The Nicaraguan-Contra Negotiations of 1988: A Test of The Reagan Doctrine
AbstractThe 1988 peace negotiations between the Nicaraguan government and the contras were noteworty as a reaction to the implementation by the United States government of the Reagan Doctrine and the theory of Low Intensity Conflict against the Sandinista state. That government confronted the Doctrine by reversing its long-held position of refusing to talk with the contras, as well as by agreeing to hold elections at an earlier date than originally planned. A detailed examination of the 1988 negotiations indicates that the government made important concessions to the contras in order to weaken the military impact of LIC; but this strategy could not overcome the economic warfare aspect of LIC. This conclusion indicates that LIC may be a more effective economic than military strategy even though the Sandinistas have not been totally defeated. The military aspect of LIC, furthermore, depends heavily on the strength of local rightist forces.
A functional integral approach to the one-dimensional electron-phonon problem
Abstract The interplay between lattice and electronic fluctuations in one-dimensional electron-phonon systems is analyzed by a path integral approach in terms of both commuting and anticommuting field variables. Both adiabatic and non-adiabatic regimes of lattice fluctuations can be investigated by applying a renormalization group procedure to both the electronic and phonon degrees of freedom. It is shown how this procedure, which is at a microscopic level, can generate the Ginzburg-Landau functional description of lattice correlations. In the adiabatic regime, this theory gives a self-consistent treatment of lattice fluctuations and of the remaining electronic degrees of freedom. Using a single-loop approximation of the quartic phonon field term, it is shown that quantum fluctuations of the phonon field suppress the Peierls order parameter. A numerical application to the spinless half-filled band in the molecular crystal model is in excellent agreement with Monte Carlo simulations.
The Internet and the Changing Beijing-Taipei Relations: Toward Unification or Fragmentation?
Information and its technologies facilitate the exercise of what has been called “soft power,” a concept that differentiates information from the conventional dimensions of “hard power,” which is mainly associated with military force and economic influence. Soft power, according to Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, means that “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense it is just as important to set the agenda in world politics and attract others as it is to force them to change through the threat or use of military or economic weapons.”1