Harold C. Hinton

The United States and Extended Security Commitments: East Asia

In East Asia and the Western Pacific the United States faces an impressive recent Soviet military (especially naval) buildup, continuing and serious tension in Korea, a Japan that to date has not done much to put itself in a viable defensive posture, and potential for further unrest in Southeast Asia. In the last year or two of the Carter administration, accordingly, a trend begun a decade earlier toward American military disengagement from the region was reversed. The Reagan administration is almost certain to maintain this reversal and to cultivate closer relations with South Korea and Taiwan than did its predecessor, while trying at the same time to establish a strategic relationship of some sort with the Peoples Republic of China. The purpose of the latter move is, or would be, to help cope with rising Soviet assertiveness in the region. Moscow itself claims—prematurely, to say the least—that the United States, Japan, and China are forming an alliance against it and is especially anxious that the United States and everyone else refrain from transferring modern arms to China.

TIMOTHY SOSNOVY. The Housing Problem in the Soviet Union. Edited by David I. Goldstein. Foreword by Gregory Gross-man. Pp. xviii, 300. New York: Research Program on the U.S.S.R., 1954.

Arnold J. Toynbee has argued that Communism is a &dquo;Jewish-Christian heresy,&dquo; engendered by the failure of the West to fulfill its professed ideals. The stock-intrade of Communist propagandists consists precisely of ironic contrasts between aspirations and practices in the democracies. This device in turn has evoked reams of Western anti-Communist tracts, contrasting Soviet ideals with Soviet realities. Professor Kulski of the Maxwell School at Syracuse, and formerly a member of the Polish government-in-exile, here offers us the most informative single contribution to this body of literature. He hopes that his book &dquo;will find its way to the young generation whose age warrants a search for a better world. They should avoid the pitfall of believing that a better world is being built in the Soviet Union.&dquo; His volume is

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nese Communists and the Soviet government, nor can we, with any degree of certainty, assess the relative importance of the several factors which may have entered into the decisions to strip Manchuria of its industrial potential or to launch the Korean attack. Despite these obvious limitations imposed upon the author by circumstances, he has provided us with a very useful and much-needed book. The publication of

KOLARZ, WALTER. The Peoples of the Soviet Far East. Pp. xii, 194. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1954.

groups have been brought out by self-government. The twenty-nine essays in this volume represent a pioneer attempt to describe the serious consequences to an independent India of these tensions. The authors of the various articles represent a wide variety of university professors and government officials. They write out of a deep concern for the success of India’s new government. A tone of urgency and a desire for immediate reform