The politics of implementing China’s nuclear strategy,part I: 1949–1965

China’s nuclear weapons strategy has evolved under a consensus of the Chinese leadership that it must develop nuclear weapons of its own. However, on three occasions, in 1955, 1959, and 1965 the leadership’s decisions to pursue long-term economic, technological, and weapons development in lieu of short-term acquisition of nuclear weapons resulted in leadership purges. In each case external developments sparked the debate about China’s nuclear strategy, while internal economic and political considerations were the significant factors in resolving the disputes.     

POLICY MODELING TO SUPPORT ADMINISTRATIVE DECISIONMAKING ON THE NEW YORK STATE HIV TESTING LAW

A recent New York law requires medical providers to offer HIV tests as part of routine care. We developed a system dynamics simulation model of the HIV testing and care system to help administrators understand the law's potential epidemic impact, resource needs, strategies to improve implementation, and appropriate outcome indicators for future policy evaluations once postlaw data become available. Policy modeling allowed us to synthesize information from numerous sources including quantitative administrative data sets and practitioners’ content expertise, structure the information to be viewed both numerically and visually, and organize consensus for decisionmaking purposes. This case illustrates how policy modeling can provide an integrated framework for administrators to examine policy problems in complex systems, particularly when data time lags limit pre–post comparisons and key outcomes cannot be measured directly.     

Communications

Abstract

President Nixon’s January 25th speech represented not the beginning but the end of negotiations. It signified that the U.S. is downgrading the Paris talks and that no further secret negotiations are taking place. Nixon’s statement of the “U.S.-South Vietnam Proposal for a Negotiated Settlement” and its rejection by the other side is the latest clarification of a truth which has underlain the Paris Peace Talks since they began, namely that the contradictions between the Nixon Administration’s vision of a peace in Indochina and that of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG) and the North Vietnamese are irreconcilable. Nixon has never been, and is still not, willing to make the kind of concessions necessary to make real progress in the negotiations because he has throughout been committed to the maintenance of a staunchly anti-communist government in Saigon and the continuation of dominant U.S. influence over the domestic politics of South Vietnam. As a result, the PRG has not been willing to make the kind of concessions which would allow scope for negotiation because this would mean committing political suicide by entrusting itself to the tender mercies of the Thieu government.