Word: foreign
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Since 1986 India has ranked as the world's largest arms importer: in 1987 it purchased weaponry from abroad valued at $5.2 billion, more than Iraq and Iran combined and twelve times more than Pakistan. Largely to gain the foreign exchange needed to pay its military imports bill, India is preparing to enter the world arms bazaar as an exporter...
Indians have long taken umbrage over China's standing in the international community, which includes membership in the nuclear club and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. Asks A.P. Venkateswaran, a former Foreign Secretary: "Why is China's power -- its huge army and its intercontinental ballistic missiles -- considered absolutely acceptable while India's is not? There's no reason why India should not have military power commensurate with its size, as China does...
While the price of petroleum is still a long way from its $35-a-bbl. peak in 1981, the U.S. is sliding back to a level of dependence on foreign sources not seen since the oil-shock days of the 1970s. January petroleum imports averaged 8.1 million bbl. a day, up almost 21% from a year ago and surpassing domestic production (8 million bbl.) for the first time in more than a decade. The import surge has hampered efforts to shrink the U.S. trade deficit, and rising prices have aggravated inflationary pressure...
What would happen if foreign producers cut off the U.S. supply of crude, as OPEC did in the 1970s? In the short run, the U.S. would not experience dire shortages. A Commerce Department study found that in the event of war, the country's demand for fuel could be met by domestic production and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Created 13 years ago, the reserve is now up to 515 million bbl., equivalent to about three months' total consumption, stored in salt caverns along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana...
...Government study concluded, however, that if foreign supplies were cut off oil prices would quickly skyrocket, inevitably sending the economy into a tailspin. Because production takes years to gear up, the U.S. petroleum industry could not fully make up the slack of the lost imports. Says John Boatwright, Exxon's chief domestic economist: "It's not a garden hose you can turn...