Word: problem
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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President Robert Mugabe is conning the world into believing the biggest problem facing Zimbabwe is the land issue [NOTEBOOK, May 1]. If we could wave a magic wand and immediately end the invasion of white-owned farms, would this solve Zimbabwe's problems? Absolutely not. Government corruption, incompetence, high unemployment and inflation, and Mugabe's fanatical intolerance of any form of opposition would still remain. In reality, white farmers and their lands fire up emotions, but this issue does not rank among Zimbabwe's top 10 difficulties. The agricultural sector has been one of the country's few shining lights...
...report on the recently declassified Vietnam War documents [HISTORY, April 24], Douglas Brinkley described with some pathos the American agony over the war. He touched on American attitudes toward what must be a tremendous problem--how to deal with what the U.S. government did or did not do--during and after nearly 15 years of involvement in Vietnam. While the American people will surely come to their own reckoning, one cannot help wondering whether the Vietnamese will one day achieve justice. Perhaps the American soul could rest easier if the U.S. government acknowledged its sins--maybe even the crimes...
When people speak of a "digital divide," they are, in effect, putting into 21st century technological terms what is an age-old cultural problem: that all the globalism in the world does not erase (and may in fact intensify) the differences between us. Corporate bodies stress connectedness, borderless economies, all the wired communities that make up our worldwide webs; those in Chechnya, Kosovo or Rwanda remind us of much older forces. And even as America exports its dotcom optimism around the world, many other countries export their primal animosities to America. Get in a cab near the Capitol...
Looking ahead, old-style proliferation--the acquisition of nuclear weapons by non-nuclear states--will hardly be the worst problem. Most countries have little interest in getting the bomb, either because they are not gravely threatened (such as Costa Rica) or because their safety is guaranteed by another nuclear power such as the U.S. (like Germany and Japan). The few countries that are interested, meanwhile, can be divided into what have been called the orphans and the rogues...
...just as the original nuclear powers did, which is to say they will use the weapons primarily for deterrence. The ultimate effect of their joining the club should be to extend the cold war's great power stability--and harrowing crises--to a few regional hot spots. The chief problem with the orphans is getting them to understand the importance of proper safety measures, secure command and control procedures, and other cold war lessons...