Word: paradox
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...attempted Soviet decapitating attack on American missiles, that danger has always been mired in a paradox. No matter how homicidal or even genocidal the enemy is thought to be, he is not supposed to be suicidal. Deterrence presupposes not only the capacity to retaliate but also sanity and the imperative of self-preservation on both sides. A madman bent on self- destruction is, almost by definition, impossible to deter. It has always required a suspension of disbelief to imagine a sane Soviet leadership, no matter how cold-blooded, calculating that it could, in any meaningful sense, get away with...
...crash course in democracy, as radicals and former dissidents led by the late Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov denounced the KGB as "the most secret and conspiratorial of all state institutions" and counseled against giving Gorbachev, now President of the country, too much power. Here was part of the paradox of perestroika: democratization, so crucial to Gorbachev's principles and strategy alike, emboldened his critics and opponents...