THE topics chosen for inaugural lectures often fall into one of three categories. First, there is what might be called the ‘state of the discipline’ lecture, in which the newly-appointed Professor takes an overall look at his subject. He may chart its recent progress, discuss its current health, consider its distinctive intellectual characteristics, explain its relevance to the world's concerns, or even justify its appearance in the academic curriculum. In any event, his intention is to present a synoptic picture. Many of those who have come to hear him may be presumed to represent other disciplines and it is, therefore, his intention to guide them along some of the wider paths which are to be found in his particular neck of the academic woods.

RECENTLY the problem of public disaffection from the Community has given rise to concern in EEC circles. The problem became increasingly acute with rising unemployment throughout the Community, but what in addition to this focused EEC decision-makers' attention on the needs of EEC citizens was the public debate over EEC membership in Britain and subsequent referendum campaign during which anti-marketeers emphazised the lack of benefits that ordinary citizens could expect from the EEC. Independent surveys of citizen attitudes towards the Community moreover revealed disaffection to be greatest in the EEC's periphery regions and among those with least knowledge of the Community, its goals and activities. Therefore, partly in response to a perceived need to alter the public's image of the EEC Community decision-makers began to accord greater attention to socio-economic matters believed to be of interest to the Community's urban masses and to revitalize the EEC's social policy.

THE United Nations Conference on Trade and Development came nto existence in 1964. Its creation was viewed with a degree of cautious enthusiasm by the Third World and with a certain amount of apprehension by the rich countries. Its performance has dampened the enthusiasm and heightened the apprehension. Its contribution to substantive changes in trade policies has not been spectacular. Whatever improvement in commodity prices and hence in the terms of trade of the poor countries that occurred in the early 1970s was attributable to fortuitous circumstances – not to a negotiated settlement between the rich and poor countries, enabling the latter to retain a larger portion of the gains from trade. Can we3 therefore3 say that UNGTAD has been ineffective? That it has failed to perform its global task? And if so, what is the cause of this failure? Is the organizational ideology unsuitable in the sense that it is not representative of the national objectives of viable coalitions among UNGTAD constituents? Or has the leadership failed to evolve a strategy which links the pursuit of specific sub-goals to the transformation of the system in accordance with the organizational ideology? This present paper attempts to look at the first question and to venture an opinion on the effectiveness of UNGTAD in the light of these findings.

THE British Empire after 1919, Liddell Hart once observed, was the greatest example of strategical over-extension known to history. Like the Roman or Spanish empires in earlier centuries, the gap between the country's obligations and its capacity to carry them out had become alarmingly wide – too wide, in fact, to be ever closed. The blunt fact was that, by the third and fourth decades of the twentieth century, Britain was well into a process of decline, militarily, economically and geopolitically, vis-à-vis certain of the other Great Powers, who were soon o t usurp her predominance in various parts of the globe.1 To a large extent, the First World War and its consequences – the defeat of Germany and the seizure of its colonies, the Soviet revolution in Russia, the American retreat into isolationism – had suggested to the public mind that the British Empire was still as formidable as ever and thus was masked this process of decline until, by 1945, it had become clear to almost everyone. In the secret discussions and analyses of British statesmen and their advisers, however, the weaknesses within the system of home and imperial defence were all too apparent long before that date. To the ‘official mind’, the 1930s in particular was a decade of almost continuous anxiety as the ever more frequent international crises exposed the inadequacies of the armed services and affected the country's diplomacy. Because this topic relates directly to the discussion upon ‘appeasement’ and, indirectly, to the origin and course of the Second World War, it has always been one ofgreat interest to historians; but the restrictions upon the use of government records of the inter-war years made it impossible until a few years ago to know more than that which was related in the memoir literature and in the official war histories written in the post-1945 period. Now that the archives are open and new studies based upon their holdings are appearing in large numbers, it is possible to obtain a much more detailed picture of the workings of British defence policy during the “Twenty Years Crisis”. What follows, then, is an attempt to summarize the findings of a variety of such publications which have appeared over the course of the past two years.

1976 was a vintage year for Clausewitzian studies. No less than three major works were published; Raymond Aron's two volume study Penser la Guerre, Peter Paret's Clausewitz and the State and a new English translation of Vom Kriege by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. In curious way all three works are complementary; we have a modernized text complete with introductory essays by Michael Howard, Peter Paret and Bernard Brodie, together with a reader's guide; a full biographical study placing Glausewitz in his intellectual and political milieux; and an extensive critical analysis of his thought with an attempt at relating it to the modern world. There is no longer any excuse for Glausewitz to be “well-known, but little read”. Taken together they make an impressive oeuvre, of interest to the historian, whether of ideas or of war and to the strategic theorist. One thing all these writers have in common is their conviction that Vom Kriege has a continuing relevance to the study of war. It is with this, in particular the relation between theory and practice, that this article is primarily concerned. Consequently, it is first to Aron, who devotes most of his study to this question, that I turn.