Book Review: Military and Scientific Affairs: Schools for Strategy
| Published date | 01 December 1965 |
| Author | Max Beloff |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206502000412 |
| Date | 01 December 1965 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
540
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
Military
and
Scientific
Affairs
SCHOOLS
FOR
STRATEGY.
Education
and
Research
in
National
Security
Affairs.
By
Gene
M.
Lyons
and
Louis
Morton.
1956.
(New
York:
Frederick
A.
Praeger.
Toronto: Burns
&
MacEachern.
xii,
346pp.
$9.00)
Professors
Lyons
and
Morton
have
produced
a
book
which
is
not
only
an invaluable
factual
guide
to
the
civilian
institutions
in
the
United
States
working
on
national
security problems,
whether
from
the
point
of
view
of
research,
training,
or
public
information
and
education,
but
is
also
of
considerable
interest
to
all
students
of
the
current
intellectual
scene.
For
the
task
they
have
set
themselves
is
to
record
the reaction
of
the
American
intellectual
community
as
a
whole
to
the
problems
created
by
the
"Cold
War", and
in
so
doing
they
raise
even
more
general
questions about
the
proper
role
of
the
scholar
in
relation
to
the
whole
field
of
policy-oriented
studies.
It
is
clear
from
what
they
say
that
universities
at
any
rate
have
been
unwilling
to
rush
into
this
relatively
new
field,
despite
the
offers
of
government
support
and
foundation
grants,
and
that
even
where
important
contributions have
been
made
to
strategic
studies
and
related
topics
they
tend
to
be
the
work
of
people
only
on
the
margin
of
the
university.
Because
security
in
its
widest
sense
is
a
problem
to
which
contributions
are
required
from all
of
the
natural
and
social
sciences,
it
is
not
surprising
that
it
is
regarded
with
some
hostility
by
those
devoted
to
a
departmental
view of
university
organisation.
Neverthe-
less
much
has
been
done; some
of
it
of
great
value
to
the
United
States
and
its
allies.
On
the other
hand,
there
is
a
clear
warning
that
certain
institutions
that
receive
their
support
mainly
from
the armed
services
may
in
fact
be
engaging
in
what
is
rather
propaganda
for
a
particular
(and
some
would
argue
very dangerous)
view of
the
"Cold
War".
Against
the
scholarly approach
of
Harvard,
M.I.T.,
Princeton,
Johns
Hopkins,
and
Columbia,
one
must
set
the
very doubtfully
useful
offerings of
the
University
of
Pennsylvania
Foreign
Policy
Research
Institute,
the
Hoover
Institution,
and
the
Georgetown
Center for
Strategic
Studies.
One
can
understand
why
a
great
university
like
Yale
which
would
have
much
to
offer
has
preferred
to
stand
aloof.
The
authors
also
have
much
of
interest
to
say about
non-Univer-
sity
institutions in
the
field,
or
partially
in
the
field,
ranging
all
the
way
from
the
RAND
Corporation
to the
Council
on
Foreign
Relations,
and
show
how
there
has
been
built
up
in
the
United
States
an
intel-
lectual
community
capable
of
assessing
with
some
knowledge
the
issues
presented
for
decision by
the
U.S.
government
in
this
difficult
and
dangerous
aspect
of
the nation's
responsibilities. Things
are
not
standing
still;
and
in
one
respect,
Professors
Lyons
and
Morton
have
been
overtaken
by
events.
The
Institute for
Strategic
Studies
(London)
to
which
they
give
generous
praise
is
now
a
wholly
international
insti-
tution
as
to
its
control and
purposes,
and has
shed
its
originally
British
status.
All
Souls
College,
Oxford
MAx
BELOFR
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