Word: buildups
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Kennedy proposed a theory of "imperial overstretch," that a nation gains "Great Power" status by using its economic strength to finance a military buildup and undertake a wide array of international obligations. As time goes on, however, such overseas commitments ultimately become a financial drain, eroding the Power's economic base by diverting resources badly needed for domestic investment...
...California to Georgia, reducing the country's grain harvest by 31% and killing thousands of head of livestock. A stubborn seven-week heat wave drove temperatures above 100 degrees F across much of the country, raising fears that the dreaded "greenhouse effect" -- global warming as a result of the buildup of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere -- might already be under way. Parched by the lack of rain, the Western forests of the U.S., including Yellowstone National Park, went up in flames, also igniting a bitter conservationist controversy. And on many of the country's beaches, garbage...
...disputes the fact that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen and continues to increase rapidly and that the human race is thus conducting a dangerous experiment on an unprecedented scale. The possible consequences are so scary that it is only prudent for governments to slow the buildup of CO2 through preventive measures, from encouraging energy conservation to developing alternatives to fossil fuels...
...hard look at the numbers Gorbachev ticked off in his sweeping U.N. speech were less impressed. "What counts isn't what he's taking out, assuming he does, but what remains," observed former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, the skeptical architect of the Reagan Administration's $2.4 trillion defense buildup. Soviet superiority in conventional forces in Eastern Europe is so great, claimed Jimmy Carter's Defense Secretary Harold Brown, that the cuts will not significantly reduce their advantage. Said Brown: "If war were to break out today, I would not have very much confidence that NATO could hold conventionally...
...trillion Reagan military buildup is producing weapons that seem designed to upset the strategic balance and give the U.S. a nuclear advantage over the Soviet Union. Experts warn that weapons systems such as the Strategic Defense Initiative and the just-unveiled Stealth bomber could make the world more dangerous by prompting a hostile Soviet response. Other weapons that were first introduced by the U.S., such as cruise missiles and multiple- warhead ICBMs, have been copied by the Soviets and now pose a greater threat to Americans...