Word: nuclear
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...party indeed. It boasted 40% of the world's income and a burgeoning economy. It was as rich as ever in natural resources, its population was growing, and it had an enormous output of food. It also had incredible military muscle; it possessed the world's only nuclear weapons. At the end of 1945 the U.S. had all the classic attributes of power. It had, says Hunter College Political Science Professor John G. Stoessinger, "the capacity to use its tangible and intangible resources to affect the behavior of other nations." And after a long era of isolation...
...decades, its share of the world's income dropped to one-third, its steel production fell from three-fifths to onequarter, its great gold stock melted as the balance of payments shifted. And most significantly, it lost its unique position as the world's only nuclear nation...
...basic irony that the balance of terror between nuclear powers, which has helped to prevent a global conflict, has also hampered peaceful diplomacy. For the ability to exercise military force is the ultimate threat behind all international arguments. Yet the patent and proper reluctance of big powers to resort to their biggest weapons gives smaller states an opportunity for mischief and arrogance. The difficulty of reacting without overreacting sets a definite limit on power. Thus Castro feels free to talk tough with Russia; the Rhodesians thumb their noses at the British; little Cambodia dares the wrath of Red China...
Inevitably, such non-nuclear confrontations sometimes lead to armed conflict. Then, as the U.S. has learned, and is still learning in Viet Nam, the limits of power expand into exasperation. Determined not to use its nuclear might, a big power must be doubly cautious with its conventional weapons. For no one can be certain of the level of warfare that might earn a smaller belligerent some nuclear assistance from outside. And these days, even conventional arms are so devastating that they demand restraint...
...true that Dow is not the only company involved in the war but Dow has become a symbol. It was equally arbitrary to make of the Bastille the symbol of absolutism (there were worse places and institutions) and it was equally arbitrary for public opinion to single out nuclear weapons as a target of moral outrage when ordinary bombs had killed many more people in Dresden than the atomic bomb killed at Hiroshima. The choice of a symbol happens to be a fact, and I am not even sure that we should deplore...