With the ending of the Cold War, regional conflicts have come increasingly to the fore. U.S. foreign policy goals in such areas continue to involve a mix of U.S. self-interest (as perceived by governing elites, Congress, and sometimes the electorate directly) and a desire to see conflicts in the world resolved more peacefully. Both of these factors have led and will probably continue to lead to U.S. military interventions in some of these conflicts.
This paper addresses the issue of what role--if any--U.S. nuclear weapons should play in these interventions. We focus on the following questions: given a military regional confrontation between the United States and a regional power, under what circumstances if any should nuclear weapons be used? What arguments militate for and against their use? Can one come to an overall policy recommendation in this regard?
We are well aware that the best way to deal with military confrontations is to prevent them. To some degree, military confrontations represent a failure of policy. Nevertheless, these confrontations do occur, and on occasion, the use of nuclear weapons has been and may again be contemplated. The paper reviews some such possible occasions.
For more than half a century, we viewed one another through our gunsights. Our ships passed each other on the tranquil watersof the world's largest ocean without so much as a sailor's traditional greeting. Wary and suspicious, it was best to keep fingers on the trigger when warships passed in the night.
Now the Cold War is over. Greater cooperation is evident not only in Europe, but also among the disparate nations of the Pacific Rim. Despite widely divergent interests and agendas in this, the home of 60 percent of the world's people, trends are already becoming evident that point toward closer collaboration in a number of political, economic, and cultural endeavors. The intersection of security interests, particularly at sea, suggests that the timing may be right to examine new forms of military cooperation as well. While different threat perceptions have long militated against multilateralism in Asia, modest yet concrete steps toward naval cooperation inconceivable before the Cold War's thaw are now possible.
Although may problems face international efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries in the years ahead, none is more important than gaining a lengthy extension of the non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Action on extension will be taken by majority vote of the over 160 parties at a conference called to consider this question in 1995. This paper will consider why a lengthy extension of the NPT is important; what options for, and obstacles to, extension exist and what the NPT's strongest supporters can offer the NPT members who are skeptical about a long extension in order to win their votes.
Chapter in Democratic Reform and the Position of Women in Transitional Economies, edited by Valentine Moghadam.
Exploring the effects of the post-1989 developments in Eastern and Central Europe on the social and economic position of the women of the region, Valentine Moghadam explains how the economic crisis and subsequent development, social breakdown, and changing institutions and practices of the state have an impact upon women's roles and status. The volume combines a theoretical analysis of fundamental gender specific issues and empirical studies on aspects such as educational attainment, social security provisions, political representation, and level and type of employment. Several papers use comparative analysis, drawing on previous research into women's position during development in the Third World, and under socialism in the years prior to 1989. Countries covered in empirical case studies are Russia, Estonia, Poland, the Czech and Slovak republics, the former East Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria. The authors draw the conclusion that women are among the principal losers in the restructuring process, both through the rise in conservative cultures, and through the economic imperatives of competing in a market-based system.
Many critics have discussed French military doctrine in terms of its broad social and political contexts. They assess, for example, the endemic political crisis and the pathological civil-military relations characteristic of the Third Republic, the general acceptance of social Darwinistic attitudes to international relations, and the influence of Bergson's élan vital. I shall not survey this wider debate but will concentrate on a careful reading of military doctrine as such. What are its strength? its weaknesses? What are its hidden assumptions?
My reading of French military doctrine will focus on the writings of Ardant du Picq, Ferdinand Foch, and Loyzeau de Grandmaison for two reasons. First, they are most often quoted by critics of the French military. Second, each of them is interesting in his own right and demonstrates some of the deeper dilemmas of military doctrine. Taken together they span the period from before the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 up to the First World War. I shall not criticize these military writers for failing to predict the future but will concentrate on their implicit assumptions and logical errors, which in principle could have been identified by an independent and critical observer contemporary with the writers.
"The 35-year goal of achieving a comprehensive test ban can best be attained, without compromising the integrity of the regime, by not defining precisely what constitutes a nuclear explosion."
During the most recent Russian-American summit in Vancouver, Canada in April 1993, President Clinton announced a major new initiative to assist Russia's transition to a market economy. In discussing how to aid the process of Russia's economic reform in ways of mutual benefit to both the United States and Russia, both President Yeltsin and President Clinton underscored the importance of promoting the conversion and privatization of state enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.
While most agree that conversion and privatization of these enterprises are laudable goals, few have discussed concrete methods of achieving these ends at the level of individual enterprises. By focusing on the actual experiences of one Russian enterprise that has both converted to almost 100% civilian production and, at the same time, become a private company, this report seeks to expand the discussion of the means and models for achieving conversion and privatization of the Russian military industrial complex.
This report covers work on conversion and privatization in the former Soviet Union that has been conducted over the past two years by the Center for International Security and Arms Control (CISAC) at Stanford University. In it, we explore the process of conversion and privatization through employee ownership. The report contains one chapter each on the major issues surrounding conversion and privatization, followed by a detailed explanation of the employee ownership method of privatization. The report concludes with the description and analysis of a case study of privatization through employee ownership: the Saratov Aviation Plant.
Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control (CISAC) started a project on defense conversion in the Soviet Union in early 1990. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, the project has concentrated on defense conversion in Russia. The objectives of the project are to study and assist the process of demilitarization through the diversion of military production assets, broadly interpreted (facilities, personnel, technology, etc.), and building a civilian industry and infrastructure.
As a part of this project, CISAC sponsored an international conference on defense conversion on December 1-2, 1992. This report summarizes the authors' impressions, following the conference, of the status of privatization and conversion in Russia, and of U.S. government and business involvement in those processes. The conclusions drawn and the recommendations made are our own, based on both conference presentations and our own research.
