Word: coldness
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...also struggled to deal with the changing nature of warfare. U.N. peacekeeping, and even the organization itself, was established to regulate conflict between states, but since the end of the Cold War most pressing international crises have tended to be civil wars, usually along ethnic or tribal lines. More often than not the combatants have seldom been answerable to a political structure, let alone a government. That makes nonsense of the traditional U.N. peacekeeping style of absolute neutrality and keeping weapons holstered. The new style of conflict often requires intervention by an outside policing force that can be rapidly deployed...
...political rules that govern such interventions. After all, the principle of sovereignty and non-interference in any member state's internal affairs is one of the U.N.'s cornerstones, even if it sometimes operates in conflict with the lofty human rights principles of the organization's charter. And the Cold War-era structure of the Security Council that gives veto power to five permanent members - Russia, China, France, Britain and the U.S. - militates against rapid intervention. China, for example, has a history of nixing any operation that it perceives as interference in the internal affairs of a member state...
...Shooting to kill--something a soldier has practiced since basic training--is the best thing he can do in combat. But it's the worst thing he can do on a peacekeeping mission because an itchy trigger finger can spark civilian casualties, renewed warfare and national embarrassment. Since the cold war, which Russian and U.S. troops spent pacing in their garrisons awaiting World War III, military prowess has become a more subtle discipline. But subtlety has never been the U.S. military's strong suit, and no other modern military mission is as vexing to the Pentagon as peacekeeping...
...belatedly, scientists venture from the base to study a threat that has materialized but against which no adequate defense has been mounted. Despite the danger that climate change poses, the resources currently devoted to studying this problem--and combatting it--are inconsequential compared with the trillions spent during the cold war. Twenty years from now, we may wonder how we could have miscalculated which threat represented the greater peril...
...Vishnu of Suri's lyrical novel is a drunk who lies dying on the steps of a Bombay apartment house while the neighbors squabble over who will pay for an ambulance. If anyone is familiar with cold calculation, it is Suri. "I've worked very hard at math," he says. "I can't see myself giving...