Kenneth L. Adelman

About the Author: Kenneth L. Adelman was director of the U. S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under President Ronald Reagan. He is the coauthor of the book The Defense Revolution.

"You saw some action once, too, didn't you"" a young CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] analyst asked an intelligence veteran in the movie Three Days of the Condor.

"Do you miss the action""

The experienced hand answered slowly and carefully, "It's not the action I miss. It's the clarity."

In the post-Gulf War world, Americans will miss the clarity of that conflict. Foreign confrontations do not come any clearer:
• The triggering act, the conquest of another nation, was unmistakable and wholly unjustifiable.
• Our foe looked like, and was, the devil incarnate.
• The enemy state...