762000-219075 Essays - Foreign Relations, International Relations

762000-219075 Essay nuclear weapons have made the world a more dangerous place GROUP10 Hamad saeed AL shamsi (BSBAW - 171023) Hamad hadef Al shamsi (BSBAW - 171024 ) Khalifa ibrahim alhamadi (BSBAW - 171014 ) Does the spread of nuclear weapons make the world safer or more dangerous? Most people usually have an instinctive reply to this question: Of course, it makes things more dangerous. How could it not? It might seem surprising, therefore, that not all nuclear analysts agree, and the debate remains unresolved. Like so many of the issues relating to nuclear weapons, the debate is built largely on speculation and ambiguous historical experience. Nuclear weapons remain attractive to insecure or ambitious states. In regional rivalries such as the subcontinent, East Asia, and the Middle East, the bomb still has influence. Whatever else one has to say - and presumably not much has been left unsaid about the nuclear strategy of the past six decades - nuclear status still imparts extraordinary prestige and power. The nine current members of the nuclear weapon club still possess about 27,000 operational nuclear weapons of various types between them. At least another 15 countries have on hand enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. Since 1945, many influential voices have expressed alarm that the spread of nuclear weapons will inevitably lead to world destruction. So far, that prediction has not been proved right. But is that because of effective efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, or, to borrow a phrase from former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, just plain dumb luck'? Nuclear proliferation remains urgent not just because of the risk of a terrorist organization getting its hands on nuclear weapons, but because the proliferation of weapons necessarily means a proliferation of nuclear deterrents. Nuclear weapons have long been a force multiplier, able to make up for imbalances in conventional military power. Paradoxically, then, the unassailable lead of the United States in military power and technology might actually invite other nations to acquire the bomb as a way to influence or even deter American foreign policy initiatives. The lesson of the first Gulf War, one Indian general was reported as saying, is that you do not go to war with the United States without the bomb, the 2003 invasion of Iraq serving as yet another glossy advertisement of the protective power of a nuclear arsenal. This is not a new development. It is, in fact, a lesson American policymakers have been concerned about for some time, and one for which no easy solution seems likely. Bill Clinton's Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, outlined the problem in December 1993: During the Cold War, our principal adversary had conventional forces in Europe that were numerically superior. For us, nuclear weapons were the equalizer. The threat to use them was present and was used to compensate for our smaller numbers of conventional forces. Today, nuclear weapons can still be the equalizer against superior conventional forces. But today it is the United States that has unmatched conventional military power, and it is our potential adversaries who may attain nuclear weapons. Accordingly, Aspin concluded, the United States could wind up being the equalized. To take an earlier example, John F. Kennedy acknowledged in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis that even a small number of nuclear weapons could deter even the most powerful states. A central element of the proliferation debate revolves around the perceived effectiveness of nuclear deterrence. If deterrence works reliably, as optimists argue, then there is presumably less to be feared in the spread of nuclear weapons. But if nuclear deterrence does not work reliably, pessimists maintain, more nuclear weapons states will presumably lead not just to a more complicated international arena but a far more dangerous one. Some analysts have made a compelling case that the fear of nuclear proliferation, or the spread of nuclear weapons, has been exaggerated. Some go even further and argue that proliferation may actually increase global stability. It is an argument peculiar to nuclear weaponry, as it does not apply and is not made with regard to other so-called weapons of mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons. Nuclear weapons are simply so destructive, this

Free Essays on Finance Report

Lamar Swimwear Trend Analysis In this second trend analysis we looked at the Lamar Swimwear Company. In a few of the ratio areas Lamar is not up to industry standards but are not that far off pace. In other areas they seem to fail miserably when their ratios are compared to the standard of the industry. Trend analysis looks at the performance of the company in a number of ways and compares them to the rest of the industry. Though not in many cases was Lamar able to meet the industry standards even though they saw a minimal increase in sales from 2001 to 2002 and from 2002 to 2003. The profitability ratios for Lamar were not far from industry standards. Their profit margin came in at 6.4% versus the standard of 7.9%. The profitability ratios allow a firm to measure their return on sales, assets and invested capital. When an organization runs into problems with these ratios it can sometimes be explained by how well they utilize their current resources. The profit margin shows what a firm receives on the return of the sales dollar (6.4%). Their return on assets also is lower than the average at 5.7% versus the standard of 8.9%. To increase this number they must find a way to turnover their assets quicker. The second group of ratios we look are how well a company utilizes its assets. Lamar does not collect its receivables as fast as the rest of the industry. Their receivable turnover is 5.2% compared to the 9.3% of the industry and it takes them 31 more days to collect their accounts receivable. These ratios simply show how long a customer’s account stays on the book. Lamar is able to generate more sales per dollar of inventory because the inventory turnover is 6.5% versus the average of 5.1%. Liquidity ratios are the third group of ratios that a firm looks at during a trend analysis. When comparing these ratios a firm may look at their ability to pay off short-term obligations as they happen. Lamar’s current ... Free Essays on Finance Report Free Essays on Finance Report Lamar Swimwear Trend Analysis In this second trend analysis we looked at the Lamar Swimwear Company. In a few of the ratio areas Lamar is not up to industry standards but are not that far off pace. In other areas they seem to fail miserably when their ratios are compared to the standard of the industry. Trend analysis looks at the performance of the company in a number of ways and compares them to the rest of the industry. Though not in many cases was Lamar able to meet the industry standards even though they saw a minimal increase in sales from 2001 to 2002 and from 2002 to 2003. The profitability ratios for Lamar were not far from industry standards. Their profit margin came in at 6.4% versus the standard of 7.9%. The profitability ratios allow a firm to measure their return on sales, assets and invested capital. When an organization runs into problems with these ratios it can sometimes be explained by how well they utilize their current resources. The profit margin shows what a firm receives on the return of the sales dollar (6.4%). Their return on assets also is lower than the average at 5.7% versus the standard of 8.9%. To increase this number they must find a way to turnover their assets quicker. The second group of ratios we look are how well a company utilizes its assets. Lamar does not collect its receivables as fast as the rest of the industry. Their receivable turnover is 5.2% compared to the 9.3% of the industry and it takes them 31 more days to collect their accounts receivable. These ratios simply show how long a customer’s account stays on the book. Lamar is able to generate more sales per dollar of inventory because the inventory turnover is 6.5% versus the average of 5.1%. Liquidity ratios are the third group of ratios that a firm looks at during a trend analysis. When comparing these ratios a firm may look at their ability to pay off short-term obligations as they happen. Lamar’s current ...

Beloved by Morrison OR Gilead by Robinson OR Fugitive Pieces by Essay

Beloved by Morrison OR Gilead by Robinson OR Fugitive Pieces by Michaels OR Mornings in Jenin by Abulhawa - Essay Example The story centers upon the fictional character Sethe, who lives in a small â€Å"gray and white house on Bluestone Road† (Morrison 1) with her surviving daughter Denver. As the story opens, it is made clear that Sethe's two sons, Howard and Bugler, both ran away at some point prior to the story opening because they couldn't deal with strange, ghostly activities happening at the house. Baby Suggs, Sethe’s mother-in-law and the woman who taught Sethe how to live again after escaping slavery, also once lived with them but died. Soon after the reader is introduced to these characters, a new character comes in. Paul D was one of the slaves Sethe had worked with on Sweet Home, a Kentucky plantation where she, her husband and several others had been cruelly treated. Upon her escape, an event that happened many years earlier, Sethe murdered her youngest child, a girl, desperately attempting to keep her baby from experiencing the type of degradation and abuse Sethe experienced a t the hands of Schoolteacher when she thought she was about to fall back into slavery. It is this spirit who returns to haunt her family in later years, finally manifesting itself in the bodily form of Beloved. Morrison’s deliberate use of the ambiguous in her statement of the story that â€Å"was not a story to pass on† as well as the ambiguous nature of her narrative style allows her to say a great deal without saying much. This ability of authors to express the incomprehensible is behind Catherine Belsey’s theory of a ‘crisis in subjectivity’ or ‘split subject.’ â€Å"Entry into language inevitably creates a division between the subject of the enunciation and the subject of the enonce, the ‘I’ who speaks and the ‘I’ who is the subject of discourse. The Subject is held in place in the discourse by the use of ‘I,’ but the ‘I’ of this discourse is always a stand in, a substitute, for the ‘I’ who speaks.† Another theory by Julia Kristeva introduces the idea of a â€Å"divided subject, even a pluralized subject, that occupies not a place of enunciation, but permutable, multiple, and mobile places.† Morrison’s approach in Beloved is an experimental narrative approach that allows a variety of reading levels while still telling a difficult story. In this sense, narrative is both a primary technical resource and serves as a theme that illustrates how adjustment to a life free of slavery was perhaps as difficult as conforming to life as a slave. Regardless of how the story is interpreted, although Sethe had escaped to freedom with her children and her life, her husband was missing and fear remained permanently rooted in her heart. The merest thought that she and her children might be taken back into slavery was worse than death so she attempted to kill the children rather than allow them to live the same sort of life she'd experienced a s a slave. Despite the fact that she is free and safe, Sethe cannot escape the haunting memories of her past. The scene of possible recapture takes place just after she has had a chance to understand what it means to be free. She had followed Baby Suggs out to the clearing in the woods where Baby Suggs gave the children permission to run and the mothers permission to hear them laugh and the men permission to dance and