After a brief period of progress, the U.S.-Russian nuclear reduction process has reached a stalemate. This situation causes us to rethink the following issues:

- What is the motivation for the two nuclear superpowers to conduct nuclear reductions?

- How can the focus of the nuclear arms reduction process be changed from verification of reduction of delivery vehicles to verification of reduction of warheads and nuclear materials?

- What is the objective for future nuclear reductions?

- What kind of verification regime will be required for future nuclear reductions?

This paper addresses each of these questions in some detail.

Book description:

The basic logic of preventive diplomacy is unassailable. Act early to prevent disputes from escalating; reduce tensions that could lead to war; deal with today's conflicts before they become tomorrow's crises. Yet as we look at the record of these first years of the post-Cold War era, it is quite mixed. There have been some preventive diplomacy successes and opportunities that have been seized by major powers and international organizations to help preserve and protect the peace. But there also have been other opportunities that have been missed, with some of the century's most deadly conflicts the result. This study examines ten major post-Cold War cases including Croatia-Bosnia, Rwanda, the Baltics, Russia-Ukraine, Macedonia, and North Koreato assess the key factors contributing to both the success and failure of preventive diplomacy. The method of case study analysis employed is based on the work of Alexander L. George. Authors include both leading academics and prominent policy officials with first-hand knowledge

Book chapter in Opportunities Missed, Opportunities Seized: Preventive Diplomacy in the Post-Cold War World , B.W. Jentleson, ed., Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.

Why did the Soviet Union break up, whereas the Russian Federation has so far held together in the face of ostensibly similar secession crises? To what extent is regional separatism a product of economic incentives or local ethnic identity? Few areas of the world display a greater complexity of ethnic relations than the post-Soviet empire, and there are few with greater long-term strategic significance. Drawing on insights from political science, sociology, and anthropology, A Federation Imperiled asks why political elites in some regions in post-Soviet Russia have shown more of a proclivity for separatism from Moscow than others. Focusing on Chechnya, Dagestan, Sakha, Buryatia, Tyva, Pskov, and Primorye, this volume explores political programs articulated by top officials in the regions, local separtist or anti-separtist movements, and disputes between Moscow and the regions over natural resources and external trade. This is the first major comparative study on the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation.

The Caspian Basin has emerged in recent years as a major focus of international affairs for a combination of political, economic, and geostrategic reasons. In the immediate aftermath of the Soviet Union's dissolution in the early 1990s the region's newly independent states were overshadowed by Russia and attracted little Western and U.S. attention. But over the past several years this region has attracted growing attention from Western policymakers and scholars, as well as the media and the private sector. One of the main reasons for this new focus on the Caspian is its sizable energy reserves. In addition to its potential as a significant oil producer, however, it is also the Caspian's geostrategic location, its diverse mix of ethnic groups, and its unsettled intrastate and interstate conflicts that make it both an enticing and challenging region.

In May 1999, CISAC's Project on Ethnic Conflict and Conflict Management in the Former Soviet Union convened an international conference to examine emerging geopolitical issues of the Caspian Basin region. Scholars, policymakers, and energy executives from around the world gathered to examine the sometimes contending interests, both political and economic, focused on the region, and to seek to develop a comprehensive approach for enhancing political and economic development, mitigating and resolving conflicts, and promoting security and stability in the region. Panelists examined conflicting political and economic approaches to the region and explored strategies for energy development that might facilitate regional economic growth and democratization. They also offered diverse views about whether energy development could promote regional cooperation and integration or was likely to exacerbate existing conflicts.

The conference was part of the Project on Ethnic Conflict's ongoing activities in the Caspian region. Project director Gail Lapidus and others at CISAC have been working closely with scholars and policymakers in the region for a number of years on issues of nationalism, conflict resolution, and regional security. One of the project's central goals has been to encourage and facilitate regional cooperation on a broad range of humanitarian, economic, and political issues. In support of that objective, the project has engaged in joint efforts with key political actors in the region in attempts to develop fresh approaches to conflict management and to construct new regional security arrangements.

The nuclear nonproliferation regime was challenged in 1998 by nuclear-weapon tests in India and Pakistan, by medium-range missile tests in those countries and in Iran and North Korea, by Iraq's defiance of UN Security Council resolutions requiring it to complete its disclosure of efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and by the combination of "loose nukes" and economic collapse in Russia. Additional threats to the regime's vitality came in 1999 from the erosion of American relations with both China and Russia that resulted from NATO's 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia--with additional harm to relations with China resulting from U.S. accusations of Chinese nuclear espionage and Taiwan's announcement that it was a state separate from China despite its earlier acceptance of a U.S.-Chinese "one China" agreement. Major threats to the regime also came from the continued stalemate on arms-control treaties in the Russian Duma and the U.S. Senate, from a change in U.S. policy to favor building a national defense against missile attack, and from a Russian decision to develop a new generation of small tactical nuclear weapons for defense against conventional attack.

This paper will discuss the effect some of these developments had on the 1999 Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meeting of Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) parties to prepare for review of the NPT in 2000, and speculate about their likely future effect on the regime.

The Soviet Union placed a high priority on science and technology and built a huge assembly of research institutes, educational programs, design bureaus, and production enterprises embodying some measure of science and/or technology. This assembly concentrated overwhelmingly on military applications. Approximately three-quarters of this complex was located in Russia, but essential elements of many programs were located in other republics.

Starting in the Gorbachev regime there was a recognition that the economy was deteriorating and that it was necessary to reduce military expenditures and increase the civilian economy. A major element of this has been the attempt to direct a much greater effort toward the development of commercial products and services based upon technologies and skills developed in the military-industrial complex (MIC). This commercialization of Soviet and Russian military technology has been attempted by the Russians both independently, through conversion programs, and in cooperation with foreign partners. The conversion programs have had very limited success. The success of attempts at cooperative commercialization by U.S. companies and Russian enterprises have also been modest, but they illustrate workable models that could be utilized by other cooperative ventures. These cooperative commercialization ventures are the primary subject of this report.

This research is based primarily on the study of several cases of cooperative attempts by U.S. companies and Russian enterprises to commercialize Russian technology. Additional information has been gathered through participation in workshops and conferences including sessions or presentations on technology commercialization. There is no attempt to determine the total amount of such activity, but foreign investment of all types in Russia has been very small. These cases may not be representative of what is going on at many defense enterprises, especially those that do not have foreign partners. They do, however, show models of what can be achieved, as well as some of the problems encountered in technology commercialization.

This report and the conference it is based on are motivated by the sharp debate stemming from NATO's decision at Madrid to invite three new members to join its ranks. This debate is not partisan: it cleaves parties. It is profound because it has kindled the first truly geostrategic inquiry among Americans in the post-Cold War era. This inquiry has led Americans to advance from celebrating the end of the Cold War to confronting the design of Eurasia's future security system and America's role in it.

Dr. Lapidus summarizes factors, both domestic and international, pushing for and against regional separatism from the Russian Federation. Attention then turns to factors influencing the further devolution of authority from central to regional officials. A typology is offered of types of issues animating conflict in center-periphery relations. The article then discusses the impact of the August 1998 crisis on these trends and on prospects for the future.