The four Visegrad states — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (until 1993 Czechoslovakia) and Hungary — form a compact area between Germany and Austria in the west and the states of the former USSR in the east. They are bounded by the Baltic in the north and the Danube river in the south. They are cut by the Sudeten and Carpathian mountain ranges, which divide Poland off from the other states. Poland is an extension of the North European plain and like the latter is drained by rivers that flow from south to north west — the Oder, the Vlatava and the Elbe, the Vistula and the Bug. The Danube is the great exception, flowing from its source eastward, turning through two 90-degree turns to end up in the Black Sea, forming the barrier and often the political frontier between central Europe and the Balkans. Hungary to the east of the Danube is also an open plain. The region is historically and culturally part of western Europe, but its eastern Marches now represents a vital strategic zone between Germany and the core of the European Union to the west and the Russian zone to the east.

Economy and Society

The George W. Bush administration's national security strategy, which asserts that the United States has the right to attack and conquer sovereign countries that pose no observable threat, and to do so without international support, is one of the most aggressively unilateral U.S. postures ever taken. Recent international relations scholarship has wrongly promoted the view that the United States, as the leader of a unipolar system, can pursue such a policy without fear of serious opposition. The most consequential effect of the Bush strategy will be a fundamental transformation in how major states perceive the United States and how they react to future uses of U.S. power. Major powers are already engaging in the early stages of balancing behavior against the United States, by adopting “soft-balancing” measures that do not directly challenge U.S. military preponderance but use international institutions, economic statecraft, and diplomatic arrangements to delay, frustrate, and undermine U.S. policies. If th...

Soft Balancing against the United States

Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and de‹ciency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself the enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency. (Ibn al-Haytham)1

국제정치이론 = Theory of international politics

To the Editor: As an advocate for patient safety and for the introduction of appropriate monitoring technology into perioperative practice, I read the recent article by Taenzer et al. with anticipation. Unfortunately, the conclusions reached by the authors do not appear to be supported by the evidence provided in the article. Specifically, the authors conclude “our results demonstrate that continuous patient surveillance can improve outcomes in a postoperative orthopedic ward setting.” There was no meaningful difference in death, intensive care unit transfer, or hospital stay; the only reported difference was in the number of “rescue” events. The rescue events consisted of several levels of intervention ranging from conventional code blue teams to a bedside visit of an intensive care nurse and a respiratory care technician within 10 min of call. Surely, the “rescues” at the latter end of the range cannot be considered significant clinical or resource utilization outcomes as described within. Although the authors note that the types of rescues activated were collected, the actual distribution by type of event before and after surveillance was not provided in the article. This article does break with tradition in a positive way in that it studies the impact of SpO2 surveillance in a clinical area where, by routine practice, patients are only assessed intermittently and where hypoxic events are not rare. In the past, the value of pulse oximetry was assessed in areas where intensive monitoring was already the rule. One cannot help but be a bit confounded by the results of this study because important data are absent. At its heart, the authors claim that surveillance reduces interventions, but how is this possible? A priori, more monitoring should detect more true hypoxia, which in turn should lead to more interventions (at an earlier stage, perhaps), not fewer, in order to improve true clinical outcomes. Are there important patient care interventions that are excluded from reporting in this article, such as direct nursing care and calls to and action by responsible physicians, among others? No mention is made of what process a floor nurse was to follow, protocol-driven or ad hoc, once notified by the central paging system. Did the frequency of nurse intervention in adjusting a patient’s posture or supplemental oxygen delivery, among other actions, change with surveillance? Finally, one is left curious about the impact of more intense respiratory monitoring on postoperative management and patient satisfaction because these are not addressed in the article. We look forward to further research using this model once adequately powered to discern clinically relevant outcomes. Ira J. Rampil, M.S., M.D.,* Linda S. Rampil, M.S., M.S.W., R.N. *Health Science Center, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York. ira.rampil@sunysb.edu

Where Is the Impact

It is often held that the establishment of electoral democracy is key to the creation of political legitimacy. This article challenges this idea and presents an alternative. Many empirical studies reveal that electoral democracy has no necessary implications for the establishment of legitimacy. Even in the successful and stable Nordic democracies, there is scant evidence that legitimacy is created on the input side of the political system. For example political legitimacy in the former Yugoslavia broke down not because ethnic groups realized they would become permanent minorities but because the new Croatian state violated citizens’ rights in the exercise of power. Legitimacy turns out to be created, maintained, and destroyed not at the input but at the output side of the political system. Hence, political legitimacy depends at least as much on the quality of government than on the capacity of electoral systems to create effective representation.

Creating Political Legitimacy: Electoral Democracy versus Quality of Government

In January 1762, Prussia hovered on the brink of disaster. Despite the masterful generalship of Frederick the Great, the combined forces of France, Austria, and Russia had gradually worn down the Prussian army in six years of constant warfare. Austrian armies had marched deep into Saxony and Silesia, and the Russians had even sacked Berlin. Frederick’s defeat appeared imminent, and the enemy coalition intended to partition Prussia to reduce it to the status of a middle German state no more powerful than Bavaria or Saxony. And then a miracle occurred. The Prusso-phobic Czarina Elizabeth unexpectedly died, only to be succeeded by her son Peter, who idolized the soldier-king. Immediately Peter made peace with Frederick and ordered home the Russian armies. This reversal paralyzed the French and Austrians and allowed Frederick to rally his forces. Although Peter was soon ousted by his wife, Catherine, the allied armies never regained their advantage. In the end, Frederick held them off and kept Prussia intact.1 Frederick’s triumph in the Seven Years’ War was essential to Prussia’s eventual uniacation of Germany and all that followed from it. Conceiving of European history today without this victory is impossible. It is equally impossible to conceive of Prussian victory in 1763 without the death of Elizabeth and Peter’s adoration of Frederick. In the words of Christopher Duffy, “It is curious to reoect that if one lady had lived for a very few weeks longer, historians would by now have analyzed in most convincing detail the reasons for a collapse as ‘inevitable’ as that which overtook the Sweden of Charles XII.”2 In short, had it not been for the idiosyncrasies of one man and one woman, European history would look very, very different. Let Us Now Praise Great Men Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack

Let Us Now Praise Great Men: Bringing the Statesman Back In

The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America

List of Tables List of Maps Preface Acknowledgments Understanding Modern Arab Military Effectiveness 1. Egypt 2. Iraq 3. Jordan 4. Libya 5. Saudi Arabia 6. Syria Conclusions and Lessons Notes Selected Bibliography Index

Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991

The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq

Even the most seasoned Middle East observers were taken aback by the events of early 2011. Protests born of oppression and socioeconomic frustration erupted throughout the streets; public unrest provoked violent police backlash; long-established dictatorships fell. How did this all happen? What might the future look like, and what are the likely ramifications for the United States and the rest of the world? In The Arab Awakening, experts from the Brookings Institution tackle such questions to make sense of this tumultuous region that remains at the heart of U.S. national interests. The first portion of The Arab Awakening offers broad lessons by analyzing key aspects of the Mideast turmoil, such as public opinion trends within the "Arab Street"; the role of social media and technology; socioeconomic and demographic conditions; the influence of Islamists; and the impact of the new political order on the Arab-Israeli peace process. The next section looks at the countries themselves, finding commonalties and grouping them according to the political evolutions that have (or have not) occurred in each country. The section offers insight into the current situation, and possible trajectory of each group of countries, followed by individual nation studies. The Arab Awakening brings the full resources of Brookings to bear on making sense of what may turn out to be the most significant geopolitical movement of this generation. It is essential reading for anyone looking to understand these developments and their consequences.

Kenneth M. Pollack

Papers

Let Us Now Praise Great Men: Bringing the Statesman Back In

The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America

Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991

The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq

The Arab Awakening: America and the Transformation of the Middle East