  We develop a novel and powerful method of exactly calculating various
transport characteristics of waves in one-dimensional random media with (or
without) coherent absorption or amplification. Using the method, we compute the
probability densities of the reflectance and of the phase of the reflection
coefficient, together with the localization length, of electromagnetic waves in
sufficiently long random dielectric media. We find substantial differences
between our exact results and the previous results obtained using the random
phase approximation (RPA). The probabilty density of the phase of the
reflection coefficient is highly nonuniform when either disorder or absorption
(or amplification) is strong. The probability density of the reflectance when
the absorption or amplification parameter is large is also quite different from
the RPA result. We prove that the probability densities in the amplifying case
are related to those in the absorbing case with the same magnitude of the
imaginary part of the dielectric permeability by exact dual relationships. From
the analysis of the average reflectance that shows a nonmonotonic dependence on
the absorption or amplification parameter, we obtain a useful criterion for the
applicability of the RPA. In the parameter regime where the RPA is invalid, we
find the exact localization length is substantially larger than the RPA
localization length.
