"Claim-Making and Large-Scale Historical Processes in the Late Twentieth Century," held March 7-9, 1997, at Stanford University, was an experimental workshop to preview the dimensions on the eve of the twenty-first century that the MacArthur Foundation Consortiumon Challenges to the Study of International Peace and Cooperation, will explore over the next three years: war and institutions of violence; globalization; society and the ecosphere; and identity and social power. The idea was to examine these dimensions as large structural macro-historical processes and also to look at how these processes are immanent in the political and cultural claims made by contending actors. All of the workshop panels brought out issues of several dimensions. The first panel, on Globalization and Social Claims, looked at processes of globalization and also at society and the ecosphere. The second panel, State Formation and Claim-Making, focused on the dimensions of war and institutions of violence and also identity and social power. The third panel, Identities and Social Power, was on that dimension, largely in the context of globalization. The fourth panel, a roundtable on Claims to Sovereignty in the Former Soviet Union, was most related to the dimension of war and institutions of violence.

By the end of 1995, China had built the world's ten largest telecommunications networks and the industry was growing at a faster rate than any other sector of the booming Chinese economy. For example, the country's 40 million telephone subscribers with 50 million telephone numbers represented an average annual growth rate of nearly 100 percent over a ten-year period. Internet users served by ChinaNet jumped from 6,000 in 1995 to 53,739 in March 1997. Progress was qualitative as well, as China procured state-of-the-art fiber-optic and satellite technologies and narrowed the gap between itself and the United States and between its own urban and rural areas. The achievement can be attributed to the government's commitment to telecommunications as the key to further development--a commitment backed by preferential policies; to foreign financial and technical support; and to changing attitudes of the Chinese people themselves.

However, China faces some major problems. The gap in living standards between coastal and interior provinces is widening, as people migrate from poor villages to increasingly affluent cities. The government must focus more on developing isolated regions. Rapid development of telecommunications cannot be sustained under a government monopoly, which aids the government's economic and security interests but discourages foreign companies from investing and transferring technology. At the same time, there has been little headway in developing domestic telecommunications products. Management of the industry is chaotic in the absence of clear regulations, and a multilayered bureaucracy encourages wasted resources, duplication, red tape, and corruption. Political problems are likely to emerge as telecommunications continues to help open Chinese society and young Chinese come to embrace Western industrial culture.

Nevertheless, China is destined to become and remain the world's "super market" as long as it remains politically stable in its transition from a plannned to a market economy. Telecommunications will continue to play a key role during this transition.

The author concludes that strategy posited on the unchanging character of the differences that have separated Russia and the West is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The trouble with a status quo strategy is that it offers no vision of the opportunities available to construct a
security system in which power is constrained not just by countervailing power but by the exercise of democratic control over national decisions. Security in Europe is not just a question of military limitations and reductions. The essence of European security and the key to achieving a stable peace lies in the process of creating an inclusive community of
democratic nations.

Global concerns over illicit trafficking in nuclear materials intensified in the 1990s. Some
countermeasures were taken, including steps involving the IAEA. But greater international cooperation, and higher standards of physical protection, may be needed to guard against the chance that weapons-grade material might fall into the wrong hands. This viewpoint article — based on a presentation to the IAEA’s International Conference on Physical
Protection in November 1997 — advocates steps to raise global standards, and to have them monitored internationally.

As a result of the rapid changes following the breakup of the Soviet bloc, there were suddenly new markets of hundreds of millions of people, covering a large portion of the earth, containing large fractions of many of the world's natural resources, possessing extensive research and production capacity, with a highly educated workforce, and utilizing many advanced technologies. Russia contained a large fraction of these factors, especially those oriented toward high technology, and hence it behooves international companies to formulate and implement strategies for doing business in Russia.

This particular study was undertaken because the quest for cooperative ventures has been a major portion of the strategy of many Russian defense enterprises and U.S. companies in addressing these changes. We deemed it important to gain a better understanding of the factors affecting companies' and enterprises' decisions regarding cooperative ventures and some of the determinants of success, as well as to analyze strategies for U.S. companies and Russian enterprises contemplating or participating in cooperative ventures.

The conclusions in this report are based on case-study interviews with companies and enterprises engaged in cooperative ventures. All of the Russian enterprises in our study, with the exception of some start-ups, had been heavily involved in military work; the American companies were from both the military and civilian sectors.

The renewed American debate over ballistic missile defenses (BMD) echoes loudly in NATO, in Europe, and in France. This issue will be decisive for the future of European political organization and its security and defense. The issue will also be important for the future of relations between Europe, the United States, and Russia.

Faced with the potential threat of ballistic missiles equipped with nuclear warheads (or biological and chemical payloads) that could strike French and European territories, deterrence is sufficient and offers the greatest cost-effectiveness. In this analysis, the question of the broadening of the French and British deterrent and the political organization of a possible European anti-missile defense system will be discussed. Then, a new transatlantic strategic partnership, the robustness of which lies in counterbalancing the vulnerabilities of its members, will be described.

The development of "information warfare" presents international legal issues that will complicate nations' efforts both to execute and to respond to certain information warfare attacks, specifically those using computers, telecommunications, or networks to attack adversary information systems. Some legal constraints will certainly apply to information warfare, either because the constraints explicitly regulate particular actions, or because more general principles of international law govern the effects of those actions. Nevertheless, the novelty of certain information warfare techniques may remove them from application of established legal categories. Furthermore, the ability of signals to travel across international networks, and affect systems in distant countries, conflicts with the long-standing principle of national, territorial sovereignty.

Scott D. Sagan notes that the question of why states seek to build nuclear weapons has scarcely been examined, although it is crucial to efforts at preventing proliferation. He challenges the traditional realist assumption, accepted uncritically by many scholars and policymakers, that states seek to acquire or develop nuclear weapons primarily for military and strategic reasons. Sagan examines alternate explanations for the demand for nuclear weapons.

Revised and updated versions of this article also appear as "The Causes of Nuclear Proliferation," Current History (April 1997), pp. 151-156; as "Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons?" in Victor Utgoff, ed., The Coming Crisis: Nuclear Proliferation, U.S. Interests, and World Order (MIT Press, 1999), p. 17-50; and as "Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb," in New Global Dangers: Changing Dimensions of International Security (International Security Reader, July 2004).

This paper raises the following questions: Can OSCE live up to high expectations for conflict prevention and crisis management? Is it able and equipped to meet this demanding task? Is OSCE well-suited and placed to play a central role in European security? Is the role of a "framework organization" a suitable task for OSCE? The underlying issues are about the relationship and links between OSCE and the Atlantic Aliance--whether the ambiguities of OSCE's performance can be warded off, and whether the overall performance of OSCE can be improved by cooperation with NATO.