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.
Consciousness
S P E A K I N G as a theologian in the symposium on morality I talked of charity. In this present context, a symposium on the arts, the theologian must speak of vision. W e are travellers, and our home is truth. But we are fallen men, and are so debilitated for this journey that we can, and indeed must, put the end in question. 'What is truth ?' T h e enormous number of answers that this question has received serves only to confirm our fallen condition. M a y I, for the purposes of m y paper, be absurdly optimistic, and narrow them down to two? For before anything so ambitious as a definition is attempted, men divide radically in their general way of envisaging what it is they want to define. T o describe this first and radical division as twofold is not, perhaps, so simpliste as might appear at first sight. It consists in two sets of basic assumptions. The first set runs like this. There is the world, and here is m y mind, and both are constants. In bringing my mind to bear on the world, it is an instrument that I am bringing to bear on an object. T h e instrument is faulty and subject to improvement, but the fault is not radical, so that its gradual lessening will not constitute a radical change. I do not, then, expect ever to see the world quite differently from the way I see it now, only very much better. T h e second runs like tins. There is the world, and here is m y mind, and neither are constants. Indications from another quarter give me more than a suspicion
The Dimensionality Crossover in Quasi-1D Conductors
Abstract A farmion path integral formalism is used for the study of one-dimensional (ID) gapless of Tomanaga-Luttinger (T-L) like electron gas models with interchain hopping. Scaling arguments and exact T-L1D results show that the one-particle crossover temperature TX is smaller than its free-electron gas value. Renormalized properties at TX and applications to (TMTSF)2X compounds are discussed.