Word: repellent
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Using strategic nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union would be "an act of suicide," McNamara wrote, because it would touch off a chain reaction of escalating nuclear exchanges. The likelihood of annihilation makes "first use"-the option of initiating the use of nuclear weapons to repel a Soviet conventional attack-at best a weak stick. "The threat of [first use] has lost all credibility as a deterrent to Soviet conventional aggression," he wrote. "One cannot build a credible deterrent on an incredible action...
...limited and would quickly turn into a continent-wide holocaust. It suggests that a buildup of conventional forces is a credible alternative because it would provide NATO commanders with a greater range of options for checking a Soviet advance, thus making the use of nuclear weapons less likely. To repel the first invasion forces in a Warsaw Pact blitzkrieg across Central Europe, the committee of strategists urged NATO to acquire more sophisticated ground-and air-launched conventional missile systems that could be targeted at Soviet bloc artillery. The alliance should also develop new surveillance technology that would greatly decrease...
DIED. Ernesto de la Guardia, 78, President of Panama from 1956 to 1960; in Panama City. The target of the first liberation campaign sponsored by Cuba's Fidel Castro, De la Guardia in 1959 invoked the Rio Treaty, calling on his neighbors to help repel the threat. The "invaders" turned out to be a comic-opera troupe of adventurers who had been recruited by De la Guardia's chief political rival, Roberto Arias, and his wife Ballerina Margot Fonteyn. As the coup fizzled, Arias fled, Fonteyn was arrested, and the Cubans, repudiated by Castro, were induced to surrender...
...test of Honduran military ability, the exercise appeared to be a failure. The ill-trained Hondurans were unable to cope with the 1,300 tons of equipment rained on them by the U.S. Nor did they show any great mastery of the battlefield discipline necessary to repel a hypothetical Corinthian advance. The 528 Honduran paratroopers dropped into the war-game zone, for example, spent two full hours attempting to regroup into companies. When one trooper was slightly injured during a faulty jump, other members of his battalion stood idly by rather than carrying him off for medical aid. In public...
...Administration is concerned with the significant Nicaraguan arms build-up. But the Sandinistas, whose repeated friendly overtures to the U.S. have been ignored, claim they need a bigger army to repel a U.S. or U.S.-sponsored invasion. When Administration officials admit that such plans are in the works, it isn't difficult to empathize with the Nicaraguans...