Kurt Cobaines Death And Impact On Fans Essays - Courtney Love

Kurt Cobaine's Death And Impact On Fans ?It's not fun anymore. I just can't take it anymore.? The words that would later haunt the world are clumsily scribbled onto a pad of paper. The room grows silent and cold?then BANG! On April 7, 1994, the music world died with a single gunshot wound to the head. Kurdt Donald Cobain took away a music legend and left a void in the music world. When Cobain ended his life on that fateful day, he not only stunned fans, but also destroyed one of the most talented bands of all-time. The sad sense of loss that Seattle began to feel quickly spread to the rest of the country and to the world as well. The youth of an entire sub-culture was devastated. A few days after his death, 7,000 mourners gathered in Seattle to remember the musician. As Cobain's widow, Courtney Love read her husband's agonizing suicide note, people lit candles, and threw burning toilet paper for the iconoclastic anti-hero. Although today some of the pain may have faded, the loss of Cobain and his band Nirvana is still being felt by teens across the country. ?Good men die young. Kurt was a great songwriter, musician and person. He has joined the ranks of great artists such as Jimi Hendrix, and the Nirvana legacy will be with us forever,? expressed Ryan Runkewich, a Nirvana fan. The sediment is not only expressed by fans, but also by such famous musicians as R.E.M., Neil Young and the Cranberries who have all dedicated songs in Cobain's memory. Before the boom of the phenomenon known as Nirvana, the Seattle music scene was most famous for its hard-rock blues. In 1988, the Aberdeen native along with Krist Anthony Novoselic and Dave Grohl began with a demo song entitled ?Big Cheese? and captivated the hearts and souls of a forgotten generation that had yet to make a name for itself. Nirvana had the guts to express the emotions that young people were too afraid to display. The band and its ringleader Cobain truly became the vocal point for struggling teens. As the sixth anniversary of Cobain's death quickly approaches, fans are afforded another painful year to reflect on his music, life and the very moment when everything ended. In fact, most fans can even remember what they were doing when they heard the news that Cobain was dead. ?When I heard, I was playing a video game and listening to the radio. I got real upset and my friends and I sat around all day listening to his music. I personally pay tribute to his on that dreadful day every year,? said James V., a Cobain fan. From the dawning of the 90s grunge music era, Nirvana has been the undisputed leader of alternative music. The music was not only a part of life, but rather it was life for millions of teens searching for an outlet to express themselves. For that reason, the memory of Cobain and the Nirvana sound will never die in the hearts of fans. Inner-peace what Cobain wanted for everyone: ?If you die you're completely happy and your soul lives on?I'm not afraid of dying. Total peace after death becoming the someone else is the best hope I've got.Kurdt Donald Cobain. If you have elements that I can add to this article let me know?I have lots of information and I have done a lot of research!! I am an expert J lemme know thanks Word Count= 594 Bibliography The male point of view: A look into the typical day of a high school male Once upon a time in a land far away, a young man named Adam began the chain of male species that would revolutionize into the dominant, chauvinistic sex of the 90s. From the first forbidden bite of the apple, to the masculine attitude prevalent in most men, the male's thoughts have always remained the samesex, sports and more sex.? Yes it is true the average male teenager thinks about sex four times a minute, but there is more to the mind of a guy. The following is a typical schedule of a teenage male, living through puberty, an impossible masculine complex and all of the other speed bumps thrown

Erre Moscia - Dispelling Linguistic Myths and Legends

Erre Moscia - Dispelling Linguistic Myths and Legends ​ The bulk of our linguistic competency is learned at an early age- normally before we even show signs of having acquired this ability. We listen to pronunciations, intonations and cadences, and use it all to fashion our own way of speaking. As adults, we can watch this process taking place in young children learning to talk. What we dont usually observe is that we begin to form opinions about another person based solely upon the way he or she speaks. Accents define us in more ways than we care to admit. Usually these preconceptions remain subconscious, only revealed, for example, when we believe someone with a heavier accent less intelligent than ourselves. Other times, the notions are much closer to the surface.One such highly debated presumption of Italian phonology centers on the misunderstood letter r which is typically pronounced as an alveolar trill in the front of the mouth. However, in some parts of Italy, notably Piedmont and other parts of the northwest near the French borde r, r is produced as a uvular sound in the back of the mouth. This is known as erre moscia or soft r and many Italians have crowned this unfortunate pronunciation wrong, going so far as to say that all those who speak with erre moscia are either snobby or have a speech impediment. Before making such assumptions about erre moscia, we must understand a few simple facts about its background. The History of R The letter r has a distinct history in many languages. In the phonetic table of consonants it hides under the label liquid or approximant, which are just fancy terms for letters halfway between consonants and vowels. In English, it is one of the last sounds to be developed, possibly because children arent always certain what people are doing to produce the sound. Researcher and linguist Carol Espy-Wilson used an MRI to scan the vocal tract of Americans saying the letter r. In order to produce r, we must constrict our throats and lips, position our tongue and engage the vocal cords, all of which requires a lot of well-timed effort. She discovered that different speakers use different tongue positions, yet exhibit no change in the sound itself. When a person does produce a sound differing from normal r, that person is said to exhibit signs of rhotacism (rotacismo in Italian). Rhotacism, coined from the Greek letter rho for r, is an excessive use or peculiar pronunciation of r. Why Piedmont? The phrase no man is an island relates just as well to human languages as to human emotions. Despite the efforts of many language purists to prevent influences from other languages entering their own, there is no such thing as an isolated linguistic environment. Wherever two or more languages exist side-by-side, there is the possibility of language contact, which is the borrowing and intermingling of words, accents and grammatical structures. The northwest region of Italy, because of its shared border with France, is in a prime position for infusion and mixing with French. Many of Italys dialects evolved similarly, each changing differently depending on the language with which it came into contact. As a result, they became almost mutually incomprehensible. Once any alteration has taken place, it remains within the language and is passed from generation to generation. Linguist Peter W. Jusczyk has conducted research in the field of language acquisition. It is his theory that our capacity to perceive speech directly affects how we learn our native tongue. In his book The Discovery of Spoken Language Jusczyk examines a number of studies which demonstrate that from approximately six to eight months of age, infants can distinguish subtle differences in every language. By eight to ten months, they are already losing their universal ability to detect delicate phonetic differences in order to become specialists in their own language. By the time production begins, they are accustomed to certain sounds and will reproduce them in their own speech. It follows that if a child only hears erre moscia, that is how he will pronounce the letter r. While erre moscia occurs in other regions of Italy, those instances are considered deviations whereas in t he northwest region erre moscia is perfectly normal. It is no secret that r- at least in the beginning- is a very difficult sound to produce. It is one of the last sounds children learn to say correctly, and has proven a rather difficult hurdle for people trying to learn a foreign language who claim they cannot roll their rs. However, it is doubtful that people who speak with erre moscia have adopted that sound due to an inability to pronounce another kind of r. Speech therapists who work with children to correct a variety of impediments (not just for the letter r) say that they have never witnessed a case where a child substitutes a uvular r for another one. The idea doesnt make much sense because erre moscia is still a version of the letter (albeit not the popular one) and still requires complicated positioning of the tongue. More likely, a child will substitute the semivowel w sound which is close to the letter r and easier to pronounce, making them sound like Elmer Fudd when he shouted Dat waskily wabbit! As for a snobbish affectation, there are certainly examples of wealthy, prominent Italians who speak with this accent. Actors who wish to depict an aristocrat from the 1800s are said to adopt erre moscia. There are even more recent examples of wealthy Italians who speak with erre moscia, such as the recently deceased Gianni Agnelli, industrialist and principle shareholder of Fiat. But it should not be ignored that Agnelli was from Turin, the capital city of the Piedmont region where erre moscia is part of the regional dialect. Certainly the phenomenon of erre moscia in Italian speech is not the consequence of any one variable but rather a combination. Some people may choose to use erre moscia in an effort to seem more refined, though considering the stigma attached, it would seem to defeat the purpose. It doesnt appear to be a speech impediment because erre moscia is not any easier to produce than the normal Italian r. More likely it is the result of language contact with French and adoption as part of the native dialect. However there are still many questions surrounding this unusual sound and the debate will continue among speakers of Italian, both native and foreign.About the Author: Britten Milliman is a native of Rockland County, New York, whose interest in foreign languages began at age three, when her cousin introduced her to Spanish. Her interest in linguistics and languages from around the globe runs deep but Italian and the people who speak it hold a special place in her heart.

Discuss Adorno's and the Frankfurt Sschools Concept that Celebrities Essay

Discuss Adorno's and the Frankfurt Sschools Concept that Celebrities Are One of the Means Through Twhich Capitalism Achieves it - Essay Example According to Boldrin and Levine (2002), â€Å"†¦countries are better off facilitating processes that are attractive to multinational companies and countries† (p. 212). Furthermore, the western culture has had the biggest influence on many other cultures in the world, to the angst or happiness of different people. The internet and the advent of computers have had a very big role to play in this spread of celebrity lifestyle. unlike in the past, with the click of the mouse, a fan can follow what their favorite celebrity is doing, what they eat, where they live and the minutest details of their lives. This, many people tend to imitate. This has led to many companies endorsing celebrities to market their products, banking on the fact that whatever the celebrities will be wearing, eating or be seen with will have the masses of their fans following suit, hence increase their sales. Needless to say, this does not come cheap, both to the endorsing companies and to the masses foll owing blindly. Social control is a phenomenon that is experienced by masses in the world, whether they are aware of it or not. It s described as the influence on individuals’ behaviors by institutions in the public through public opinion, social and religious organizations, use of force or violence, through appealing to people’s emotions and desires and also through use of leaders or celebrities in order to bring out certain reactions from the public in general. In the past, social control was a positive force that was meant to keep the fabric of society intact and keep evil and criminal activities at bay. However, with the media becoming more and more powerful, they have tapped into the idea of social control to influence people in order to gain monetary and other kinds of benefits, at the detriment of the whole society. This is seen through the influence caused by advertisements, TV and radio programs and wide coverage of celebrity lives, making masses desire the sam e kind and try to imitate this. Hui (2002) points out that â€Å"we found that, at least in the case of movies, the supply of creative work responded to economic incentives and consumer behavior† (p. 217.). The fact that the world has become largely capitalist is a factor that is stoking this flame. The result of this is mass deception, where the populations are made to believe that what they are seeing is the ideal of life and that they should strive to achieve these standards set by the media and celebrities. This is despite the fact that the lives celebrities live cost a fortune and cannot be achieved, at least in the short run, by most ordinary people. The result is that people have engaged in very destructive habits in order to buy into this deception. These habits include borrowing and using credit facilities beyond their means in order to get what the media has suggested, gambling, criminal activities, disregarding the old methods of working hard in order to achieve su ccess and instead depending too much on lotteries and wasting more money, amongst other socially deviant activities in order to feed their desires. According to The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" Adorno and Horkheimer Frankfurt school, this is exactly what the media and the celebrity culture is using to deceive the masses. In their argument, Adorno and Horkhe

NIMSAD Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

NIMSAD - Essay Example Planning, analysis, and designing prior to implementation are very important. The process technology tools or the methodology framework are developed to help organizations explore the procedure, organize work tasks, control and monitor progress and manage technical quality (Pressman). The selection of a proper process modeling tool is necessary. If the process is weak, the end product will undoubtedly suffer, because when the planning and analysis is not done accurately, there remain some discrepancies in the end product. But an obsessive over- reliance on process is very dodgy too. The selection of an appropriate methodology gives a better end product, better developing process, and a much standardized process which can help in attaining the user requirements. The outcome of all the methodologies is not same. Some are product-oriented; others are more concerned about the user requirements. Some are for small projects while others are for organizational projects. The selection of the design methodology is done with respect to the users’ requirements, time scale, cost, and human resource. The methodologies are classified on different factors. Some methodologies focus on process orientation and functional decomposition such as STRADIS and YSM. Other methodologies like IE emphasize on analysis of data. Classification of methodologies is also done on the geographical location such as SSADM and MERISE. Methodology like ETHICS focuses on the socio-technical issues (Jayaratna, 1994). Different frameworks are used to evaluate design methodology. Frameworks are a systematic way to assess methodologies. It summarizes the methodologies and raise points that user himself has to solve accordingly, and then select the methodology. There are many frameworks which evaluate the methodologies but this essay will be presenting NIMSAD; this framework will

Leadership Branding in Singapore Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Leadership Branding in Singapore - Essay Example As the report declares a leadership brand is moreover rooted within the companies’ customs, throughout its rules as well as its supplies for the workers. during the study of an approximate 100 flourishing leader corporations of diverse ranges over the precedent decade, it has been established that most of them have urbanized a comparable technique , which assists them in creating an outstanding channel of leaders cohort after cohort. They moreover tend to like extremely the stable earnings each year, as they have held the ongoing assurance of the external fundamentals whose prospects are contentedly full by leaders all through the organization. In view of Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood, in order to put together a well built leadership brand the corporations need to pursue five major values. Initially, they need to be aware of the basics that constitute towards leadership, such as establishing strategies along with coaching the employees well. This discussion stresses that the Leadership Brand in regards to the Singapore business community also lays more stress towards the the question of leadership improvement that would help the community lift up a there overall market significance along with being able to build the desired aggressive lead. Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood, their disagreement on the fact that leadership brand tends to characterize an insubstantial significance in addition to the element of communal individuality in the midst of the corporations leaders, who also tend to distinguish as to what their specific corporations are capable of achieving, in comparison to the competition they face in the market. Most of the Singapore business community , in view of several investigations that have been carried out in this jauner , is observed as pursuing the writers loom towards leadership brand helping determine how in actual to form worth for the shareholders ( Ed Cohen , 2007) , the consumers, in addition to the human resources moreover generate a more aggressive circumference for their corporations . The corporations in Singapore , by each passing day are also realizing , and implementing a more internationally pursued

The Discipline Of Human Geography

The Discipline Of Human Geography Geographical knowledge has a long history in human development. Throughout the history of geography, it mostly involved developing knowledge of the physical features of the world but this history is itself a kind of presentation of human history. In the 19th Century, geography became formally regarded as a discipline, and human geography became established as an essential branch of the natural science; it refers to both geographical information and human activities, i.e. it includes both human geography and physical geography (Johnston, 2000). This essay firstly discusses the meaning of the discipline human geography. Following this, it describes how human geography relates to development. Subsequently, it assesses the key themes/issues relevant to development as explored by scholars, and studies the research techniques used by researchers in this discipline. Finally, it gives an example of a published piece of work stating how it is relevant to our understanding of contemporary deve lopment. 1 The discipline of human geography Geography can be divided into two major parts: physical and human. Both are branches of natural science, which encompass the study of the living world. Physical geography mainly deals with the processes of the atmosphere, biosphere and ecosphere, whereas human geography studies people, culture, population distributions, the urban environment, etc. It studies many cultural aspects and how they relate to their environment as well as why people migrate and how this impacts on their culture. Human geography is special in that the findings of the study of human geography may vary over time. 2 Human geography and development Marston et al. (2005) referred to human geography as incorporating several sub-disciplines, such as globalization, urbanization, the environment and migration. These are interrelated as the condition of one of these can be reflected in the development of another. Human geography discusses the profound interaction of cultural, environmental and social evolution, and considers the views that societies adopt in addressing these issues (Robinson, 2006). Thus, the core of human geography engages directly with change and development, but can be extended to deal with the economic, social, institutional and environmental dimensions of sustainability. Development can present diverse patterns, each with its own characteristics, as the different aspects of development, i.e. culture, economy and politics vary all the time. We can consider all these changing patterns as the results of development. The factors in development interact with each other, and change in one field can affect another or lead to changes elsewhere. Development transforms peoples lives, and as a result, development gradually alters human geography, particularly the aspects of human lifestyle, the political environment, the economic situation and even nature. Thus, the human geography of a place is its phylogeny, and that is how human geography relates to development. 3 Key themes/issues relevant to development Human geography is an incomplete discipline without considering development, to which there are various branches, such as culture, economics, politics, health and history. However, we will discuss these aspects under the headings generally adopted by researchers, as below. 3.1 Culture Culture is the norms and practices of people in particular places, and it encompasses language. It also reflects the region of settlement and other phenomena that may change or remain consistent. The first traces of the study of various cultures in different regions appeared in early 20th Century. At that time, the study of culture study was considered as an alternative to environmental determinism, which argued that human beings and societies are determined by their environment. It focuses on describing and analyzing the ways language, religion, economy, government, and other cultural phenomena vary or remain constant from one place to another and on explaining how humans function spatially (Jordan-Bychkov, et al 1994). Culture is a profound condition and is related to a region, and it has a significant impact on regional development. On the other hand, development can greatly affect cultural norms. The interaction of culture and development is just one aspect of human geography. 3.2 History History is the study of a wide variety of topics, including physical, theoretical, human, fictional and real geographies as well as the past. Historical geography mainly discusses how a place or region changes through time, how people interact with their environment and how the cultural landscape is created. In essence, human history is the phylogeny of people, while human geography is the study development. 3.3 Globalization Globalization is the process of worldwide integration derived from the interplay of world views, products, ideas and aspects of culture. It reveals the interchange of social and cultural forces, including economics, politics and religion. The Economics, politics and religion play an important role in the development of a region. (Al-Rodhan, R.F. Nayef and GÃ ©rard Stoudmann. 2006) Furthermore, the regional conditions of these factors are products of development. Advances in telecommunications, transportation and Internet business are key factors of globalization, and so development involves, in particular, industrial progress and national or international trade, and studying the close relationship between the environment, the economy and real estate. Trade is the exchange goods and services, and the ensuing economic development can improve the standard or quality of life; real estate is a reflection of the extent of urbanization. Therefore, only with all these developmental aspects can globalization become realized. 3.4 Migration Migration is the movement of people from one region or country to another, where they are not locals but settle there. Economic migrants generally seek better education, job opportunities, life conditions and so on; the status of development in the home nation/region is the most crucial factor in immigration. Political migrants generally seek freedom from oppression. Some migration is based on other, more personal reasons, and may be the product of culture and tradition. Immigrants can bring new changes and such interplay or intercommunication partly contributes to the evolution of human geography. 3.5 Urbanization Urbanization is the development of cities, and many rural migrants concentrate in cities, resulting in the physical growth of the urban environment. The structure and experiences of the urban landscape are crucial to human geography. Urbanization is closely linked to modernisation, industrialisation and the sociological process of rationalisation. During the process of development, cities and towns grow, and urban population around the world have been soaring. Urbanization is not just a social phenomenon; rather, it is a historic reform of human behaviour on a worldwide scale. The rapid growth of some big cities, such as Chicago in the 19th Century and Tokyo in the 20th Century, is largely the result of rural-urban migration; it is commonplace in developing countries. People living in cities can take advantage of diversity, proximity and competition in the marketplace. With all these factors, the urban environment can develop rapidly. 3.6 Environment Environment is a subfield of human geography and a reflection of development. Specifically, transformation of the environment is a result of physical and biological factors caused by the interactions of culture, customs, politics, industry and other aspects, i.e. development. Being part of human geography, the environment changes during the development process, and these changes also affect human geography. 4 Research techniques used in human geography 4.1 Social surveys Social survey is a crucial method in obtaining human geography information. The object of the study of human geography is to comprehend the social environment, and in this, social investigation is key to understand the cultural landscape and social phenomena clearly, scholars use social investigation as a means of collecting information and opinions relating to particular social events or trends. To garner the views and thoughts of people, researchers can conduct surveys among the target population. Social surveys also entail consulting historical data or other materials to develop a picture of change, and thus, through social investigation, we can understand both the past and present ages better. 4.2 Document collection Documents represent a priceless treasure of human history and geography, and can reveal the experiences and the scientific and technological achievements of ourselves and our predecessors. Current documents can be classified as paper and non-paper materials. Paper materials often refer to books, journals, reports and other data sources, from which people can gain knowledge of human geography. Non-paper materials mean the Internet, where researchers can access knowledge mostly relating to the present era. Searching on-line libraries or particular website-based information resources can assist in gathering a great deal of information quickly. With the development of science and technology, the means of document collection will become more diversified. 4.3 Exploiting data sources Our predecessors left much precious information about human geography. We contemporary people can gather these materials together, assess them, compare them and draw conclusions from them. As a result, we can learn of the development of human geography. Examining historical data can help us understand the differing features of human geography in different regions. Through assessing the differences between historical and current data, researchers can determine how people, culture, economics, politics and other factors have varied over time, i.e. what changes have occurred in a location, what kinds of inhabitants have ever lived there and what traditions they had and have. All the information can be found through careful organization and collation of the data. These methods are different from but complementary to surveys and document collection, but involve a great deal of effort in handling the data. 4.4 Spatial analysis Spatial analysis can be used in complex cases, and involves defining the varying spatial locations of the entities being studied. Applied to human geography, spatial data analysis can reveal population distribution patterns, the densities of structures at the human scale and spatial population dynamics. The characteristics of these issues are constantly changing in line with human development. Scholars often establish models by using spatial data to analyse the factors that impact on population distribution, etc. Spatial analysis contributes to assisting a deeper comprehension of the features of human geography, taking a spatial overview of the dynamics of population structures resulting from development. 4.5 Interviews Interviewing stems from the desire to know more about the people around us and to better understand how the people around us view the world we live in.(Seidman,1998) Thus, interviewing is most effective when the goal of the given research is to gain insight into the subjective understanding of those around us. In the past, it was uncommon to use interview as a method to study human geography. Gradually, researchers realized the importance of peoples social background, education, cultural and traditional norms in decision-making. Only through interviewing special groups of people can researchers identify the factors that influence behaviour. In underdeveloped regions, people there may not be literate, and so interview is the best method for obtaining first-hand materials to study their history and culture. Not only can researchers learn about specific events in development, they can also gain insight into peoples interior experiences, specifically how people perceive their world and h ow they interpret their perceptions, and how events are affected by their thoughts and feelings. In this, researchers can understand the process of an event instead of what just happened and how the subjects reacted to it. 5 One example illustrating how human geography is relevant to development An article entitled Progress in Human Geography by (Radcliffe 2004) discusses the evolution of human geography, and argues that global networks and human rights are related to this discipline because it is now clear that these two factors have a great impact on national development. This is just one example of many, telling us that the development of one country is inextricably linked to human geography. Conclusion Human geography is a representation of economic, political and historical development, and it examines the interplay between people and the built, rather than the natural, environment (although environmental impacts are considered). The interaction of a wide variety of factors drives human history to move on, as people seek to improve their lives and raise their living standards. A multitude of changes have occurred and will continue to occur as human behaviour changes, resulting complex contemporary societies in which cultures and identities are transformed. Thus human geography is the study of the change, formation and transformation of people and nations over time, or the taking of snapshots of particular human events, behaviours or activities.

The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction

The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) has become a metaphor for 21st-century security concerns. Although nuclear weapons have not been used since the end of World War II, their influence on international security affairs is pervasive, and possession of WMD remains an important divide in international politics today (Norris 61).The nuclear postures of the former Cold War rivals have evolved more slowly than the fast-breaking political developments of the decade or so that has elapsed since the former Soviet Union collapsed. Nevertheless, some important changes have already taken place. By mutual consent, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972 was terminated by the United States and Russia, which have agreed to modify their nuclear offensive force posture significantly through a large reduction in the number of deployed delivery systems. Nuclear weapons are no longer at the center of this bilateral relationship.Although the two nations are pursuing divergent d octrines for their residual nuclear weapons posture, neither approach poses a threat to the other. The structure, but not the detailed content, of the future U.S. nuclear posture was expressed in the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which established a significant doctrinal shift from deterrence to a more complex approach to addressing the problem of proliferated WMD.The Russian doctrinal adaptation to the post-Cold War security environment is somewhat more opaque. The government appears to be focused on developing and fielding low-yield weapons that are more suitable for tactical use, though the current building of new missiles and warheads may be associated with new strategic nuclear payloads as well. Despite the diminished post ­Cold War role of nuclear weapons in the United States, the cumulative deterioration of Russia's conventional military force since 1991 has actually made nuclear weapons more central to that government's defense policy.The end of the adversarial relati onship with the Soviet Union (and later, the Russian Federation) had to be taken into account in the NPR. The current nuclear posture is evolving in a manner parallel to the modernization of the U.S. non-nuclear military establishment. In stark contrast to Cold War ­era military planning, the 21st century is likely to be characterized by circumstances in which the adversary is not well known far in advance of a potential confrontation.The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is adjusting to these new circumstances by developing highly capable and flexible military forces that can adapt to the characteristics of adversaries as they appear. This makes the traditional path to modernization through investment in weapons systems as the threat emerges economically infeasible. Modern information technology lets the military change the characteristics of its flexible weapons and forces in much less time than it would take to develop whole new weapons systems. Thus, DOD is attempting to create a military information system: the integrated effect of command-control-communications-computation-intelligence-surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR). This system is inherently more flexible for adapting to changes in the threat environment.WMD and the means to deliver them are mature technologies, and knowledge of how to create such capabilities is widely distributed. Moreover, the relative cost of these capabilities declined sharply toward the end of the 20th century. Today, the poorest nations on earth (such as North Korea and Pakistan) have found WMD to be the most attractive course available to meet their security needs (Lieggi 2). Proliferation of WMD was stimulated as an unintended consequence of a U.S. failure to invest in technologies such as ballistic missile defense that could have dissuaded nations from investing in such weapons.The United States' preoccupation with deterring the Soviet Union incorporated the erroneous assumption that success in that arena would deter proliferation elsewhere (Barnaby 7). This mistake was compounded by the perverse interaction between defense policy and arms control in the 1990s. Misplaced confidence was lodged in a network of multilateral agreements and practices to prevent proliferation that contributed to obscuring rather than illuminating what was happening. Confidence placed in the inspection provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), for example, obscured efforts to obtain knowledge of clandestine WMD programs. NPT signatories were among those nations with clandestine WMD programs.Without a modernization of defense policy, the ready availability of WMD-related technology will converge with their declining relative cost and a fatally flawed arms control structure to stimulate further proliferation in the 21st century. The process whereby WMD and ballistic missile technology has proliferated among a group of nations that otherwise share no common interests are likely to become the template for 21st-century proliferation.The scope of this problem was recognized in part as a result of a comprehensive review of intelligence data in 1997 ­1998 by the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States (the Rumsfeld Commission). This recognition swiftly evolved into a set of significant policy initiatives that responded to changes in the international security environment. The arms control arrangements most closely identified with the adversarial relationship with the former Soviet Union were passà ©. In 1999 the Senate refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; the United States and Russia ended the 1972 ABM Treaty and agreed to jettison the START process, which kept nuclear deployments at Cold War levels in favor of much deeper reductions in offensive forces in 2002.U.S. policy began to evolve in response to these developments. The incompatibility between the Cold War legacy nuclear posture and the 21st-century security environment stimulated a search for approaches to modernize policies pertinent to nuclear weapons. In response to statutory direction, the Bush administration published the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Nuclear Posture Review, the National Defense Strategy of the United States, and the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction. Taken together, these documents constitute the most profound change in U.S. policy related to nuclear weapons since the Eisenhower administration (Krepon 1).The unique capabilities of nuclear weapons may still be required in some circumstances, but the range of alternatives to them is much greater today. The evolution of technology has created an opportunity to move from a policy that deters through the threat of massive retaliation to one that can reasonably aspire to the more demanding aim–to dissuade.If adversary WMD systems can be held at risk through a combination of precision non-nuclear strike and active defense, nuclear weapons are less necessary (Alb right 2). By developing a military capability that holds a proliferators’ entire WMD posture at risk rather than relying solely on the ability to deter the threat or use of WMD after they have been developed, produced, and deployed, the prospects for reducing the role of WMD in international politics are much improved.The 21st-century proliferation problem creates a set of targets significantly different from those that existed during the Cold War. Few targets can be held at risk only by nuclear weapons, but the ones that are appropriate may require different characteristics and, in many circumstances, different designs than those currently in the nuclear stockpile. The nature of the targets and the scope of the potential threat also alter the character of the underlying scientific, engineering, and industrial infrastructure that supports the nuclear weapons posture.   This research paper will therefore seek to discuss the problem of nuclear devices or WMDs (as they are pre sently termed) and try to address to current policy issues surrounding the matter.RESEARCH OUTLINE:INTRODUCTION:a.)  Ã‚  Ã‚   what is the problem surrounding nuclear threats in the 21st centuryb.)  Ã‚  Ã‚   what are the recent developments surrounding this issuec.)  Ã‚  Ã‚   what solutions have been successful in addressing these problemBODY:a.)  Ã‚  Ã‚   who are nuclear threatsb.)  Ã‚  Ã‚   what has been done to stopc.)  Ã‚  Ã‚   What can be done?d.)  Ã‚  Ã‚   What can the US do? What can the UN do?CONCLUSION:References:Robert Norris and Hans Kristensen, â€Å"Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2006,† Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 62. no. 3 (2006): 61.Stephanie Lieggi, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, â€Å"Going Beyond the Stir: the strategic realities of China's No First Use policy,† Nuclear Threat Initiative, http://www.nti.org/e_research/e3_70.html (accessed June 30, 2006).Frank Barnaby and Shaun Barnie, Thinking the Unthinkable: Japanese nuclear power and proliferation in East Asia (Oxford, UK: Oxford Research Group and Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, 2005): 7†³8.George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.)Michael Krepon, Rodney W. Jones & Ziad Haider eds., â€Å"Escalation Control & the Nuclear Option in South Asia,† The Henry L. 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