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ABSTRACTMore than a decade of emphasis on arms control through agreed numerical ceilings on weapons by type has failed to create a safer world or slowed the trend toward the increasing number, sophistication, and proliferation of destructive capacities. Accordingly, it is past time for renewed and major attention to arms control through communication and information regimes–to C3/I, i.e., communications, command and control, and intelligence. Priorities and possibilities in three areas merit pursuit: within U.S. and allied forces; between adversaries; and for potential third party sources of guarantees, sanctions, and mediation.

Military research and development ( R & D ) , whatever its national security contribution, allegedly imposes substantial opportunity costs on the civil sector. A factual analysis does not support the view that military R & D has recently been or in the future will be a dominant reason: for funding and manpower shortages in civilian R & D, for the lack of technological supremacy in American industry, for the lack of technological solutions to major problems of domestic society, or for the emphasis on externally funded research in U.S. colleges and universities. Instead, financial trends suggest that an absence of demand for R&D in the civil sector and multiple funding opportunities for research in academic institutions are and will be more important causes of these problems. Military R & D can also provide learning for civil sector R&D. The experience of the Defense policy analysis organizations is particularly pertinent. It suggests that such organizations will be of continuing value to the civil sector to the extent that they serve several masters and release their results to legislative as well as executive officials. However, they are likely to encounter inadequate demand for their work as compared with that for hardware and suffer as their sponsors experience funding restrictions and sharp criticism of their programs.

Research directions are suggested in several areas where mass communications interact with the political system. A study is urged of the key links between the media & elements of the political system. Preference structures of a political leader & the heads of the mass media as they affect each other, are suggested, as well as cost-benefit analysis & theories of collective action. Other topics discussed include: politics & political economy, mass communication in a competitive market, information advantage, advance signals & workable policies, & a finite mass communication budget. S. Karganovic.

International relations analysts now use a wide range of ideas and techniques. Concepts and styles of reasoning clearly reflect work in economics, organizational behavior, social psychology, operations research and many other fields. Facts thought relevant are the facts customarily used in these other fields. Methods for relating facts to each other and to ideas are increasingly those of logic, statistics and mathematics. What are the implications of this diversity for foreign and defense policy? The only necessary implication is for the length and variety of the menu international relations analysts can offer the policy person. There is no necessary implication for how important or satisfying he will find the offerings.