Strategic Retreat Research Articles

Russia in the Middle East: friend or foe?

Kreutz examines the goals and strategies of Russia and the former Soviet Union toward most of the Arab states in the Middle East. The author argues that Russia has been an important actor in the region for over a century and has tried to regain its influence in several countries following its strategic retreat after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. However, according to Kreutz, Moscow does not seek confrontation with the United States or with the West in general in the region. Rather, the Russians are interested in peace and stability in the region, which is close to its borders. Because of that, although Moscow wants to cultivate its links with Israel, it also seeks to reach a peaceful and balanced solution to the Palestinian-Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflicts, taking Palestinian and Arab interests into account. Washington can better engage Moscow as a stabilizing force in the Middle East and as a collaborator in the struggle against Islamic terrorists. At the same time, the United States must be cognizant of where Washington and Moscow diverge. Although Russia may be too weak now to compete with the United States on a global scale, it is not happy to see American or EU encroachment close to its own neighborhood. If we take their weakness for granted and become blind to the possibilities for Russian alliances in the region, we do so to our disadvantage. This book demonstrates Russia's enduring interest and influence in the Arab Middle East.

Challenges in atmospheric science and climate

What constitutes an effective vision for a national weather enterprise? Can barriers to improving subseasonal weather and climate predictions be removed? What are ethical considerations surrounding possible geoengineering approaches to mitigating climate change? These are some of the many questions raised during a recent strategic planning retreat of the U.S. National Academies' Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC).

Virtual strategic planning

Strategic planning with input from staff is an important process to assess the environment and plan for the future. Unfortunately, the ability to give all staff members the opportunity to participate in a strategic planning retreat is impossible in an environment where services are provided on a

War and the commons: Assessing the changing politics of violence, access and entitlements in Sri Lanka

There are two antagonistic, but equally influential traditions in the study of the nexus between resource use and violent conflict. One works through a Malthusian frame linking resource scarcity with violence, the other school of thought establishes a nexus between resource abundance and the incentives to use violence for rent monopolisation in a political economy of war or markets of violence. The tacit essentialism inherent in both schools of thought has increasingly come under critical scrutiny by geographers and anthropologists. To escape such essentialism requires a more detailed study of the dynamism of the political economy of (civil) war and its spatial dynamics, the political geographies of violence. In this paper, we study endowments and entitlements of people depending on common-pool or open-access resources in war-affected areas of Sri Lanka. Rural spaces in the war-affected areas became both a strategic retreat for fighters and an important common-pool resource on which a large part of the rural populace depended for their survival. Our research illustrates how the political geographies of war affect access regimes and entitlements to common-pool resources and thereby confine the livelihood opportunities of resource users. These dynamics of the political economy of war cross different scales and go beyond simple place-based struggles, for they are rooted in broader spatial dynamics of warfare creating place–space tensions in the sense that spatial dynamics of military control impinge changing access regimes upon specific places.

The Social Marginalization of Workers in China’s State-Owned Enterprises

Michael Zhang The Social Marginalization of Workers in China’s State-Owned Enterprises THE PROCESS OF RESTRUCTURING CHINA’ S STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES (SOEs) has seen workers at these enterprises stage repeated collective actions since the late 1990s. Scholars have attributed these sponta­ neous collective actions—especially the massive protests with more than 10,000 participants each in 2002 in northeastern and southwest­ ern China—to a number of factors, including a subsistence crisis, antagonism with capitalist private ownership, and outrage at the corrupt behavior of SOE managers (Chen, 2000, 2003; Lee, 2005; Pan, 2002; Pringle, 2002). In response to the pressures exerted by these collective actions, the government, while still maintaining a nega­ tive attitude toward the actions, has become more tolerant. It has changed its tactics to deal with the workers’ actions and has set up and revised some systems of public administration and social secu­ rity in the hope of nipping such collective actions in the bud for the general purpose of “maintaining social stability and constructing a harmonious society.” This paper will use primary data to present a picture of the social marginalization of the workers in the course of SOE restructuring and define the aftereffects of this process as the root cause of the workers’ collective actions. The author believes that the workers have been grad­ ually deprived ofthe rights and interests entitled to them under China’s labor laws. In addition, the rights and interests given to the workers by the restructuring policies lag behind the restructuring practice. These social research Vol 73 : No 1 : Spring 2006 159 rights and interests have been eroded by the policy implementers in the course of execution, thus triggering intense indignation that has finally evolved into recurring collective actions that are, in fact, the cry of workers who are being marginalized. This paper is divided into four parts. Part 1 describes the influ­ ence of the SOE restructuring policies on the social marginalization of workers and points out that one of the aftereffects of the enactment of these policies is the deprivation of workers’ legal rights and interests. Part 2 illustrates the damage done to the workers’ rights and interests in the course of SOE restructuring and highlights that the restructur­ ing operators have worsened the marginalization of the workers by exploiting their own information advantage. Part 3 describes the work­ ers’ reemployment after restructuring and points out the consequences of marginalization. In the last part, the author concludes, based on a summarization of the foregoing discussion, that the social marginaliza­ tion of the SOE workers is the root cause of the collective actions taken by Chinese workers at the beginning of this century and that those in power should adopt a tolerant attitude and provide such “disadvan­ taged groups” with substantial assistance when such marginalization has become irreversible. The author’s analyses and discussions are mainly based on the records of interviews with workers by Han Dongfang, founder of China Labour Bulletin. Since its launch in 1994, China Labour Bulletin has been concerned with protecting workers’ rights and interests in the course of China’s economic reform and is devoted to promoting a true work­ ers’ movement in China. Han Dongfang has interviewed hundreds of workers by telephone since 1998 and the records of approximately 400 such telephone interviews (some of which have been transcribed) have been broadcast on Radio Free Asia and are also published on the China Labour Bulletin website (http://big5.china-labour.org.hk/public/main). These interview records reflect the workers’ psychological changes during the restructuring and their situation since it took place. They also reveal the deep-seated cause of the collective labor actions that have taken place in the course of restructuring.1 160 social research SOE RESTRUCTURING POLICIES HAVE HAD SIGNIFICANT EFFECTS ON THE SOCIAL MARGINALIZATION OF WORKERS China has entered the final stage of its SOE reform, with a majority of the small and medium-sized SOEs undergoing bankruptcy, closure, or privatization. The reform is intended to lead either to the strategic retreat of the state-owned economy by turning small and medium-size SOEs over to private management by means of sales, transfer, or a jointstock system or...

ACM SIGMM retreat report on future directions in multimedia research

The ACM Multimedia Special Interest Group was created ten years ago. Since that time, researchers have solved a number of important problems related to media processing, multimedia databases, and distributed multimedia applications. A strategic retreat was organized as part of ACM Multimedia 2003 to assess the current state of multimedia research and suggest directions for future research. This report presents the recommendations developed during the retreat. The major observation is that research in the past decade has significantly advanced hardware and software support for distributed multimedia applications and that future research should focus on identifying and delivering applications that impact users in the real-world.The retreat suggested that the community focus on solving three grand challenges: (1) make authoring complex multimedia titles as easy as using a word processor or drawing program, (2) make interactions with remote people and environments nearly the same as interactions with local people and environments, and (3) make capturing, storing, finding, and using digital media an everyday occurrence in our computing environment. The focus of multimedia researchers should be on applications that incorporate correlated media, fuse data from different sources, and use context to improve application performance.

New rules for strategic engagement

Increasingly, the big‐bang approach to strategy is being discredited. No longer does the top team head up to the mountaintop for a strategic retreat and descend with the new tablets, which are then foisted on an unsuspecting organization. Nowadays, strategy is viewed more as a dynamic, continuous organizational process that requires a fresh set of rules for creating an ongoing strategic dialogue. The authors have identified five rules that can position an organization for strategic liftoff.

‘Are We the Isolationists?’

Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Political Studies, Queen's University, Kingston. The author is grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Security and Defence Forum of Canada' Department of National Defence for research funding.INTRODUCTIONArecent report from the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence has tarred Canada with an unusual brush, one bearing a trademark more commonly associated with the country's southern neighbour. The committee members, seeking to mobilize support for a significant increase in defence spending, do not mince words, for they believe that, as a result of a long and sorry period of underfunding of Canada's military, the country has reached a point at which it is appropriate to ask: 'are we the isolationists?'(1)There are two ironies in their cri de coeur. The first is evident in the italicization of the question's pronoun. Normally, it is the United States that is so often viewed suspiciously by those who worry about an inward turn in foreign policy in North American (I will exclude Mexico from the discussion here, though when it comes to playing the ostrich in foreign and security policy, if that is what is implied by isolationism, it needs no instruction from either of its partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement) accompanied by a rejection of the burdens of multilateralism. Note the senators: 'Many citizens - including Canadians - have found cause to worry over the years that U.S. leaders might back away from this team responsibility, bending to the strong strain of isolationism that has always run through American political thought. It would be more useful if thoughtful Canadians started directing their anxiety at the strong strain of isolationism that has been running through Canadian political practice in recent years.'(2)The second irony inheres in the senators' remedy for the problems stemming from chronic underspending on defence: the withdrawal of all Canadian military personnel from duty overseas effective upon the completion of current tours, after which there should be a moratorium on any further overseas deployments for at least two years. The Canadian forces currently deploy about 2900 personnel in a variety of coalition, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and United Nations missions outside North America. The single largest commitment is some 1600 troops serving as part of NATO's Stabilization Force (SFOR) in Bosnia-Herzegovina, under the Canadian designation of 'Operation Palladium.' The irony here is that one historical hallmark of (North) American isolationism was an unwillingness or inability (or both) to make a commitment to a security presence overseas, particularly in Europe; thus the senators would perforce implement that which they denounce.The committee members are not oblivious of this second irony, but they believe that a failure to retrench and recover will render the forces even less able to function as a factor in international security in years ahead. They liken the means by which such recovery can begin to a tactic popularized by former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammed Ali, the 'Rope-a-Dope,' which saw the fighter cunningly retrench into the ropes, whence he would bob and weave, avoiding the punches of his hapless and tiring adversary, all the while restoring his own strength for his next, usually decisive, sally of punches. The committee members advocate a similar 'strategic retreat,' acknowledging that in the past it would have been taken as conclusive proof that the country had, indeed, gone isolationist.(3)Absent from this controversial and strongly worded report, which restates an earlier call by the committee for an immediate injection of $4 billion in defence spending (in addition to the current amount of nearly $12 billion), is any inquiry into what, presumably, the new money is supposed to prevent or, in the extreme case, reverse - namely, the danger of Canada becoming (or remaining, as the case may be) 'isolationist. …

RSNA Board of Directors develops a 3-year strategic plan.

At a special strategic planning retreat held January 26–28, 2002, the Board of Directors and the executive staff of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) met to develop a strategic plan for the next 3 years. The plan is designed make the Society more effective in meeting the needs of its membership and the radiologic community at large. It is also intended to make the best possible use of the RSNA’s resources, both financial and human, now and in the future. The Board formally approved the plan at its February meeting and charged specific staff members, RSNA editors, RSNA committees, and Board members with the task of implementing each of its goals. The members of the RSNA Board thought it was important to develop a strategic plan for all of the Society’s activities, not just selected ones. Prior to the planning retreat, the senior staff of the RSNA had developed briefing papers on a wide range of topics relevant to the Society and its members. The Board then reviewed these papers and selected what they believed to be the top eight topics for immediate attention. The Board also reviewed a model planning process developed by consultant John F. Schlegel, who served as facilitator for the strategic planning retreat. Vision, Mission, and Values

Capital, Labor, and State: The Battle for American Labor Markets from the Civil War to the New Deal

Chapter 1 The Battle Between Capital and Labor in America Chapter 2 American Labor Market Policy, Strategy, and Political Institutions Chapter 3 Labor and Regulation, 1865-1900 Chapter 4 The AFL Confronts Employers Chapter 5 Employer's Counterattack Chapter 6 The AFL's Strategic Retreat and Its Consequences Chapter 7 Limitations of Labor Market Regulation Chapter 8 Confining Trade Union Powers Chapter 9 Marginalizing Labor Market Management Chapter 10 Circumscribing Work Insurance Chapter 11 The American Model of Labor Market Policy

A Strategic Plan for Neuropsychiatry

A recent special article in this journal reviewed the history, accomplishments, and goals of the American Neuropsychiatric Association (ANPA) on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of its founding. The suggestion was made that to sustain ANPA’s early and remarkable success, its leadership should engage in an organized strategic planning process to include development of a formal mission and vision statement, as well as identification of strategic priorities to guide the future resource investment of the association over the next three to five years. On May 19, 1999, 13 current and past officers of ANPA convened in Washington, D.C., to begin this important process. (Participants included C. Edward Coffey, M.D.; Jeffrey L. Cummings, M.D.; Barry Fogel, M.D.; Jordan Graffman, Ph.D.; Robert Green, M.D.; Edward Lauterbach, M.D.; Tom McAllister, M.D.; Robert Robinson, M.D.; Stephen Salloway, M.D.; Randolph Schiffer, M.D.; Jonathan Silver, M.D.; Gary Tucker, M.D.; and Stuart Yudofsky, M.D.). This half-day strategic planning retreat was facilitated by Anne Barrins, C.S.W., Director of Quality Management for the Department of Psychiatry, Henry Ford Behavioral Health. Participants prepared for the retreat by reviewing literature on strategic planning and the building of a shared vision for an organization. The retreat began with some words of wisdom from the cartoon character Dilbert (a self-proclaimed expert on organizational development). Ms. Barrins then led the attendees through a series of group exercises designed to identify the key stakeholders in the association, as well as the association’s core values. Identified as key stakeholders were (listed in no particular order of significance): ANPA members and leaders, patients, patient advocacy groups, the medical industry (e.g., pharmaceutical companies), allied medical organizations (e.g., the Behavioral Neurology Society, the British Neuropsychiatry Association), students and trainees, The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, clinicians in neuropsychiatry, and neuroscience researchers. Three core values were identified for the association (again, not listed in any order of significance): advancing knowledge of brain–behavior relationships; providing a forum for learning; and promoting excellent, scientific, and compassionate health care. Breakout groups were then formed to begin the process of crafting a mission and vision for the association, with special reference to the key stakeholders and core values just identified. The requirement for the mission statement was that it express ANPA’s raison d’etre and that it be applicable for at least 100 years (in contrast to goals and strategies that would change many times in 100 years). Dialogue sparked by a variety of initial drafts led to strong consensus on the following:

Russia's stance against secessions: From Chechnya to Kosovo

Russia's policy towards, and interventions in, secessionist conflicts inside the state, in the immediate neighbourhood, and in Europe generally, has changed profoundly from the early 1990s. It is the fear of disintegration that is now the major factor in Moscow's policy making. Russia is set on the path of strategic retreat, which still allows for some interference, but hardly for constructive engagement. In the near future, there are several specifically European factors that define the perspective of a new wave of secessionist conflicts in the region. Neither European political networks built around the OSCE, nor military ties, centred on NATO, are reliable enough to compensate for Russia's withdrawal. The alarming perspective of escalation of instabilities can only be addressed if Europe together with Russia will move forward in developing political and legal frameworks for dealing with secessionist situations.

Russia and China on the eve of a new millennium

Russia and China on the Eve of a New Millennium assesses the collapse of totalitarian power and its consequences in Russia and surrounding nations. The situation in China is different, with economic openness struggling against political repression. The book focuses on the economic issues of systematic transition because, if not properly handled, they risk diverting or altogether derailing the impulse toward democracy. The authors consider hotly disputed issues of ideology, cultural values, beliefs, doctrine, and ethics; the threat to national unity and the promise of material prosperity offered by regionalism; and projections of future trends. Central to their work is the conviction that at the end of collectivist serfdom lies not absolute perfection, but vast increases in individual freedom, initiative, and responsibility; democratic governance; and spontaneous market coordination of economic choices. In Russia the failure of Marxian totalitarianism led to the political of 1989-1991 that swept away its power structures. The attempt at revolution from above to save Soviet communism unleashed the revolution from below that destroyed it. The core issue now is whether the surge of nationalism coming after the great collapse will flow into democratic or return to despotic channels. In China the totalitarian systemic failure was most apparent in the economic bankruptcy of the system of command of economics and central planning. Deng Xiaoping carried out a strategic retreat to save the regime by launching into economic reformation; he freed the peasantry from state control and opened the command economy to the influx of market forces. The authors claim that the new forces arising out of burgeoning markets sap the foundations of communist power and are likely in time to turn Deng's retreat into a rout under his successors. Linden and Prybyla assert that, despite the apparent economic success of politically despotic China and economic tribulations of the politically more pluralistic countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the Russians and East Europeans have the sounder approach. How Russia works through its crisis of identity and how China works through the contradiction between free market economics and communist dictatorship will deeply affect the shape of our world in the new millennium. The book includes contributions from Lawrence D. Orton, Marie-Luise Nath, Franz Michael, Jiirgen Domes, and Yuan-li Wu. It is a must read for political scientists, economists, policymakers, and Russian and Asian studies specialists.

The Emergence of Solitude as a Constructive Domain of Experience in Early Adolescence

Adolescents spend one-quarter of their waking hours alone, yet the significance of this time is little understood. This study evaluates developmental changes in the experience of solitude between late childhood and early adolescence. Four hundred eighty-three European American fifth through ninth graders provided experience-sampling reports on their companionship and subjective states at random times over a week. The findings show, first, that time alone becomes more voluntary across this age period. Second, time-series analysis shows that for seventh through ninth graders, but not fifth and sixth graders, solitude had a positive after effect on emotional state. Third, adolescents, but not preadolescents, who spent an intermediate amount of their time alone were better adjusted than those who spent little or a great deal of time alone. As a whole, the findings suggest that, while continuing to be a lonely time, in early adolescence solitude comes to have a more constructive role in daily life as a strategic retreat that complements social experience.

Of oxides and onions

Epic do not always come with the calendar. Progress may be illusory, or at least halting. Strategic retreat may prove prudent, to reassemble forces and regroup for real the next year. In gastroenterology at least, 1996 seems to be one of those years in which most of the heralded epic advances have come from the laboratory. More than a few reports in purportedly clinical journals have little heuristic or clinical value; like an affirmation of faith in science, they only dimly promise therapy. Helicobacter pylori enlarges its conquest of hearts and minds, though fervour for its eradication has waned slightly. Battles are being waged over whether four drugs for 1 week or two drugs for 4 weeks strike the more mortal blow. What we must know is how this spiral invader survives the Open chant

The Left-Liberal Consensus on Japan: A Methodological and Political Critique

Although most Americans are angry about the deterioration in their living and working conditions, mainstream analysts and decision-makers have nonetheless been remarkably successful in convincing them that only free-market policies can ensure the economic competitiveness required to achieve victory in the global marketplace and a reversal of negative trends. Many progressives have understandably responded to this successful ideological offensive with a strategic retreat and regrouping. Hoping to win a wider hearing for progressive policy initiatives, including a defense of past reforms, many are trying to craft new programs, and arguments for them, that will prove politically viable in the present conservative climate. One outcome of this effort has been the willingness of progressives to formulate and defend their new reforms not on the basis of their ability to advance an anti-capitalist political agenda but rather for their ability to improve working class conditions by enhancing the nation's economic performance.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Water resources professionals discuss challenges ahead for the 21st century

Water resources engineers, hydrologists, and attorneys from academia, government, and the private sector engaged in a lively analysis of the state of water resources planning and management and future challenges at a strategic retreat held in Washington, D.C., from March 10 to 11, 1996. A “visioning” break‐out group provided recommendations on how to adjust to the challenges facing water resources professionals as we approach the next millennium.

Transitions in land use and the problems of planning: a case study from the mountainlands of New Zealand

It remains an elusive goal to integrate economic and productive uses of land, whilst avoiding biophysical constraints and environmental risks as well as being sensitive to the wishes of immediate stakeholders and broader society. We review a number of approaches that have been used to order land use data, and present them to planners and decision makers in a more integrated way. We note that for every numeric planning methodology there are numerous criticisms, which have led to a strategic retreat of numeracy from the public and political spheres. It seems that the art of planning is again more powerful than the science of planning. Many parts of the mountainlands of New Zealand's South Island are in transition. Traditional land uses such as pastoral sheep farming are under economic and environmental pressures. Much of the change is slow, painful and confrontational, and there can be more losers than winners. While we seek to redress such ecological imbalances, it is becoming apparent that visions are needed, rather than maintaining a fond hope of retreating to the land uses of yesteryear. In a pilot study on 225 000 ha of the Mackenzie Basin, we developed and compared a number of future land use scenarios, using the LUPIS “rating and weighting” decision support tool. LUPIS develops scenarios by using the interaction of spatial data, planning rules and a socially-based voting process. Using a number of social preferences obtained from workshops and seminars, we obtained the likely land use make-up based on the voting patterns of three groups, viz. a technocrat, a green and a forest-green group. In all scenarios, the incumbent pastoral land use declined from its present 83% occupancy to a range of 9–26%. Production forestry could increase from its present

ECONOMIC REFORM IN RUSSLA AND JAPAN'S EXPERIENCE IN POST-WAR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Grand designs are associated with great risk. So it was with Communism, so it with Liberal capitalism.The victory of former communists in Poland, and more recently in Hungary's parliamentary elections, and strategic retreat of pro-reform parties and politicians in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine could mean that countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are trying to achieve too much too fast in their market reforms.This paper supports the gradualist position in Russia and maintains that transition can be managed more gently, with better protection for those who stand to lose. The Paper also claims that Russia should learn more from the East Asian model of economic and social development. From different aspects, especially because of the legacy of state-led command economy, can-style libertarian approach to reforms.

Destroyer of the Iron Horse: General Joseph E. Johnston and Confederate Rail Transport, 1861–1865 by Jeffrey N. Lash

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 149 of our military skill, in managing our arms, after the European mode. Now we are glad to learn the skulking way of war.” Wilcomb E. Washburn Dr. Washburn is director of the Smithsonian Institution’s American Studies Program and author of several books on Indian-white relations. Destroyer ofthe Iron Horse: GeneralJoseph E. Johnston and Confederate Rail Transport, 1861—1865. By Jeffrey N. Lash. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991. Pp. viii + 228; illustrations, notes, bibliogra­ phy, index. $28.00. Reacting against the carnage that Robert E. Lee’s boldness inflicted on the Confederate soldier, some historians have cast wistful eyes on Joseph E. Johnston. If only so cautious a master of the strategic retreat had remained in command, the Lost Cause might have been won! Jeffrey Lash’s Destroyer ofthe Iron Horse comes as a welcome antidote, for where the use of railroads was concerned, Johnston showed himself a man of limited vision, a slow learner and a quick forgetter. Just as the rifle and minié ball were transforming the face of battle, the railroad should have altered the nature of war itself. Some commanders applied the technology to the logistics of moving men and supplies, but not Johnston or his subordinates in the west. As Lash makes painfully clear, the general understood very little, cared even less, and cooperated in efforts to coordinate movements hardly at all. Instead of choosing experts to handle transportation, he threw the task on staff quartermasters; rather than innovate in railroad policy, even so far as to tender aid to private companies repairing track essential to the war effort, he stuck to the traditional protocol of laissez-faire. The War Department was more flexible than he, more tender toward company property, but Johnston misinterpreted some directives, ignored and flouted others. Unimaginative, insubordinate, arrogant, and uncommunicative, he always knew what to do. Some­ times it paid off. Nearly as often, it proved a hindrance in saving supplies when the army pulled back or carrying men when it moved forward. Well aware of how valuable railroad communications were to the advancing Union army, he somehow overlooked the possibility that they might be just as valuable to the Confederacy. Increasingly perceptive about the strategic use of Virginia’s railroads, increasingly capable in handling troop movements after taking command in the west, he never learned enough or for long. Retreating from Missis­ sippi in 1863, he abandoned or destroyed over six hundred engines and cars, a loss that would have been unnecessary with a little imagination or even obedience to orders from Richmond. Until late in the war when necessity forced him to change his practices, Johnston remained the worst nemesis that southern engines, rolling stock, 150 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE trestles, and iron rails faced. Inconsistency, occasionally incompe­ tence, were the watchwords of the general’s railroad policy. Lash is clear about the ways in which railroads could have been used, and the complexities of finance and transport, and misses nothing. That is why this book will please the researcher into the Civil War more than it will the general reader. Often the story is told in such minute detail that the larger picture vanishes from view; many a Civil War buff’s head will droop as he presses through the off-again, on-again competence of Johnston during the 1861—62 campaign. There is no liveliness of style to beguile, and the distaste for Johnston is unconcealed. Yet, in the end, the weaknesses only underline the strengths. It will be hard for anyone, coming to the end of Lash’s book, to disagree with his conclusion that Johnston’s modest reputa­ tion was one well earned, or not to wish that Lash would take the other generals and apply the same scrutiny to them. Mark Wahlgren Summers Dr. Summers is professor at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. He is the author of Railroads, Reconstruction, and the Gospel ofProsperity: Aid under the Radical Republicans, 1865—1877 (Princeton, N.J., 1984). Fortress America: The Corps ofEngineers, Hampton Roads, and United States Coastal Defense. By David A. Clary. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990. Pp. xiii + 222; illustrations, notes...