A stimulating argument that citizens need to act as watchdogs over the honesty and competence of our federal government, The Limits Of Power (Metropolitan, $24), by Andrew Bacevich, offers a thoughtful, sobering, and fresh re-assessment of the past 60 years of American politics and economics. As citizens, Bacevich believes, we have ducked such basic responsibilities as defending our country; we have too few soldiers for too many wars.  We have redefined freedom as “just another word for nothing left to buy.”  Bacevich invokes the 20th-century liberal theologian and activist, Reinhold Niebuhr, to buttress his call for a return to responsible citizenship. Citing Niebuhr’s warning that our dreams of omniscience, born out of arrogance and delusion, posed a potential deadly threat to America, Bacevich adds, “Today we ignore that warning at our peril.”