Word: cautiously
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...British and French embassies to greet their declaration of war by singing God Save the King and La Marseillaise. The crowds' hopes of rescue were doomed, however, for the British military effort during these first days consisted mainly of dropping propaganda leaflets on German military installations (among the cautious Britons' other preparations for war: killing all poisonous snakes in the London zoo). The French attempted only one feeble probe against Germany's ill- defended western frontier. And the Poles' own political and military leaders, perhaps considering discretion the better part of valor, were already abandoning Warsaw to its fate...
Nearby, equally cut off from everything, was Poland's military high command. If the Poles had adopted a more cautious strategy in the first place, pulling back to form a defensible perimeter, they might have lasted longer. But the Poles refused to abandon an inch of their land, and the Germans' surprise attack across the unfortified frontier threw the defenders into confusion. Military units got separated and cut off; refugees jammed the highways; communications systems broke down; the Germans not only knew Polish codes but also broadcast false information on Polish radio frequencies...
...cautious, reactive President, whose first concern in a crisis is to avoid mistakes...
...Bush's cautious, calibrated style has made for largely surefooted policy. Despite a sluggish first four months, the President has launched initiatives on difficult issues -- savings and loans, clean air, arms control -- that he might have ducked. He has kept a Democratic Congress off balance and has mollified the conservative wing of his own party. If he has hit no grand slams, neither has he committed any egregious errors. "I'm reasonably pleased where, at the end of six months, things are," Bush told TIME. "I'm not relaxed about it. I'm not in an everything's fine mode...
...After seven months as President, however, Bush seems to be betting that what he accomplishes will matter more than who he is or what he stands for. As Reagan fades from the public's mind, a clearer portrait of Bush is emerging, and his problem-solving style and relentlessly cautious decision making suggest that he is already positioning himself to run on the Dukakis slogan...