Thesis (M.A. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2003. / Thesis advisor(s): Michael Barletta, Harold Trinkunas. Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-77). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 180-189). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

This thesis is a study of the domestic influences that led to President Nixon's decision to seek a new US relationship with the People's Republic of China. In particular, it concentrates on the role of academics in forcing a policy debate on China policy and the crucial role that they played in creating the environment that led to eventual change. The thesis argues that during the 1960s a climate was created that made it necessary for Nixon to change policy and that traditional accounts of the subject have failed to fully appreciate the role of domestic factors in forcing a change of policy. This thesis throws light on three areas. Firstly, the development of US China policy in the post-war years leading up to 1971 and in particular the domestic influences placed on it. A notable argument of the piece is that many of the policies later adopted by Nixon were discussed and promoted during the Presidency of John F. Kennedy and that in the last year of his life active consideration was given to changing policy. Secondly, it is a study of Sino-American relations in the 1960s, which shows the extent to which it was subject to domestic politics. Finally, it is an exploration of the role of interested academics and the way that they were able to influence US policy in such a sensitive area and the different methods that they used to affect and alter policy. The study has made use of a number of primary archival source holdings in the United States as well as the transcripts of Congressional hearings and studies commissioned by the US Government during the period that informed its China policy. Also, it has made full use of the secondary sources available on Sino-American relations.

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This dissertation centers around an empirical and mathematically oriented analysis of conflict events in 19 Latin American countries in the period 1946-1975. The events are three types of protest (riots, demonstrations, and political strikes) and one type of coercion (mass arrests). The study is divided in seven chapters, i.e., (1) Collective conflict as a concept (7 pp.); (2) Theories of collective conflict (28 pp.); (3) Models of collective conflict (15 pp.); (4) Methodology (13 pp.); (5) Preliminary data analyses (16 pp.); (6) Collective conflicts in Latin America (37 pp.); and (7) Summary and conclusions (12 pp.). Much of the evidence is presented in 19 tables and 9 figures. A FORTRAN program which was used for computations is listed in an appendix. In Chapter 1 regimes and oppositions are identified as parties in conflict. Mobilization processes that are going on within these parties are distinguished from the confrontation process between the parties. In Chapter 2 a set of theoretical distinctions (i.e., strain theory, control theory, cultural deviation theory, conflict theory, and social learning theory) is borrowed from delinquency theory to summarize the findings of prior research on collective conflict. In Chapter 3 three mathematical models are treated, which describe conflict events: (1) a linear model, closely related to Richardson's arms race model, (2) a perceptual model, based on Hamblin's arms race model, and (3) a nonlinear model, in which elements of (1) and (2) are combined. In Chapter 4 a discussion is presented of the problems and potentials of using cross-temporal as well as cross-national data to estimate the mathematical models. In Chapter 5 some preliminary issues are settled. One of these issues is that the Cuban Revolution did not cause a structural change in other Latin American countries. The difference between the slope parameters in the periods 1946-1959 and 1960-1973 is statistically not significant. In Chapter 6 it is shown mathematically that forms of dissident behavior and governmental repression have the tendency to return to the same level of equilibrium over and over again. In "direction fields" of the riot-arrest system, it is illustrated how these equilibrium levels are reached through time. In Chapter 7 the findings are evaluated and suggestions made for future research. This study of political instability can not escape agreement with the observation that, indeed, "Latin American history is a kind of Eternal Recurrence."

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The North American summer monsoon is documented, using precipitation data together with gridded data for outgoing long-wave radiation (OLR), geopotential height and wind at various levels. The upper level divergence field is diagnosed and compared with the precipitation field. A simple wet-dry precipitation index is used to date the monsoon onset at stations with daily precipitation data. The analysis shows that the monsoon rains advance northward rapidly from late June to early July. The monsoon onset is accompanied by the development of a pronounced anticyclone at the jet stream level, by sea-level pressure rises over the southwestern United States, and by decreases in climatological mean rainfall over adjacent regions of the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean. This coherent pattern of rainfall changes, that covers much of North and Central America, is shown to be dynamically consistent with the circulation changes aloft. Hence, the monsoon onset is embedded within a planetary-scale pattern of circulation changes. The demise of the monsoon and the associated upper level anticyclone, which takes place around September of the year, is more gradual than the onset, and it is accompanied by an increase in rainfall throughout much of the surrounding region. The monsoon exhibits substantial interannual variability with regard to intensity and onset date.

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