Almost a century later, America's continuing domination of cotton production led the Soviet Union, its implacable enemy in the cold war, to look for self-sufficiency in this vital crop.

ECONOMIST: Cotton

Though winning their right to self-rule in the zone set up after the Gulf war of 1991, the Kurds had to compromise too.

ECONOMIST: Do the Shias truly accept the new constitution?

So the very institutions that suffer from this war also lobby to keep waging it out of institutional self-preservation.

FORBES: A Critique of Power

They have extended the opportunity of self-government to peoples that have suffered tyranny and war.

WHITEHOUSE: President Obama at Fort Hood: "Greatness Before Our Very Eyes" | The White House

By contrast, conditions in Japan's defense industry remain bleak: The industry is shrinking rapidly because of decreased domestic demand, and the situation is unlikely to improve as long as Japan's self-imposed Cold War-era arms export ban remains.

WSJ: South Korea and Japan's Diverging Strategies

Margaret Thatcher's conviction, her resolve, her iron self-belief led many to see her as Britain's post-war saviour - the woman who cured the so-called "British disease", tamed trade unions and vanquished the Argentine Junta in the South Atlantic.

BBC: Baroness Thatcher

More important, however, nationalists seem to have gained a political self-confidence that unionists now lack, born of both war-weariness and faith in the leadership of Sinn Fein and the moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party, the largest nationalist party.

ECONOMIST: Ulster waits

This was partly the result of the post-war mood of austerity in Britain, a period when self-conscious dramas about emotionally troubled aristocrats began to look seriously outmoded.

ECONOMIST: Collected letters