Those studying international peace and security tend to look for the origins of violence in differences, whether among economic interests, ethno-cultural groups, or clashing ideologies. Arguing from the Girardian perspective (described in an appendix to this essay), Bland argues that it is the similarity of the warring camps in Northern Ireland that underlies cycles of violence and retribution. Over the past two centuries, periods of relative calm and socioeconomic equalization in the region have been followed by outbreaks of inter-group violence and rapid social polarization.

Bland shows that symbolic displays of "marching and rising"--in which Protestant and Catholic extremists reassert their respective roles as triumphant masters and defiant rebels--are generative rather than merely symptomatic of differences and violence between the two sides. Acts of terror beget more than retaliation: they permeate the entire fabric of society and become self-perpetuating, as each person becomes a potential victim and a potential killer in the eyes of the other side. The only protection and "justice" in Northern Ireland was that offered by the very perpetrators of violence. Whereas social scientists have argued for security guarantees and constitutional engineering as solutions to internal wars, Bland shows that a "hurting stalemate" of violence and retribution can persist indefinitely as long as making peace with the enemy is unacceptable.

Bland argues that protacted inter-group conflicts are best resolved in ethical and interpersonal terms. Combatants on each side must transcend their conflict by recognizing and affirming publicly their common humanity, and by unilaterally renouncing the principle of retributive justice. To paraphrase Anwar Sadat, whom Bland cites as such a "transcender," peace is won not by signing agreements but by embracing enemies.

Given that organized violence within states is currently more widespread and destructive than war among states, many advocate expanding the concept of security to include elements of political and personal security at the domestic level. Since individuals generally look to governments to provide this security, deadly violence--whether by insurgents, polite forces, or criminal networks--can undermine the stability and legitimacy of state authorities. Unfortunately, democratization has accompanied increases in such violence in many parts of the world.

In a case study of contemporary Benin that has much broader implications, Bruce Magnusson argues that democratizing states must solve simultaneous and interrelated threats to public security in order to survive. At the level of the state, leaderships must safeguard democratic institutions from violent overthrow, particularly by disaffected militaries. At the level of society, democratic legitimacy rests on protection from criminality and from the arbitrary exercise of public and police authority. These challenges must be met jointly within a democratic constitutional framework: domestic order is key to averting military takeover, and likewise constitutionality provides the central guarantee for individual rights and civil liberties.

During the Cold War, the United States carried out a number of covert actions against elected governments in the Third World. Critics of the "democratic peace" suggest these covert operations are potential invalidations of, or at least exceptions to, the proposition that liberal democracies rarely or never wage war on one another. Democratic peace theorists, however, argue that the targets of these covert actions were not long-term, stable democracies, that covert action falls short of interstate war by Correlates of War (CoW) criteria, and that the covert nature of these operations meant that liberal norms and institutions in the United States did not have an opportunity to function. Even so, by forcing the executive to use covert means, democratic institutions may have prevented the higher level of international violence known as war, although they were not robust enough to prevent covert action. Liberal interventionist and anti-communist ideology provided policymakers with a justificatory frame for intervention which, however, did not amount to war between democracies.

Information warfare is a relatively new rubric, which is receiving increasing attention within the United States from both the government and the general population. Recent studies and Congressional hearings have discussed the vulnerability of the U.S. civil infrastructure to information sabotage, perpetrated by both state and non-state actors. Most recently, President Clinton established the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection to identify vulnerabilities in the nation's overall infrastructure and to recommend policy actions to reduce them. One of the areas that the Commission will investigate is the nation's information infrastructure. For instance, the armed services foresee new uses for digital systems to enhance military capabilities, but they also recognize the growing U.S. vulnerability that might be exploited with the techniques of information warfare.

The existence of softer and perhaps more critical homeland targets is creating interest in information warfare at a strategic level. That interest has two very different themes: new weapons the United States might use against an adversary and, in the hands of others, new threats to U.S. civil information-system-dependent infrastructure. The latter, the defensive concern, is currently receiving the larger measure of public attention.

The size of the defense industry in Russia has been a primary concern for policymakers and scholars interested in international security and arms control, as well as for students of Russian politics and economy more generally. For an issue attracting so much apparent
interest, however, there appears to be remarkably little quantitative information available on the scope of the military production sector and, particularly, on the extent to which it has changed in recent years. Analysts of the military-industrial complex (MIC)1 have either
combined the scraps of information derivable from official reports to try to form an overall picture (e.g., Cooper (1991a and 1991b), Despres (1995), Gaddy (1994), Sapir (1994), Sanchez-Andres (1995) and most of the published literature in Russian language), or they have been limited to detailed case studies of just a few firms, eschewing any attempt to measure the sector as a whole (e.g., Bernstein (1994)). Both approaches have contributed substantially to our qualitative understanding of the organizational structure of the military industry and of recent changes in the operation of some of its enterprises. But neither provides quantitative answers to the following questions: How large is Russian defense industry? What is the magnitude of decline in military production since reforms began?
What are the sources of the change? To what extent are resources being released for civilian purposes? Yet the answers have important implications for international security and for the design of foreign aid and domestic policies to assist the conversion and industrial
restructuring processes.

This volume contains the proceedings of a conference held at the Center for International Security and Arms Control in May 1996. The meeting was the latest in a series that CISAC had held over the years with Russian specialists from the Center for Scientific Research of the Committee of Scientists for Global Security, the Ministry of Defense, and the Russian Academy of Sciences. The general rubric under which these meetings were organized is "Strategic Stability to the Year 2000."

The May meeting had a special significance because 1996 was a year of presidential elections in both Russia and the United States, and the prospect of these elections was inevitably reflected in the discussions. But another general point emerged in the meeting, and that was the need to pay more attention to the strategic relationship between Russia and the U.S. Much had been done since the end of the Cold War to wind down the nuclear competition between the two countries, and agreements have been signed to reduce the enormous nuclear arsenals built up during the Cold War. There is much to be done, however, to ensure that this course is continued. The uncertainty
about ratification of START II by the State Duma, and the proposals in the U.S. Congress for deployment of a national ABM system both cast doubt on the possibility of further reductions in strategic offensive arms. The prospects for pushing nuclear weapons into the background of international politics are clouded by the renewed Russian interest in the role of tactical weapons in regional conflicts, and by U.S. interest
in the use of nuclear weapons to deter chemical and biological weapons attacks.

The issues discussed in the conference are embedded in broader political relationships, and this meeting suggested the need for a more intensive and broader strategic dialogue. In both countries there had been a lessening of interest in issues of arms control, but the process of reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons, to which both states are formally committed, is a complex and contentious one, which requires
political trust and careful management. Hence, the importance of a strategic dialogue which examines the conceptual basis of Russian-U.S. relations. Several participants in the conference spoke of the need to transform, or move away from, nuclear deterrence.
Many proposals were advanced for further cooperation in arms control and disarmament. But it is clear that much remains to be done to move Russian-U.S. relations onto a more stable footing.

This paper reviews the activities and accomplishments of the Chinese space community in international cooperation and discusses appropriate ways of further cooperation with other nations. It is part of an effort to study how to enhance China's space industry and to share with the rest of the world the benefits of fair exploitation of outer space, which belongs to all mankind.

This article analyses whether the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) provides legal authority for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) efforts to gain more information and more intrusive inspections to assure that non-nuclear-weapons States (NNWS) have joined the NPT are not attempting to make nuclear weapons in violation of that Treaty.

How can scholars translate knowledge concerning problems ofpeace and security across the boundaries of academic disciplines and intellectual frameworks? By what standard should one judge such knowledge? In a rich essay, which may be read fruitfully on many levels, David Dessler argues that we must look beyond epistemological differences between positivist and non-positivist approaches and focus on pragmatics: the purposes for which, and context within which, knowledge is generated. Dessler distinguishes between predictive knowledge, which seeks to identify causal relationships with general validity, and reconstructive knowledge, which explores critically the categories, assumptions, and purposes of predictive theory. Neither form of knowledge can claim precedence; both are crucial for a holistic understanding of phenomena from which social scientists can never fully divorce themselves. Dessler substantiates this distinction by showing the utility of six works in the area of peace and security: Jack Snyder's Myths of Empire, Charles Hale's Resistance and Contradiction, Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work, Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer's The Great Arch, James Ferguson's The AntiPolitics Machine, and David Holloway's Stalin and the Bomb.

Dessler concludes with a warning: the social relevance of research can never be fixed since the audience for the research is not under the deterministic control of the scientist. Dessler's essay stands as a beacon for those seeking to forge a broad-based and responsible science of peace and security.

An earlier version of this essay occasioned a workshop, sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation Consortium on International Peace and Cooperation, on "Talking Across Disciplines in the Study of Peace and Security." A summary of the discussion follows the essay.

The Center for International Security and Arms Control (CISAC) at Stanford University convened a workshop that dealt almost exclusively with software groups from the military-industrial complex. It also excludes any examples of software initiatives in Russia that are currently directed at the Russian market; however, it is the author's undocumented impression that there is not yet much commercial activity in this area.

This report is based primarily on the presentations and discussions at the workshop and secondarily on additional case data. The process of selecting cases for the workshop was not geared to find these failures as easily as those cases in which there is an ongoing activity. Nonetheless, the tendency toward success in software ventures versus
manufacturing ventures in the enterprises that are included is compelling.