Observers could be forgiven for thinking that they are speaking about two entirely different conflicts.

But, if the past is any guide to the future, we should be aware of the limits of regulation.

Thus, to test or not to test is not the first question that needs to be answered.

It remains to be seen whether today s leaders will do the same.

We really do need to ask whether Obama is trying to play a China card to shift the electoral scales in his favor.

The question is whether change will be forced upon us by a crisis or result from careful, democratic deliberation and debate.

We should have set off earlier.

But no amount of science can tell us whether or not to kill whales.

When our children ask us to take them to the circus, we should find out if the circus uses wild animals.

But, if those hard to reach children are to benefit, our efforts must be scaled up significantly.

It remains to be seen whether the two events will be capable of swinging world opinion in China s favor and keeping it there.

Whether Hatoyama and his colleagues have the wherewithal to achieve these aims remains an open question.

And governments will determine whether we should prepare for bitter competition or a true team effort.

So we really don't know whether we should tell central bankers to brush up on their Greenspanese.

I'm trying to say we have to combine all the systems, and with one condition never if you have a subway, if you have surface systems, if you have any kind of system never compete in the same space.

But, if politicians are to become less anxious about jobs, perhaps we need to start discussing whether jobless recoveries are here to stay, and whether the US safety net, devised for a different era, needs to be modified.

It remains to be seen whether the new French president will be able to embark on a more promising course.

But it remains to be seen if the lessons have been fully internalized, and whether we will have a kinder, gentler IMF in lieu of a rigid, doctrinaire one.

The real question about industrial policy is not whether it should be practiced, but how. Here are three important principles to keep in mind.

We must all work together if our joint efforts are to have maximum effect.

So if we have to reset the baseline, if we have to push the ecosystem back to the left, how can we do it?

Savulescu proposes that instead of trying to detect whether an athlete has taken drugs, we should focus on measurable indications of whether an athlete is risking his or her health.

If we went outside we had to wear a burka.

So we have to think differently if we're going to make stuff come alive.

We ll have to wait and see, as everyone is saying, if Obama can walk the talk.

But perhaps we should feel some guilt.

To carry out that Herculean task, we needed to overcome the errors of the past.

Rather, we should question whether, in a world in which 25,000 impoverished children die unnecessarily every day, another concert hall is what the world needs.

So the question now is not whether to increase aid, but how best to finance it.

The effect on underlying financial markets volatility may not even be the right question to consider in deciding whether to permit new derivative products.

If we lead lives where we consciously leave the lightest possible ecological footprints, if we buy the things that are ethical for us to buy and don't buy the things that are not, we can change the world overnight.

So we probably must accept that protectionist sentiment will remain strong.

Whatever we must do, we should do before that.

In short, we will have to wait for the data on house prices in June and July to know whether there has been a permanent turnaround.

How can we live free from fear if the threat of terrorism is always with us? We must pool our efforts to find the best strategies to enable us to tackle and defeat that scourge.

If we do have longevity, then we'll have to face the population growth problem anyway. Because if people live 200 or 1,000 years, then we can't let them have a child more than about once every 200 or 1,000 years.

What needs to be done has long been clear.

We don t have answers to these questions. So we really don't know whether we should tell central bankers to brush up on their Greenspanese.

So, while we can and should do much better at treating it, perhaps the more significant question is whether we can learn to prevent it.

The question of whether the draft articles should be embodied in a binding international convention should be reconsidered after a couple of years, but that should not lead to a renegotiation of those articles which were substantive in character.

Maybe we should just turn off the television and get on our own bikes.

We do not attempt to explain whether the American people were deliberately misled regarding the war s costs, or whether the Bush administration s gross underestimate should be attributed to incompetence, as it vehemently argues is true in the case of weapons of mass destruction.

So we had to prevent nuclear war if we expected to survive.

To answer these questions, look no farther than soccer.

Again, if we are to overcome these difficulties, we the Member States must resolve ourselves as best we can to recognize the truth openly and be closer friends to it, however painful that may sometimes be.