American Policy towards the Soviet Union in the 1980s: Objectives and Uncertainties
Anyone who is reckless enough to accept as impossible an assignment as to write on the goals and uncertainties of American policy towards the Soviet Union in the 1980s should at least — to use one of Secretary Haig’s contributions to political discourse — caveat his answers in so many ways that the caveats risk filling the whole of the Paper. This is even more so when the writer, aware of his own characteristics, has to top it all with a caveat about his caveats.
The United States and the third world: Motives, objectives, Policies
Gone are the days when the United States believed herself to be impervious to developments elsewhere and was convinced of the automatic relevance of her values as a model for other states. Gone, too, is her desire to remake the world in her own image; damage limitation now prevails over universalism. Entangling alliances are now shunned not merely because of the risks inherent in alliances but also because of doubts about whether the United States has in fact anything to contribute in regions which she finds complicated to understand and onerous to deal with. This self-doubt extends to the use of military force, to the widespread, nagging doubt about whether she can wield it at all, particularly in situations of ambiguity in which goals are unclear, victory hard to define and success elusive.
Complexity, Network-Decisions And Alternative Risk Premia: Some New Theories Of Structural Change And Portfolio Decisions.
Structural Change is the basis for many decisions such as government fiscal and monetary policies, government interventions, corporate-expenditure decisions, corporate strategic decisions, portfolio management decisions in finance; household allocation decisions, etc.. Structural change in industries and national economies is increasingly more difficult to detect partly because of the growth and dominance of Complex Systems and “Networks” in modern industries and economies – such Networks and Complex Systems include GVCs (global value chains), retail store networks; franchising networks; internet networks; services networks; credit-chains in industries; online social networks; etc.. The relationship between Complexity and Structural Change is well established in the physics, applied math and economic dynamics literatures. Traditional definitions and modeling of structural change have erroneously focused on changes in labor, technological progress, market share, and or capital – which are grossly inadequate in the new economy and post- global financial crisis (as confirmed by changes in the global retailing and housing industries and other industries). Also the modeling of structural change seems to be constrained by the availability of data, and often omits the relationship between structural change on one hand, and globalization, financial stability and international financial contagion. This article: i) introduces the Operations Strategy Model of structural change, explains how it differs from the Lewis Model of Structural Change; and explains the often omitted relationship between operations strategy (of companies and government agencies) and structural change; ii) introduces other new Complexity-based models/theories of Structural Change in industries; iii) reviews the relationships among Operations Research, Complexity and Structural Change; iv) explains the symbiotic relationship between structural change on one hand, and economic growth, financial stability, financial contagion and globalization; v) discusses the significant gap between academic research and practice and explains some issues and factors that should be considered in the development and testing of structural change models; vi) explains how alternative risk premia can be generated from new models of Structural Change.