However much they may have disagreed on such matters as the ERA amendment, the economy, or human rights, there was one banner around which both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan rushed to rally in the 1980 presidential campaign—the banner of increased defense spending. If there was disagreement about the dollars involved or the details entailed, there was no disagreement about the need for more and better arms to counter the military might of the Soviet Union. That a renewed arms race only increases the risk of nuclear annihilation, the end of all that man has aspired to and achieved over the course of some 20 centuries, today seems ignored in Washington, where renewed militarism is very much in vogue, both on Capitol Hill and in Foggy Bottom (now the domain of Alexander M. Haig, a hawk in statesman's clothing). Yet what will a bomb with a bigger bang actually accomplish? Very little beyond global suicide, argues Bernard P. Kiernan in refuting what he calls "the peace through strength myth." One may not agree with everything Mr. Kiernan says, but he deserves to be heard. In our obsession to be Number 1, he contends, we are pursuing a policy that is at best dangerous, at worst absolutely disastrous. A student of history and political science, Mr. Kiernan is a professor at Concord College in West Virginia. He is the author of The United States, Communism, and the Emergent World, and his articles have appeared in such publications as The Yale Review, Contemporary Review, and The American Scholar. He has lived in and traveled extensively throughout Europe.

Foreign policy is also the subject of James A. Nathan's essay, but rather than moving forward, it is a look back at the tortured course of U.S. diplomacy during the four years of the Carter administration. Mr. Nathan is no stranger to the world of foreign policy. He has a doctoral degree in international studies from Johns Hopkins University and has studied abroad at the University of Madrid and the London School of Economics. He is, moreover, a former member of the U.S. Foreign Service. "I quit the Foreign Service," he explains, "because cocktail parties and flat feet can be pernicious, especially if you don't drink all that much. Besides, I couldn't stand the idea of spending the rest of my working days looking down countless dresses and forgetting languages about as quickly as I learned them." Mr. Nathan recently concluded a book on foreign-policy planning, which is to be published later this year by Little, Brown.