It is bad enough that the Clinton Administration is allowing political considerations to enter into, let alone to drive, decisions concerning the further U.S. involvement in the Mir program that should be made exclusively on the basis of realistic net assessments of the considerable safety and financial costs weighed against what are, at best, limited prospective scientific and technical benefits.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Talbott��s ��Vision Thing��: Renewing Mission on Mir

The creators of a new, web-based service called Rypple claim that it can satisfy Net Geners' desire for frequent assessments while easing the burden on their supervisors.

ECONOMIST: A novel way to satisfy feedback junkies

Whatever the accuracy of such assessments of China's military programmes, the key question is net assessment, and that depends on what the United States (and other countries) will be doing over the next decades.

ECONOMIST: As China rises, must others bow? | The