Germany's decision to go to war in the summer of 1914 was driven by rigid alliance commitments and anxiety, probably misplaced, that Russia was growing stronger.
When America dominated NATO and led a rigid Pacific alliance system with Japan, South Korea, Australia and Thailand, it successfully managed the Herculean task of running the world from one side of it.
His critics, however, saw the failure of the bipolar model in the experience of World War I, in which two rigid, pre-existing alliances clashed with devastating results.
Moreover, her main argument that entangling alliances and rigid military timetables caught Europe in a grip that led the powers inexorably towards catastrophe is no longer accepted by most historians.
Later historians praise her prose but have discounted her emphasis that the war was inevitable because of entangling alliances and the rigid requirements of railway schedules for mass mobilization.
Adopting philosophically consistent but not ideologically rigid positions, he forged unlikely alliances with such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union and with such individuals as Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, with whom he introduced legislation softening mandatory minimum sentencing penalties in federal cases.
Agriculturally, intensive wet rice replaces an extensive rice/house gardening mix; linguistically, Tai replaces Mon in what is now Thailand's Central Plains; and, politically, flexible alliance building states replace their rigid temple-centered predecessors (Kirsch 1984; O'Connor 2000).
Neil Coyle, director of policy at Disability Alliance, said the tests were too rigid.
This is not a single, rigid entity; it is a collection of several interlinked alliances, in which different countries contribute different things to different operations.
