We describe a strategy for attacking the canonical nuclear structure problem
---bound-state properties of a system of point nucleons interacting via a
two-body potential---which involves an expansion in the number of particles
scattering at high momenta, but is otherwise exact. The required
self-consistent solutions of the Bloch-Horowitz equation for effective
interactions and operators are obtained by an efficient Green's function method
based on the Lanczos algorithm. We carry out this program for the simplest
nuclei, d and 3He, to contrast a rigorous effective theory with the shell
model, thereby illustrating several of the uncontrolled approximations in the
latter.Comment: Revtex; two columns; four pages; two figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.
Let