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AtteMt;ol~:Anlziuersal~y. Su~scriber~ We've got a NEW WEB ADDRESS. You can now find us at http://www.wilsonquarterly.com At our Web site, you call ... ~ Check the current status of vour WilS072gnal-terl~, subscription O Change your subscriber address Order a subscription Our Web site also features ... a Summaries of the contents of the current issue o Selected articles in their entirety from previousissues o A generous selection of current Periodical reviews g Book reviews,with ordering links to Amazon.com a An index to articles from more than 20 years of the W~2 B Direct links to other Wilson Center sites Editor’s Comment cholarly passion is regrettably rare, and often hidden. In Murray Feshbach, the author of this issue’s lead article, that passion is unmis- Stakable. A visit to his Wilson Center office, for example, seldom fails to yield an urgent lecture on the desperate state of Russian society, punctuated by anecdotes, asides, and quips while supporting charts and graphs chug from his computer printer and he reaches into the neat stacks of documents piled high almost everywhere. There! he says excitedly, jabbing a finger at a table surrounded by swirling Cyrillic text. There are the numbers that prove his point. In Feshbach’s presence, it is absolutely essential that you get his point. People have been getting Murray Feshbach’s point for several decades: Politicians, government officials, journalists, and others with an interest in things Russian regularly consult him. After arriving at the U.S. Bureau of the Census in 1957, he joined a small group of government and academic analysts who explored the inner life of the Soviet Union, ferreting out bits of information from obscure sources and personal contacts to construct a statistical montage of the country’s vital signs. (Gathering data became much easier after the death of communism, he says, but things have become “a little less better” in recent years.) By the 1970s, this research was pointing to unexpected weaknesses in the Soviet system. In 1980, Feshbach and Christopher Davis dropped a bombshell when they documented a sharp rise in Soviet infant mortality. Later, after he had moved on to Georgetown University, word filtered back from Soviet sources that the revelation had saved thousands of infant lives. Feshbach grows unaccus- tomedly somber when he tells the story. It was, he says, his proudest moment. Feshbach’s fresh warning about the Russian condition in this issue represents a return in more than one respect. We first published his work 20 years ago, after he spent a year as a Wilson Center Fellow. It is a delight to have him back at the Center, now as a Senior Scholar, and in our pages as well. Editor: Steven Lagerfeld The Wilson Quarterly (ISSN-0363-3276) is published in Deputy Editor: James M. Morris January (Winter), April (Spring), July (Summer), and Managing Editor: James H. Carman October (Autumn) by the Woodrow Wilson International Senior Editor: Robert K. Landers Center for Scholars at One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Literary Editor: Stephen Bates Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20004–3027. Associate Editor: Justine A. Kwiatkowski Complete article index now available online at Editors at Large: Ann Hulbert, Jay Tolson http://wwics.si.edu/WQ/WEBIND.HTM. Subscriptions: Copy Editor: Vincent Ercolano one year, $24; two years, $43. 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Tel.: (212) 399-9500, Fax: (212) 265-0986. 2 Wilson Quarterly WQ WQWINTER 2001 THE WILSON QUARTERLY Published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars WQ Online: http://www.wilsonquarterly.com 67 THE GULF WAR’S LEGACY OF ILLUSIONS The Gulf War and Postmodern Memory by Alex Vernon Ten years after leaving the battlefield, a young platoon leader reflects on his experience of combat. A Less than Splendid Little War by Andrew J. Bacevich The Persian Gulf War’s legacy is beginning to look a lot like the legacy of another “splendid little war,” the Spanish-American War. And that’s not good news. 12 RUSSIA’S POPULATION MELTDOWN by Murray Feshbach Alarmingly high rates of disease and death, along with very low birth rates, threaten Russia’s survival as a nation. 22 THE GREAT AMERICAN AUGIE by Christopher Hitchens Saul Bellow’s lusty picaresque novel The Adventures of Augie March was published almost 50 years ago. It shows no signs of mellowing with age. 30 EUROPE’S EXISTENTIAL CRISIS by Martin Walker Time may be running out on the effort to reconcile the dream of a united Europe with the reality of a Europe that is large and highly diverse. 54 IS HARMONY AT THE HEART OF THINGS? by Anthony Aveni In the age-old quest for evidence of a harmonious universe, astronomers and others have gone to unusual lengths. departments 2 EDITOR’S COMMENT 121 RESEARCH REPORTS 4 CORRESPONDENCE 123 WILSON CENTER DIGEST 9 FINDINGS 125 CURRENT BOOKS Schools, Dazed Table Talk Fish Story by Lis Harris 95 THE PERIODICAL OBSERVER Feminist Foremother The Clinton Legacy by Elaine Showalter The Estate Tax Debate Get Me Drama, Sweetheart 144 FROM THE CENTER cover: Desert Storm victory parade, New York, June 10, 1991.