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.
Misguided Morality: Ethics and the Reagan Doctrine
The Iran-contra affair demonstrates once more how strong moral convictions can lead to foreign policies of questionable legality and morality. In particular, it raises larger questions about the morality of the so-called Reagan Doctrine, of which aid to the contras is one expression. The Reagan Doctrine principle that the United States should support "freedomfighters" attempting to overthrow "Marxist-Leninist" regimes in the Third World was first enunciated in President Ronald Reagan's 1985 State of the Union address:
New Mechanisms for Phase Transitions in Quasi-One-Dimensional Conductors
We show that interchain single-particle tunnelling in quasi-one-dimensional solids invariably leads to effective interchain pair tunnelling interactions even when there is no gap in the intrachain excitation spectrum. These can lead to antiferromagnetism well before the dimensionality crossover or to superconductivity below this crossover whenever the nesting conditions of the Fermi surface are poor. We thus suggest a new mechanism for super-conductivity which would involve Cooper pairs on different chains and an isotropic gap compatible with recent nuclear-relaxation rate experiments.