The structure of international trade, identified by the degree of openness for the movement of goods, can best be explained by a state-power theory of international political economy. This theory begins with the assumption that the nature of international economic movements is determined by states acting to maximize national goals. Four goals—aggregate national income, political power, social stability, and economic growth—can be systematically related to the degree of openness in the international trading system for states of different relative sizes and levels of development. This analysis leads to the conclusion that openness is most likely to exist when there is a hegemonic distribution of potential economic power. Time-series data on tariff levels, trade proportions, regional concentration, per capita income, national income, share of world trade, and share of world investment are then presented. The first three are used to describe the degree of openness in the trading system; the last four, the distribution of state power. The data suggest that the state-power theory should be amended to take into consideration domestic political constraints on state action.

The principal question which this article seeks to answer is: Why was the intention of the Arabs to launch the Yom Kippur War misperceived despite the fact that Israeli Intelligence had ample and accurate information on enemy moves and dispositions? In this anatomy of the Israeli intelligence failure, extensive use is made of the report of the official commission of inquiry that investigated the events leading up to the war. The article is equally concerned with the phenomenon of strategic surprise in general, and this case study is used to explore the psychological and organizational roots of intelligence failures. Some safeguards and institutional reforms for reducing the frequency of failure are examined. However, there is no suggestion that surprise can ever be eliminated altogether. In conclusion a case is made for developing a theory of intelligence through case studies and systematic research.

As a step toward further conceptualization and differentiation of the problem of surprise attacks, this article suggests a new framework for analyzing the assumptions of decision makers. Two main categories are distinguished: (i) strategic assumptions of possibilities—the explicit and implicit assumptions held by an “observing state” about the conditions and circumstances under which the “observed state” would strike; (2) tactical assumptions of actualities—assumptions that have become realities in the eyes of the observing state, or that are on the verge of realization. Five cases of failures in intelligence estimates are discussed: (1) the Barbarossa Operation; (2) the attack on Pearl Harbor; (3) the Chinese Intervention in the Korean War; (4) the Sino-Indian Border War of October 1962; (5) the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973.

The analysis indicates that in each case, when discrepancies existed between tactical assumptions of actualities and strategic assumptions of possibilities, the latter prevailed without reassessment of the situation.

Since 1959 Congress has tried to protect U.S. direct foreign investments from expropriation by quite explicit amendments to various foreign assistance acts. Probably the most important of these legislative efforts, the Hickenlooper amendment, the Gonzales amendments, and the effective repeal of the Hickenlooper amendment, are contradictory and have been applied only sporadically. By developing testable hypotheses that can accurately and parsimoniously predict these varied legislative and diplomatic policies, this article attempts to demonstrate the value of a radical analysis of American foreign policy. After those hypotheses are evaluated, they are compared with propositions derived from pluralist and bureaucratic analysis. Finally, the policy history is reconsidered to show that changes in the external environment, particularly the rise of economically powerful nationalist regimes, have let to a significant evolution in the policy preferences of large multinational firms.

It is generally recognized that there are enormous difficulties, bureaucratic as well as political, that attend attempts to ameliorate human problems which arise from the growing interdependence of states. The policy challenge therefore is how to create—or alternatively, how to understand and then to reform—the existing machinery of international administration to enable it to cope with interdependence. The World Food Conference, held in Rome on November 5–16, 1974, was not only an exercise in ad hoc multilateral diplomacy designed to meet the immediate threats of the food crisis; it was also an attempt to rebuild the international food bureaucracy, either by replacing the Food and Agriculture Organization or by reforming it. The Conference largely succeeded in this task; it created a World Food Council, organizationally linked to the FAO in Rome, but separately responsible to the UN General Assembly through the Economic and Social Council. Thus, an examination of the leadership of the Secretariat of the World Food Conference provides a classic case for the study of bureaucratic politics: an international secretariat not merely indirectly influenced the shape of policy; it actually made policy.

The chill that descended on innovative Soviet belletristic literature (and some kinds of historiography) in the post-Khrushchev era has had, as far as the outsider can determine, relatively little effect on social science publication. To avoid misunderstanding, I should hasten to add that social science has always been restricted in the U.S.S.R., on the whole more seriously than belles lettres and history. Whether for this or other reasons, the bulk of what passes for social science among Soviet publications is dreary. Even outstanding social scientists such as Iurii Arutiunian are censured occasionally. In chronological perspective, however, the best work in social science has, I think, shown a continuous evolution since the Stalinist era.