Proceedings of a conference, "Preventing Deadly Conflict: Strategies and Institutions," held in Moscow Aug. 14-16, 1996," that was a joint undertaking of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, the Institute of Universal History of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University.

Dr. Lapidus, who co-edited the report, wrote the conclusion, "Lessons from the Russian Experience."

The contributors to this volume address questions central to the development and survival of democratic rule. Brought together under the auspices of a Nobel Symposium on democracy, leading experts in the field examine historical experiences, social and cultural problems, economic development, constitutional issues, the impact of globalization, and the prospects for promoting democratic government. The coverage of the book is global, and the approach is multidisciplinary, providing a unique perspective from leading historians, political scientists, economists, and sociologists. The chapters thus provide an excellent survey of different facets of, and approaches to, democracy, including such fundamental issues as the nature of democratic citizenship, and its prevalence around the world; the relationship between economic development and the progress of democracy; and the influence of international interdependence on sovereignty and democratic accountability.

• Collection of essays covering the fundamental questions regarding the prospects for democracy
• Global coverage, and multidisciplinary approach - political scientists, historians, economists, sociologists
• Contributors include some of the biggest names in the field: Elster, Linz, Przeworski, Lijphart, Bhagwati, Schmitter

Georgia--The Search for State Security

David Darchiashvili's working paper traces the attempts of the modern Georgian state to deal with issues of national security since independence. Darchiashvili outlines the nature of contemporary national security dilemmas for post-Soviet Georgia. The paper examines Georgia's present security threats, as well as its current relationships with Russia and the other countries of the region. The paper also presents an in-depth discussion of the situation of civil-military relations in Georgia and the impact of these relations on state security. The author analyzes the roots of Georgia's problems in developing a coherent and practical security policy. He proposes that the ad hoc character of current security policy has resulted in passivity in dealing with threats such as ethnic conflicts, including the war in Abkhazia. In his conclusion Darchiashvili makes a recommendation for the elaboration of a consistent national security concept for Georgia. The author proposes that this security concept will need to include a framework for relations between society and the military. According to Darchiashvili, in order to attain this goal Georgia needs to maintain internal stability and to secure support from international institutions.

European Security and Conflict Resolution in the Transcaucasus

Nerses Mkrttchian's working paper examines the issue of security in the Transcaucasus since the fragmentation of Europe's international landscape, and the emergence of a new cooperative European security system that followed the disappearance of the continent's political line of separation. Mkrttchian proceeds to analyze the security issues in the Transcaucasus region within broader European, Eurasian, and post-Soviet contexts. The paper examines the current security structure of Europe, its relationship to Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and how these new security structures can affect the regional conflicts in the Transcaucasus. Mkrttchian analyzes the prospects for establishing regional cooperation on security issues in the Transcaucasus, and the role of international organizations in this process. The author points to the need for the development of "cross-dimensional" cooperation as a way to resolve conflicts in the region.

There is a growing logjam of arms control treaties waiting for approval in both the Russian State Duma and the U.S. Senate. Without decisive action, this logjam will probably prevent approval by the world's two largest military powers of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II) of 1993, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996 (CTBT), amendments to the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, and the protocols of the Treaty of Pelindaba (creating an African nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ)) and the Treaty of Rarotonga (creating a South Pacific NWFZ) before the end of the century. It will also prevent progress towards START III and further bilateral nuclear reductions.

The wars of the 1990s confirm a basic finding from the study of civil war termination: "peacemaking is a risky business." The greatest source of risk comes from spoilers - leaders and parties who believe that peace emerging from negotiations threatens their power, worldview, and interests, and use violence to undermine attempts to achieve it. When spoilers succeed, the results are catastrophic. But not all spoilers do succeed.

The crucial difference between the success and failure of spoilers is the role played by international actors as custodians of peace. This study begins to develop a typological theory of spoiler management, providing a first step toward understanding the spoiler problem in peace processes and evaluating the appropriateness and effectiveness of different strategies of spoiler mangement.

Whether China can achieve its economic and political goals depends very much upon whether PRC's domestic stability can be maintained and large-scale devastating military conflict, either internally with Taiwan or externally with major foreign powers, can be avoided. This article will speculate on China's security role in the region and in the world ten to fifteen years hence, and assess China's likely intentions, capabilities, and strategies in domestic and foreign affairs, in light of the changes in China's geopolitical environment.

Future regional conflicts will almost certainly involve politically less stable nations or other regional actors using theater ballistic missiles armed with either nuclear, biological, or chemical warheads. The United States Air Force is attempting to deal with this threat by developing the Airborne Laser (ABL) with the goal of shooting down missiles while they are still under power and before they can release submunitions possibly containing highly toxic biological agents. This paper presents the results of an analysis of this system. It is based solely on information found in the open literature and using the basic physics and engineering involved in transmitting intense laser beams through the atmosphere. The ABL's potential capabilities and possible theaters of operation are discussed at a non-technical level.

Since Brazil and West Germany surprised the world by announcing that they had reached the nuclear "deal of the century" in 1975, many national and international observers have feared that Brazil sought to develop atomic weapons. Brazilian rejection of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Tlatelolco treaties, insistence on its legal right to develop so-called peaceful nuclear explosives (PNEs), aspirations to great power status, authoritarian military government, and tacit nuclear rivalry with Argentina aroused concern that this ambitious program of reactor construction and technology transfer would mask an effort to reach the bomb.

Although difficult financial circumstances derailed this program in the late 1970s, by the early 1980s press reports began to emerge indicating that a secretive "parallel" nuclear program under military direction was underway. Transition to democratic rule in 1985 failed to clarify the nature and objectives of this second effort, and provocative statements by senior military officers intensified concerns. This second effort persevered in the face of the severe economic conditions that made the 1980s a "lost decade" for Latin American countries, increasing international stress on nonproliferation, and protests from domestic anti-nuclear and environmental groups, as well as a 1990 investigation by the national congress.

By 1991, however, Brazil had formally renounced PNEs, agreed to establish bilateral safeguards with Argentina and to accept International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection of formerly secret nuclear facilities, and committed to ratifying the Treaty of Tlatelolco. This marked the apparent reversal of a long trajectory toward the proliferation threshold, and thus assuaged apprehension within and outside the country. Yet military involvement in nuclear technological development continued essentially unaltered, and Brazil now enjoys the distinction of being one of the few states with the indigenous capacity to produce fissile material necessary to construct atomic weapons.

This paper seeks to answer two questions: Given limited resources and domestic and foreign opposition, how did the Brazilian military succeed in developing this capacity? Given their determined effort and enduring role in nuclear development, why did the armed forces stop short of the bomb?

This study answers these two questions through investigation of domestic political processes, which involve the formation and maintenance of programmatic coalitions that marshal human, material, and political resources for technological development. Such coalitions encounter constraints which include competition for scarce human and financial capital, international technological denial, and domestic and international opposition. Such programs must be either effectively insulated from domestic challenges, or politically defended and normatively legitimated in spite of them.

In July 1996, President Clinton established the Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection, with a charter to designate critical infrastructures and assess their vulnerabilities, to recommend a comprehensive national policy and implementation strategy for protecting those infrastructures from physical and cyber threats, and to propose statutory or regulatory actions to effect the recommended remedies. The charter gives examples of critical infrastructures (telecommunications, electrical power systems, gas and oil storage and transportation, banking and finance, transportation, water supply systems, emergency services, and continuity of government), and also notes the types of cyber threats of concern (electronic, radio-frequency, or computer-based attacks on the information or communications components that control critical infrastructures).

Some of the critical infrastructures are owned or controlled by the government, and hence the government can, in principle, harden and restructure these systems and control access to achieve a greater degree of robustness. However, the President's executive order recognizes that many of the critical infrastructures are developed, owned, operated, or used by the private sector and that government and private sector cooperation will be required to define acceptable measures for the adequate protection and assurance of continued operation of these infrastructures.

The Stanford Center for International Security and Arms Control (CISAC), as part of its ongoing Program on Information Technology and National Security, and the Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) are conducting workshops to examine many of the issues connected with the work of the Commission. In addition to the questions of vulnerabilities, threats, and possible remedies, we discuss the impact on the marketplace of possible protective actions, cost in terms of capital and functionality, legal constraints, and the probable need for international cooperation.

The first of these jointly sponsored workshops was held March 10-11, 1997, and included participation by members and staff of the Presidential Commission; the Stanford community; the information technology industry; and by security specialists at infrastructure organizations, research companies, and the national laboratories. The results of this two-day meeting are summarized in the following report.

This paper focuses on the impact of a comprehensive test ban on China's nuclear program and security policy. After a general review of China's nuclear doctrine and development, the study analyzes the relationship between China's nuclear strategy and its desire for testing, and explores the reasons China decided to join the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. By comparing the maturity of the nuclear programs of the nuclear states and the degree of their preparations for a cessation of nuclear tests, this paper concludes that a comprehensive test ban would place greater constraints on China's nuclear program than on those of the others. Efforts such as a deeper reduction of the nuclear arsenals of the principal nuclear powers, a no-first-use commitment by all nuclear states, and the adherence to the ABM treaty by its signatories would be critical to reducing China's concerns. The progress of international arms control negotiations in the above directions would further encourage China to make even greater contributions in the field of global arms control in the post-comprehensive test ban era.