Word: warred
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Armenians. Moscow sought to defuse the issue by assuming direct rule of Nagorno-Karabakh, where it has stationed 4,500 troops. But the dispute, which has so far claimed more than 100 lives, will not go away. On the contrary, it has escalated into something very close to civil war. In both republics ferocious animosities generated by the rivalries have brought to the fore nationalist groups threatening secession. Indeed, traveling between the two republics, a visitor finds it difficult to imagine how they can continue to exist in the same country much longer...
Extremists in both republics have called for formation of republican armies. That is unlikely to happen, but such is the depth of bitterness that civil war would be hard to prevent if it did. Azerbaijani nationalists also speak seriously of carrying out their self-proclaimed secession if Moscow continues to govern Nagorno-Karabakh. "There would be a war ((with the Soviet Union))," says Huseynov with a shrug. "But we think Iran and Turkey would help us." Moscow would presumably have something of its own to say about any attempt by Baku to exercise such an option. But so far, Moscow...
What the assassination ban amounts to in practice is a rule against killing people whose names you know. Killing anonymous soldiers or even civilians is merely war. C'est la guerre. Killing someone with a name attached is assassination. Not done, old chap...
...blunt instrument of economic sanctions because we deny ourselves the use of a more surgical tool? One defense of the assassination ban is cynical. It is part of an unspoken agreement that brings a bit of order to the international chaos by ruling out one especially messy technique of war. Explicitly limiting the ban to heads of state would be too openly cynical, but the deal in essence is: You don't kill our leader, we won't kill yours. National leaders, if not their citizens, sleep better that...
...view, though, its practical effect is unclear. Does this hypocritical ban on killing in the national interest make actual killing harder? Or easier, by allowing us to "do that kind of thing" while preening that we really don't? I'm not sure. Removing the most surgical tool of war does make the resort to war more difficult. Given our flighty negative enthusiasms -- Gaddafi yesterday, Noriega today -- that may be no bad thing...