But Mr. Gorbachev's aides insist it would be a mistake to underestimate the combustible combination of economic misery and political humiliation.

There have been efforts to merge Russian nationalism with a kind of blue-collar populism, a combustible combination if anybody finds the right spark.

The English Riviera is a combustible combination of murky electronica and clean, jangly pop.

The combustible combination of one man's determination and political brawn and another's sometimes inscrutable ambition, perhaps instability, may have proved deadly.

The problem is not immigration itself but the combustible combination of high levels of immigration and the bankrupt social policies of the last 30 years.

"Those three things can be a combustible combination."

A leftist Workers' Party government here and a conservative Republican administration in Washington could make for a combustible combination.

The two were a successful and combustible combination.

This is a combustible combination that eventually is likely to produce big change.

There's the oncoming January cold, and the potential for a combustible combination of family members to be stuck at a dinner table together.