Word: fractiously
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Suddenly the confrontation's over. The two great rivals of the postwar era -- America and the Soviet Union -- are more or less friends. East and West Germany are one. Even North and South Korea have signed a treaty of reconciliation. Yes, much of the world remains as fractious as ever: the Khmer Rouge has followed Prince Sihanouk back to the haunted palaces of Cambodia, and Iraq occupies the place on the blacklist formerly reserved for its % archenemy Iran. But in a world where even South Africa is again part of the Olympic family, it may seem that the Olympic Games...
...Japan have a long, fractious history of disputes over immigration, investment and trade. President Theodore Roosevelt had a few brushes with the Japanese at the beginning of the century. He struck an intelligent note: "I am exceedingly anxious to impress upon the Japanese that I have nothing but the friendliest possible intentions toward them, but I am nonetheless anxious that they should realize that I am not afraid of them and that the U.S. will no more submit to bullying than it will bully." Japanese- American dealings are often distorted by cultural misperceptions -- and the Japanese know how to maneuver...
...explosive force in the midst of this ferment was Japan's fractious Kwantung Army, originally sent to the Kwantung Peninsula just east of Beijing to protect Japanese rail and shipping interests in Manchuria. After ultranationalist Kwantung officers murdered the Chinese overlord of Manchuria, Tokyo installed a puppet regime in 1932 and proclaimed the independence of what it called Manchukuo. Despite calls for sanctions against Japan, outgoing President Herbert Hoover had no enthusiasm for a crisis, and the incoming President Roosevelt was preoccupied with the onrushing Great Depression...
Such tussles are becoming increasingly frequent, partly because parliament is increasingly fractious. The legislators, elected in March 1990, once divided into two main groups: Communists and their opponents. They have now splintered into at least 14 registered factions, plus any number of single- issue dissidents. Lilia Shevtsova, a professor at Moscow's Institute of International Economic and Political Studies, calls many of the country's proliferating political organizations "sofa parties" because "all the members of one party can sit on one sofa...
...basis of the proposed army is a 4,200-troop Franco-German brigade based near Stuttgart that can barely be called a joint force. Its soldiers carry different rifles, wear their own national uniforms and operate in separate battalions. Expanding so fractious a concept to an army corps of about 35,000 to 40,000 soldiers could take years. Creating a full army could take a generation. By that time, with any luck, it will no longer be needed...