Suchergebnisse

The 2002 National Security Strategy suggested preventive attacks, diplomacy, deterrence, and other policies as means of curtailing threats presented by the spread of nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons to terrorists and rogue states. The author analyzes which mix of these policies might best and most cost effectively address the NBC threat, with special focus on preventive attacks. The past performances of preventive attacks, diplomacy, deterrence, and other policies as means of curtailing the NBC threat are analyzed. The central findings are that preventive attacks are generally unsuccessful at delaying the spread of NBC weapons; that deterrence, especially nuclear deterrence, is highly successful at preventing the use of NBC weapons by states; and that diplomacy has had moderate and perhaps unappreciated success at curtailing the spread of NBC weapons. The author also discusses how funds spent on preventive wars, which are much more expensive than diplomacy or deterrence, might be better spent to combat threats from terrorism and proliferation, on initiatives such as fissile material recovery, ballistic missile defense, and port security. ; https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1713/thumbnail.jpg

This first article in a special journal section on the changing nature of diplomacy explores the concept of track two diplomacy, ie, constructive interaction conducted unofficially between adversaries in political conflicts. In another article (1981), the author defined track two diplomacy as "always open-minded, often altruistic, strategically optimistic, based on best case analysis." Drawing on relevant literature, case studies of this type of diplomatic negotiation are presented in relation to the Northern Ireland conflict, conflict situations in Africa & the Balkans, & the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. In the last case, the track two diplomacy effort has continued for more than three decades. It is contended that the establishment of a well-financed center on track two diplomacy would be of great help to future efforts. J. Stanton

This article reviews both what Personal Influence revealed about the two-step flow within women's inter-personal networks & what it failed to capture about women's experiences during the tumultuous changes in gender roles between 1945, when the data were collected, & 1955, when the study was published. One of the central contradictions of the Decatur Study is that it simultaneously disguises that it is women who are being studied here yet universalizes them as representative of the general population. But the article also argues that despite the blind spots & a historicity of Personal Influence, it was a crucial reminder that women, despite being individual targets of much media fare, were also embedded in social networks through which they influenced other women & were, in turn, influenced by them. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2006 The American Academy of Political and Social Science.]