Following the end of the Cold War, the United States and its allies recognized that it was in their vital security interests to promote stable transitions in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the New Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union. For the most part, such transitions would depend on the efforts of the states in transition themselves, including many that had been newly formed. However, one way in which the Western nations could help was by economic assistance -- both financial and technical.

The most abundant and efficacious form of financing will eventually be direct investment by Western private industry combined with indigenous investment in the countries; however, many of the transitioning countries, particularly those of the NIS did not have many attractive investment targets, with the possible exception of the natural resources sector. Recognizing this, the Western countries established a variety of unilateral and multilateral mechanisms to provide interim financing. These mechanisms utilized existing multilateral institutions such as the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund as well as existing unilateral institutions such as the United States' Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Trade and Development Agency. The charters and agendas of several existing institutions were expanded to address the specific issues in CEE/NIS. In addition, they established new multilateral institutions such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and unilateral institutions such as several enterprise funds set up by the United States and TACIS (Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States) set up by the European Union.

In conjunction with these sources of finance the Western countries also initiated an extensive series of programs designed to address specific economic development and security issues in the region. These programs provided their own funding for projects, provided extensive technical assistance, and in some cases were designed to attract and work with Western private industry. One such program is the Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI), which is managed by the U.S. Department of Energy. NCI's primary objective is to help prevent the flow of critical weapons technology and personnel from Russia to countries aspiring to acquire nuclear weapons. NCI's approach is to assist Russia in downsizing its nuclear weapons complex by creating sustainable, non-military employment for nuclear weapon specialists in Russia's closed nuclear cities. NCI is designed to build infrastructure necessary to attract private investment and to facilitate the efforts of private investors, thereby leveraging NCI's own budget.

Many of the sources of finance cited herein require a Western company as a strategic partner and co-investor. Thus the missions of NCI and these financial sources are highly complementary. Recognizing this, Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, under contract to NCI and under subcontract to the University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, undertook a project to assemble information on many sources of finance that were applicable to NCI's mission, particularly those that are at least partially capitalized by the United States Government (USG). The intent was to make this information available to NCI partners to facilitate the establishment of ventures co-financed by NCI, the Russian Federation, private Western industry, and the sources described herein. While this research was performed for the purposes of NCI, much of the data are generally applicable to other projects seeking financing in Russia.

Since the attacks on September 11, the Bush administration has seemed as determined as ever to move ahead with a national missile defense system, although it would have done nothing to prevent the attacks. Another question is how the rest of the world views U.S. plans. This article contains a sampling of perspectives from around the world.

President Bush signed the Patriot Act last week. The new anti-terrorism law has its critics. Some object to the law's intrusions on civil liberties. They cite the provisions for extended detention, new powers to spy on Americans, a lack of controls on use of information, a greater ability to freeze and seize assets and an overly broad definition of domestic terrorism.

Others express concern about the process. The Patriot Act represents the most radical change in police powers in decades, and codifies counterterrorist measures previously rejected by Congress as too intrusive.

Still, there were few hearings and little debate. Many representatives didn't have an opportunity to read the House version before the vote.

In the Senate, the bill bypassed Judiciary Committee markup and went straight behind closed doors. Presented with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down option,

and with little opportunity to amend the bill, few lawmakers were willing to risk being seen as "soft on terrorism."

There is another issue, however, and it has received little attention. It is the issue of effectiveness. Will these new police powers help to stop terrorism? The obvious and intuitive answer would seem to be yes.

If the police have more power to collect information, they should be able to catch more terrorists. That sounds logical, but once you scratch the surface of that argument the problems become obvious.

The Patriot Act's key provisions focus primarily on data collection. The underlying assumption is that the real problem here is a lack of information. The history of intelligence failures suggests, however, that often the problem is not a lack of data, but rather making sense of the data you already have. Sometimes it's the case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand has. After the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the FBI discovered that it already had copies of maps and detailed plans of the attack before it happened.

Other times, it reflects the difficulty of weighing conflicting pieces of information or of applying existing information to new contexts. These tasks require human interpretation and judgment. September 11 was not the first suicide attack against the United States. The 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, the 1998 embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, and the attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen all involved suicide bombers. Imagining that suicide bombers might strike the United States did not require new information. It required a more imaginative use of the information already in hand.

So what about the September 11 attacks? Was it a lack of information,faulty data analysis, organizational dysfunction, or some combination of all three? The simple answer is that we don't know. No official investigations have been completed. Congress, not wanting to look like it was pointing fingers at a time of national crisis, decided to hold off on any inquiries. In time, we will know what happened. Once the witnesses are deposed and the records subpoenaed, the American public should have a clearer idea of what went wrong in the weeks and months leading up to September 11.

The irony, of course, is that we will find out what needs fixing after having already passed an anti-terrorism law. In theory, the government could go back and repeal the legislation and replace it with something else. History suggests, however, that passing anti-terrorism laws is much easier than repealing them. What lawmaker will vote for a repeal, and risk that a repeal is followed by a terrorist act? Will police or intelligence bureaucracies want to give up expanded powers? The record is clear. In country after country, temporary measures intended to combat terrorism have became near permanent powers of the state.

Compelled by events, the president and Congress have moved swiftly to redress the failures of September 11 -- perhaps too swiftly. We now have a law that is intended to solve problems we have yet to identify. The Patriot Act may improve our ability to fight terrorism. On the other hand, it may have no effect whatsoever. It could even make things worse. Like the patient who chooses a medicine before knowing his illness, the government has passed a law without knowing what needs a remedy. It is a major gamble, and for the country -- as for the patient -- the effects may be severe and long lasting.

The U.S. government is expert at presenting well-honed Pentagon briefings describing American military action. Decisions are made regularly about how much detail the military believes can be presented without endangering U.S. troops. But only late last week -- after two weeks of anthrax scares in the United States -- did we begin to see similarly professional efforts to inform U.S citizens about the domestic threat they faced.