appeal. Hav- ing set definite limits to the powers of the state, at the same time relieving individ- uals of most of their civic obligations,...
Mary Ann
Run Amok
Glendon, in The Responsive Community (Fall 1991), 714 Gelman Library', The George Washington Univ., Washington,
D.C. 20052.
Under the spell of philosopher John Locke and the lectures on law of Sir William Blackstone, Americans from the beginning talked about property rights as if they were absolute. In practice there was a good deal of public regulation of property. The Fifth Amendment, for example, recognized the federal government's power of eminent domain. But the ext...
Mary AnnRigZits Run Anzok Glendon, in Tlle Re.~ponsive CoN?illuni,y (Fall 1991). 714
Gelman Library, The George Washington Univ., Washington,
D.C. 20052.
Under the spell of philosopher John Locke of privacy older than the Bill of Rights" and the lectures on law of Sir William protecting the "intimate relation of hus- Blackstone, Americans from the beginning band and wife" from state interference. In talked about property rights as if they were 1972, the Court extended the right...
some of the world's- new democracies, Plattner notes. But as great a misfortune as that would be for the people involved, he argues, it would not necessarily mean the end of de- mocracy's global prestige. Even if a major- ity of the new democracies failed, the pre- sumption would still be that liberal democracy is the only form of government suitable for mature nations.
"Democracy's preeminence can be seri- ously challenged," Plattner maintains, "only an ideology with universalist...
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anticipate the attack "not for want of the relevant materials, but because of a pleth- ora of irrelevant ones." The "noise" of ex- traneous information, in other words, drowned out the "signal" of useful clues. In reality, Kahn states, there was a dearth of intelligence materials. "Not one [diplo- matic or naval] intercept, not one datum of intelligence ever said a thing about an attack on Pearl Harbor."
Some critics, including Admiral Hus- band...
? "The ~yth of the Coming Labor Shortage" Lawrence Mishcl and Ruy A. Teixeira, in The American Prospect (Fall 1991), P.O. Box 7645, Princeton, N.J. 08543-7645.
The United States will soon face a serious sufficient supply. So concluded Workforce labor shortage, with an increasing demand 2000, the oft-quoted 1987 report done by for highly skilled workers and a greatly in- the Hudson Institute for the U.S. Labor De-
WQ WINTER 1992
14
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partment. Mishel, research director of...
the year 2000.
Will the quality of America's work force be adequate? The authors of Workforce 2000 fretted about the growing number of undereducated women and minorities in the work force. "Only 15 percent of the new entrants to the labor force over the next 13 years will be native white males," they warned. Actually, say Mishel and Teixeira, about one-third of the entrants will be non-Hispanic white males, and an- other third will be non-Hispanic white fe- males. The Hudson researchers...