The threat of poison gas, and other related biological warfare agents, holds our society hostage to the possible actions of terrorist groups or rogue states. This study hopes to convince policymakers and the general public that the bad reputation that surrounds the use of gas is largely the result of propaganda, misinformation, and oft-repeated half-truths. With proper precautions and discipline, neither the military nor society need fear gas as a weapon of mass destruction, wielded by dictators and cowards who utilize the loopholes in international agreements and flaunt world opinion....

Although the United States Air Force was founded upon strategic bombardment theory and advocacy, the service has traditionally had tremendous difficulty in obtaining the adequate funding for bombers that it requires to fulfill its mandate. For more than 45 years, senior Air Force leaders, both military and civilian, have struggled to convince decision-makers in the White House and in Congress that modern manned bomber forces were needed, acceptable, and affordable. In this study, Donnini produces one of the most exhaustive analyses ever undertaken of Congressional subcommittee...

Since the buildup of U.S. armed forces peaked under Reagan in 1987, many changes have occurred in all four services, including reductions in both human and material resources. This study traces these trends and details the government's vision of how the military will look in the year 2015. Changes in the global security environment and pressure to decrease federal spending have resulted in force restructuring, eliminating major units, and displacing military and civilian personnel. Other consequences include base closures and reduced major weapon system inventories. Brasher discusses the...

Three policy actions taken during the Revolutionary War period helped form the military supply and acquisition structure still in place today. These include the formation of a management structure; the choice of management methods; and debates related to ancillary issues such as R&D, fostering of expertise, encouraging innovation, and the role of the federal government in the development of an industrial base. To provide valuable context, Horgan looks not only at decisions made by the Continental Congress, but also at the environment in which these plans were made. Of the wide range of...

A well-researched, qualitative analysis of how the US mass media covered typhoid fever, diptheria, and syphilis from 1870 to 1920. Ziporyn, a free-lance writer and former American Association for the Advancement of Science mass media fellow, finds consistently high press coverage of typhoid fever contrasted with media disinterest in diptheria and cautious reporting about syphilis. The press's approaches differed, she explains, because the news media responded to dissimilar social values about typhoid fever, diptheria, and syphilis at the turn of the century. Ziporyn's observations are...

This work is a critical examination of the dangers which confront the United States in the current era of global instability with historical examples of past crises and prescriptive suggestions for the future. America enters the post-Cold War world as a superpower, but one whose future security, and perhaps even survival, cannot be taken for granted. Only three times in modern history has the world seen such potential instability; in two of those instances, the result was total war. In the coming millennium, major crises and wars are inevitable. Whether or not the United States...