For example, candidate Bush cited unready divisions in his acceptance speech at the GOP convention.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy

They succeeded because the United States was unready to use defenses it does currently have to shoot down domestic commercial planes.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: The Death of Illusions

Naturally, the alliance should not admit members who are unready, or for whom it is not in the end willing to fight.

ECONOMIST: NATO and the invasion of Georgia

And it all happened because of an assuredly normal circumstance: a patient and family unready to confront the reality of her disease.

NEWYORKER: Letting Go

But it is all rather reminiscent of Ethelred the Unready, an 11th-century king of England who paid Danegeld to buy off Viking invaders.

ECONOMIST: The impossible task of eliminating uncertainty

Many countries are unready to surrender significant sovereignty over foreign policy.

ECONOMIST: By the esoteric art of treaty revision

Moving too quickly to turn over control to unready forces can be disastrous as shown by last month's breakout of more than 400 Taliban fighters from Kandahar's main prison.

WSJ: Max Boot: Bin Laden's Death Changes Little

This Rudy Giuliani, with his new wealth, his new wife, and his new, natural haircut (replacing the familiar comb-over), seemed plainly unready for the mission he had undertaken.

NEWYORKER: Mayberry Man

The Iranian population is arguably the most pro-US among any Muslim society in the Middle East, yet the Bush administration seems unready to take advantage and support what could be a democratic revolution.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: khamenei2

In theory, such flare-ups should offer the European Union a chance to show some military mettle for all its talk of having a rapid-reaction force of its own, but in practice the Macedonian crisis comes when Europeans are still wholly unready for reaction.

ECONOMIST: Pulling together, or pulling apart?