For eight years the Clinton Administration preached the need for exquisite sensitivity to the Russians. They’d had a rough time. They needed nurturing from their new American friends. They got it. We fed them loans, knowing that much of the money would disappear corruptly. We turned away from atrocity in Chechnya lest we weaken the new Russian state. But most important, we went weak in the knees on missile defense. The prospect of American antiballistic missiles upset the Russians. And upsetting the Russians was something we simply were not to do. The Russians cannot keep up with American technology. And they fear that an American missile shield will render obsolete their last remnant of greatness: their monster, nuclear-tipped missiles. So they insist that we adhere to a 1972 treaty signed with the defunct Soviet Union that prohibited either side from developing missile defenses. That the treaty is obsolete-it long predates the world of rogue states racing to acquire missile-launched weapons of mass destruction-does not concern the Russians. Withdraw from the treaty, they said, and you have destroyed the "strategic stability" on which the peace of the world depends. The Clinton Administration took that threat seriously-so seriously that for eight years it equivocated on building an American ABM system. Finally, President Clinton promised to decide by June 2000. Come June, he punted. Eight years, and no defense. But the bear was content. Bear contentment was never a high priority for Ronald Reagan. He offered a different model for dealing with the Russians. The 1980s model went by the name of peace through strength. But it was more than that. It was judicious but unapologetic unilateralism. It was willingness-in the face of threats and bluster from foreign adversaries and nervous apprehension from domestic critics-to do what the U.S. needed to do for its own security. Regardless. It was Reagan who famously proposed a missile shield, and even more famously refused to barter it away at the Reykjavik summit, an event many historians consider the turning point in the cold war. That marked the beginning of the Soviets’ definitive realization that they were going to lose the arms race to the U.S.-and that neither threats nor cajoling would dissuade the U.S. from running it. This decade starts with a return to the unabashed unilateralism of the 1980s. It began last year with a speech by George W. Bush proposing that the U.S. build weapons to meet American needs-and not to accommodate the complaints or gain the agreement of other countries. For 40 years the U.S. would not cut its offensive nuclear missiles except in conjunction with Soviet cuts. Bush’s refreshing question was: Why We don’t need Rnssians cutting our offensive weapons through arms-control treaties. And we don’t need Russians telling us whether or not to build defensive weapons. This was the genesis of the Bush Doctrine, now taking shape as the Administration takes power. Its motto is, we build to suit-ourselves. Accordingly, the President and the Secretary of Defense have been unequivocal about their determination to go ahead with a missile defense. They staked their claim. And what happened Did the sky fall, as the Clinton Russian experts warned On the contrary. Convinced at last of American seriousness, the Russians immediately acquiesced. After just one month of Bush, Moscow has come forward with its very own missile-defense plan. The fact that it is not well sketched out and that it is in part designed to split the U.S. off from Europe is beside the point. The Russians have responded, as did the Soviets before them, to American firmness. Faced with reality, they accommodate it. Who defines reality; there lies the difference between this Administration and the last. Clinton let Russian opposition define reality. Bush, like Reagan, understands that the U.S. can reshape, indeed remake, reality on its own. In the liberal internationalist view of the world, the U.S. is merely one among many-a stronger country, yes, but one that has to adapt itself to the will and the needs of "the international community." That is why the Clinton Administration was almost manic in pursuit of multilateral treaties-on chemical weapons, biological weapons, nuclear testing, proliferation. No matter that they could not be enforced. Our very signing would show us to be a good international citizen. This is folly. America is not mere international citizen. It is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome. Accordingly America is in a position to reshape norms, alter expectations and create new realities. How By unapologetic and implacable demonstrations of will. ______ does not concern the Russians.
A. The US withdrawal from the treaty
B. That the treaty is obsolete
C. That several rogue states race to acquire missile-launched WMD
D. That the Russians cannot keep up with American technology
By any measure, computers are among the most influential and powerful tools of the modern age. They represent the high-tech revolution that has transformed the ways in which human beings interact with each other and with the world at large. Seemingly, computers are the very definition of the modern era. Although modern computers have only been a part of our everyday world for a few decades, a discovery made just over a century ago found that the concept behind them is far older than anyone could have imagined. In fact, according to the experts who have studied an ancient Greek shipwreck, one particular "computer" dates back more than 2,000 years.Made of metal, this mechanism is approximately the size of a shoebox. It was found in 1901 by divers working off the isle of Antikythera. Uncertain of the mechanism’s function, the divers naned it after the island near which it was found. At the time, the Antikythera was in terrible shape from being underwater for so long. Its pieces had merged into a broken mass and all experts could deduce was that it had something to do with astronomy. Recently, thanks to a combination of advanced imaging methods and x-ray computer tomography, scientists have been able to re-create the possible design of the apparatus.The Antikythera mechanism once had at least 30 bronze gears with as many as 225 hand-cut teeth. Scientists believe it was designed to compute eclipses of the sun and moon a number of years into the future, as well as show the motions of the planets. While experts are still uncertain as to why the device was made, there is no doubt that its technology was at least 1,000 years ahead of its time. The primary purpose of the passage is to()
A. explain how computers were originally designed
B. provide details on how to compute solar and lunar eclipses
C. introduce the concept of an ancient device with a modern application
D. describe the discovery of a computer-like machine designed more than 2,000 years ago
E. show how x-ray computer tomography has helped scientists explore ancient discoveries