Word: battlefield
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...battlefield will be a mass of political Silly Putty. Of the seven, only Jesse Jackson has an established national reputation -- yet he has virtually no chance of winning. Current party practice bars informal tests of strength. "There is no mountain to climb, no way for one of them to show off," says Bob Strauss, the former Democratic chairman who reigns as party sage. Says John White, another chairman emeritus: "The campaign goes back to ground zero." Polls taken last week, just after Hart's final agony became public, demonstrated why some skeptics call the active contenders the Seven Dwarfs...
...than before, better unified than before, with better morale than before," says Massood Khalili, a guerrilla political officer. New weapons like surface-to-surface rockets, Oerlikon antiaircraft guns and the Stingers have helped immensely. The Stingers, for example, are potent weapons against the once omnipotent Mi- 24 helicopter gunship. Battlefield communication and coordination among mujahedin groups have also improved with the introduction of field radios and walkie-talkies...
NATO commanders claimed that their new weapons strengthened the alliance's strategic doctrine of "flexible response," which calls for the use of INF and battlefield nuclear arms if NATO armies are threatened with defeat by superior East bloc conventional forces. Allied governments welcomed the U.S. missiles as clear symbols of America's continued commitment to Europe's defense. Nevertheless, NATO stuck to its original offer: if the Soviet SS-20s targeted on Europe were ever removed, the new NATO missiles would...
Attractive as the proposed cuts are to the general public, many European politicians fear that removal of all American INF missiles would leave dangerous holes in the U.S. nuclear umbrella. For their part, NATO commanders warn that an INF deal would leave them overly reliant on tactical missiles and battlefield nuclear weapons to deter superior East bloc forces. If NATO were attacked, the limited range of these weapons would prevent deep strikes into Soviet territory and would probably make West Germany the nuclear battleground...
...would not just come to Europe's defense but would do so with nuclear weapons. The independent deterrents of Britain and France by definition cannot function as an American trip wire, and U.S.-based strategic weapons might sit out a war in Europe. U.S. short-range and battlefield weapons might blunt a Soviet blitzkrieg but cannot carry the war to the Soviet homeland. In the jargon of nukespeak, some Europe-based, intermediate-range American weapons are necessary to serve the cause of "coupling" between the U.S. and its allies...