Word: destructive
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...more likely strategy, if the rebels do not divide and self-destruct, is a slow and steady strangulation of the major cities. "We want to collapse the city from within," explains Abdul Haq, a powerful commander whose men are positioned around Kabul. Key targets include the shutdown of airports, the closure of the government's arms pipeline and the cutting of the Salang Highway, the 264-mile road that stretches from Kabul into Soviet territory...
Reagan thought OPEC was finished. The cartel began to self-destruct in the early 1980's when internecine squabbling and cheating on production quotas rendered it powerless to prop up oil prices. Combined with Carter-era conservation programs, excess production led to a world-wide glut. The price of a barrel of oil fell by one-third, ushering in the economic recovery of the Reagan...
Members of the conglomerate group say that unless they manage to unify the very diverse students into one community this year, the council may well self-destruct. The council was formed three years ago to promote unity among Harvard's many graduate schools...
...partisans woke up, a series of bruising lawsuits followed. After last week's debacle, the result may be a contested delegation. Says Field Reichardt, a moderate who helped draft the Michigan plan: "We should never have done this. In the short run, it's causing our party to self-destruct...
...corollary to the notion that the crazy state is incompetent is the notion that it must ultimately self-destruct. Americans keep waiting for that to happen to the mullahs, the Sandinistas and the rest of the world's zealots. It is a wan hope. This century has not been kind to the notion that fanaticism must collapse from within. Generally, the crazy state does not self-destruct. On the contrary, it must be destroyed from without: Hitler by the Allies, the Khmer Rouge by Viet Nam, Idi Amin by Tanzania. (In his last years Stalin was no less irrational than...