Afghanistan held its landmark legislative elections this Sunday. Almost exactly four years after 9/11, and the invasion that followed, Afghanistan will have, for the first time in its history, a democratically elected constitutional government. That is something remarkable, and cause to celebrate - but only in the way that one cheers hopefully during a tough game at halftime.

Everything we know about democracy promotion and post-conflict reconstruction tells us that Afghanistan is far from out of the woods. Even after significant international intervention, many failed states remain unstable, or relapse into conflict and chaos. Remember Haiti? The United States invaded in 1994 and oversaw reconstruction and elections in 1995 and 2000, as international forces slowly withdrew. By 2004, U.S. and United Nations Forces were dispatched to the troubled island again. Haiti is not an outlier. World Bank studies show that countries coming out of civil war are forty percent likely to return to war within five years. It took one horrific hurricane to turn New Orleans to chaos. Imagine the effects of 25 years of war.

One of the main reasons failing countries continue to fail is economic. Economic recovery after war provides one of the best measures of the likelihood of long-term stability. International assistance can play a key role in jump-starting the economy and paying for basic government services, but it can take a generation to return to pre-war standards of living. The problem is that donor countries tend to be most generous in the first few years of the crisis - when local capacity to do something with those funds is limited. And just when the government starts to get on its feet - usually around the four-year mark - the assistance dries up.

The Afghan economy has seen remarkable growth rates over the last four years, but that is only half good. There is a truly free market now in Afghanistan - free from the rule of law. Much of the growth has come from the booming opium trade and other smuggling operations. While a strong economy is necessary to rebuild state and society, a criminal economy will necessarily destroy them both.

Politically, Afghanistan is getting its first taste of real elections - but it is far from being a stable democracy. There were more than 5,000 candidates in the legislative elections this Sunday, violence was relatively low, and turnout decent - all signs that political participation is blossoming. But nobody knows who will run the new parliament, or how it will function. It has no building and no staff. The only other parliament in Afghanistan's history, from 1965 to 1973, is widely blamed for increasing the polarization that led to civil war there. Since armed warlords still dominate many parts of the country, they will undoubtedly be strongly represented in the new legislature. As we have seen in places like Liberia and Serbia, post-conflict elections can produce quite undemocratic leaders.

What does this mean for Afghanistan? First, it means that the next four years will be as important there as the last four. Afghanistan's leaders, elected and otherwise, must put the cause of their nation before their factional, ethnic and venal interests. For our part, the United States and its allies must continue to support Afghanistan, financially and militarily, until it gets out of the danger zone. That means the same level of support for at least another four years.

Second, it means we have to shift our mentality there from short term to long term. If the United States has one overarching goal, it must be to build a legitimate Afghan state that is strong enough to survive and competent enough to deliver results. The Afghan police and legal system remain in shambles. Afghanistan's school system was rated the worst in the world last year by the United Nations Development Program. More international support needs to go to education, training a capable Afghan government, and supporting the rule of law.

Finally, it means something a little more intangible: continued political attention. If Afghanistan falls off the policy agenda in Washington, London and Berlin, the dangers that lurk there will prosper. Lagging reconstruction is already creating support for the ongoing Taliban insurgency. An unchecked opium trade keeps warlord armies well fed.

On this anniversary, we must remember the true cause of those grim attacks four years ago: Bin Laden and Al Qaeda had free reign of a failed state in chaos. We may not be able to find bin Laden, but we know where Afghanistan is located.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, and the U.S. invasion that followed have thrown Afghanistan from the periphery to the center of international affairs. Prior to these events, Americans knew very little about Afghanistan and its history, culture, and politics. This lack of knowledge highlights the need to inform the U.S. public about Afghanistan, as it appears that the Central Asian country will be central to U.S. foreign policy and international affairs for many years to come.

SIIS's Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), which serves as a bridge between the Institute and schools across the nation, is working to address this need by developing a curriculum unit on democracy-building in Afghanistan for advanced high school and community college students. SPICE's Eric Kramon, a master's student in international and comparative education, who received his BA from Stanford in 2004 in political science and history, is developing the curriculum unit with support from faculty and staff from Stanford's Center for Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies. Using a documentary film and a variety of engaging activities, the curriculum unit will provide students with an understanding of contemporary Afghan politics, the process of creating a new constitution for Afghanistan, and the complexities of democracy-building.

The curriculum is being developed around a documentary originally aired on PBS's Wide Angle entitled Afghanistan: Hell of a Nation, directed and produced by Tamara Gould. CDDRL fellow J. Alexander Thier served as the project advisor for the documentary, which follows Afghanistan's recent constitution-making process. The collaboration between SPICE and the filmmakers will enhance the pedagogical power of the curriculum and will facilitate more widespread understanding of contemporary Afghan political issues. According to Gould, Our goal in making Hell of a Nation was to bring the political drama unfolding in Afghanistan to life. Working with SPICE will allow us to reach the classroom with our film in ways that are far more effective than a national broadcast. Through SPICE, teachers will be able to use this curriculum to teach thousands of students more about Afghanistan, its new constitution, and the process of creating a democracy. This partnership between the filmmakers and SPICE is a win-win for us, and for teachers and students across the country.

Q. What is the history of the Journal of Korean Studies?

A. The Journal of Korean Studies was begun, I believe, in 1979 at the University of Washington by Professor James Palais, a preeminent Korean historian. The Journal of Japanese Studies appeared at the same time and both journals made tremendous contributions to their respective fields. The Journal of Korean Studies was unquestionably the top journal in the field of Korean studies. In fact, one of my first publications appeared in the Journal of Korean Studies. However, unlike the Journal of Japanese Studies, which has been published without interruption since its founding, publication of the Journal of Korean Studies was suspended in 1992 due to financial and administrative problems. So now we're reviving it at long last.

Q. Why did you feel it was important to revive the journal of korean studies and bring it to APARC?

A. First of all, there isn't really any top journal in the field at present, and Korean studies has grown enormously in the last ten years. As a result, there has been considerable demand for a good journal, especially among young scholars who want to publish their work. For Korean studies to continue to grow in the United States, it's vital for scholars to have a place to publish their research outcomes.

With respect to APARC serving as the home for the Journal of Korean Studies, we are still building up Korean studies at the Center, and at Stanford as a whole. I believe that having a premier journal in the program will more quickly place the program itself on the national map. It's also a great service to Korean studies in general. Many people-including very senior leaders in the field-really appreciate that we have put in the effort to bring back this important publication after such a long hiatus. And I'm so grateful to APARC for its financial, editorial, and administrative support in making the issue a reality. Chiho Sawada, postdoctoral research fellow in Korean studies at APARC, assisted me as associate editor and Victoria Tomkinson has done a wonderful job of editing the articles. We will celebrate the revival of the Journal of Korean Studies at the upcoming national meetings of the Association for Asian Studies.

Q. Where does the journal of korean studies fit into stanford's korean studies program?

A. Stanford's program began relatively late. This isn't to say that we haven't grown hugely, because the program has really taken off in the past three years. Yet there are other programs that have been up and running much longer, and therefore are more established. When I left the University of California, Los Angeles, which has the most well-established program in the nation, I wanted to create a unique Korean studies program at Stanford.

My vision for the Stanford Korean Studies Program can be summarized in two terms: social science and research. The research mission includes student training through research projects. Many students-both undergraduate and graduate-are involved in various research projects within the Korean Studies Program. Most other institutional programs focus on humanities and I don't intend to repeat what others elsewhere in the country and the world have already done. As I want to focus on social science, and research and publication, the Journal of Korean Studies will be a key component of that mission.

Q. Does the journal of korean studies have a particular focus within the field of korean studies?

A. Until now, the Journal of Korean Studies has predominantly published articles on history, literature, and culture, reflecting a general trend in the current field of Korean studies. Going forward, I'd like to publish more papers on social science. The revival issue doesn't reflect that goal and given the current concentration on humanities in the field, it won't be easy. Yet it's my hope that we'll tip the balance toward social sciences in subsequent issues and this is another way of making a contribution to the field as a whole.

Q. Publishing a major academic journal is a big job. What's the editorial procedure? What, for you as the co-editor [with john duncan, at the University of California, Los Angeles], is the most challenging part of putting the journal of korean studies together each year?

A. The number one challenge is getting good manuscripts. Last year, we received over twenty articles, but we accepted only one (and asked a few authors to revise and resubmit). Now that the journal is out, we expect more submissions in the months to come. My top priority is to control the quality of what we publish.

The second big challenge is finding good reviewers. The Journal of Korean Studies is, of course, a refereed journal. Usually we send each submitted manuscript to two people to read and evaluate, but the field of Korean studies is pretty small, and we can't go back to the same people all the time. Finding good readers will continue to be a vital but time-consuming part of the editorial process.

Q. What topics do you plan to cover in future issues?

A. My plan is to publish one general issue per year that covers a broad spectrum of topics in Korean studies, much like our revival issue. And, beginning this summer, I'm going to hold an annual one-week summer workshop, a small gathering here at Stanford. I'll pick a specific topic or theme and then through open competition select five or six scholars who have a draft paper on the topic. I will bring them to Stanford for one week and work with a senior scholar to lead the workshop. I plan to publish the papers that come out of that workshop as a special issue of the Journal of Korean Studies. The workshop we are organizing for summer 2005 will address the globalization of Korea. Professor Michael Robinson of Indiana University (who previously collaborated with me on Colonial Modernity in Korea) will lead the workshop. Thus, starting in 2006, the Journal of Korean Studies will publish one general and one special issue each year.

Q. Any highlights from this inaugural issue?

A. All of the articles in this inaugural issue have been carefully selected and are very strong in their quality. I'm particularly pleased that the articles range across so many subjects, from Michael Kim's piece on vernacular fiction and popular reading, to Robert Buswell's study of the significance of Sugi's collation notes on the Korean Buddhist canon, to Jin-Kyung Lee's article about feminist literature in 1950s South Korea. In addition to these, there are two other research articles, and a number of reviews of recent books in the field.

Q. How can people get copies of the journal of korean studies?

A. Subscriptions to the Journal of Korean Studies are being handled by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, located in Maryland. They, too, have been wonderfully supportive and involved in getting the Journal of Korean Studies off the ground. Those wishing to subscribe to the Journal can find more information on the .

China has a large and growing elderly population, but to be old in China-particularly in the countryside-is to be vulnerable. In the country's rural areas there are few clinics and hospitals, and health insurance is virtually nonexistent. Compared with elderly Chinese living in urban areas, those in rural areas have a shorter life expectancy and a poorer quality of life.

Further, little academic research has focused on the health needs and health status of China's elderly. It is with the goal of addressing this deficit that Pengqian Fang, a trainee with CHP/PCOR's China-U.S. Health and Aging Research Fellowship, recently returned to China from Stanford. Fang is seeking to document the health disparities between China's rural and urban elderly population, and to use his findings to propose healthcare assistance programs for the elderly in rural areas of China.

Fang spent a year at Stanford studying health-services research concepts and methods and developing his research project.

In the project, which Fang refined with guidance from CHP/PCOR faculty, Fang will conduct a detailed survey of the health status, health needs, and healthcare utilization of elderly people in rural and urban areas of China, through in-home interviews in three Chinese provinces with different geographic and socioeconomic characteristics: Guizhou (in southwest China), Hubei (in central China), and Guangdong (in the southeast).

He will conduct the project in collaboration with the health departments of the

three provinces, and with support from Tongji Medical College in Wuhan, where he

is director and associate professor of healthcare management.

Fang's study will be among the first of its kind in China. Such research is needed, Fang explained, because China's elderly population (of whom 70 percent reside in rural areas) is growing steadily, and in the coming years its members will require medical services at increasing rates. According to the country's 2000 census, China has 132 million people over age 65, making up more than 10 percent of the population; the over-80 population, which numbers 10 million people, is increasing by 5.4 percent a year; and about 20 percent of all elderly people in the world live in China.

The elderly in China's rural areas face particular challenges in getting high-quality, affordable healthcare services, Fang explained. There are few clinics and hospitals in rural areas, and there is no government-sponsored health coverage for the elderly (like the United States' Medicare program) anywhere in China. All of these factors put China's rural elderly in a vulnerable position, especially those with disabilities or serious illnesses.

"This research will show the disparities that exist, and it will encourage a dialogue about policies to help rural elderly people in China," Fang said.

Fang plans to conduct his survey in the first half of 2005, analyze the data in the summer and fall, and return to Stanford in November 2005 to present the results. In each of the three provinces studied, the research team will recruit 500 households and will conduct interviews with all individuals age 65 and over who reside there, for an estimated final sample of 2,500 people.

The respondents will be asked for a variety of information, including their income and education, insurance status, health status, daily activities, social activity, mental health, utilization of healthcare services, and accessibility and affordability of medical care. The researchers will also interview community healthcare workers-including physicians, nurses, and administrative staff-to seek information on the health needs of the elderly and the barriers they and their healthcare providers face.

The China-U.S. Health and Aging Research Fellowship, administered jointly by

CHP/PCOR and the China Health Economics Institute (Beijing), aims to improve

healthcare quality and efficiency in China through an exchange program in which

selected Chinese health services researchers come to Stanford to study for six months to a year, and then return to China to conduct an original research project. The fellowship is funded by the National Institutes of Health's Fogarty International Center.

"I have learned very much from Stanford and this program," Fang said. "The classes I attended have given me very useful ideas." He noted that since health services research is still a young field in China-about ten years old-"we learn a lot from the United States, like how to ask the research question, how to get a grant, how to design a study."

One aspect of Stanford that particularly impressed Fang was its emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration.

"This is a very good feature-the close relationship between different fields," he said. "In my country we are more focused on one narrow field."

Fang said he is interested in establishing research collaborations between Stanford and Tongji Medical College-an idea that he and CHP/PCOR's leadership will be exploring in the coming months.

There is much to admire about the U.S. healthcare system's emphasis on innovation and technology, Fang said. Still, he said, "I don't hope for China to follow the U.S. health system," with its heavy reliance on free-market principles. For one thing, "medicine here is very costly." He cited a personal example of how he fractured his arm in a minor bicycle accident, and how his emergency room visit for the injury, along with a follow-up physician appointment, cost more than $1,000. "I was surprised it cost so much," he said.

A review of the fellowship program conducted by officials at the China Health Economics Institute last fall concluded that it has been successful and valuable. Leaders at the institute said the trainees' Stanford experience has enhanced their intellectual abilities, their knowledge of research methodology, their leadership capacity, and their ability to collaborate internationally.

For over five years the war in Chechnya has occupied a central and neuralgic place in Vladimir Putin's political agenda. In unleashing a renewed military campaign in September 1999-abrogating the cease-fire agreement that had terminated the earlier 1994-1996 war launched by then president Boris Yeltsin-President Putin sought to win American and Western acquiescence in, if not support for, Russia's military campaign by framing the conflict as a war on international terrorism.

However, far from extinguishing the conflict, or confining it within the territory of Chechnya, these policies have contributed to the spread of violence and instability far beyond the borders of the Chechen republic. Instead of pursuing strategies that would address the larger socioeconomic crisis of the predominantly Muslim regions of the Northern Caucasus, marginalize extremists, and win broad support from the population of the region, the brutality of Russian military forces and their local allies in the war in Chechnya and the repressive actions of the security services in neighboring republics have fanned the flames of hostility to Moscow and created conditions for the spread of radical Islamist ideologies and the recruitment of new adherents across the Northern Caucasus.

President Putin has treated the problems facing Russia as a product of state "weakness" and has called for strengthening Russia's unity and state power in response. Ostensibly in order to better combat terrorism, he has introduced a series of measures aimed at strengthening Russia's political unity and executive power at the expense of political pluralism, freedom of information, and civil society development. But by weakening or undermining Russia's fragile and weakly developed system of institutional checks and balances on central power, and reducing the transparency and accountability of official behavior, these policies may well be exacerbating rather than mitigating the challenges facing Russia today.

What began as a secular conflict over the political status of Chechnya has progressively been transformed into a wider struggle involving more radical fighters from other Muslim republics with an avowedly Islamist agenda that now threatens to destabilize the broader region of the Northern Caucasus. The past few years have also seen a rising tide of terrorist actions directed against local authorities and security services in other republics of the Northern Caucasus as well as against the Russian government and population more broadly, including terrorist acts aimed at targets in the city of Moscow itself.

From the dramatic seizure of some 800 hostages in a Moscow theater in October

2002, in which 129 hostages died from the effects of a lethal gas used by Russian security services in a bungled rescue operation, to the September 2004 horrific siege of an elementary school in Beslan, Southern Ossetia, in which over 300 civilians died-over half of them children-these episodes have not only challenged the official assertions that the war could be confined to Chechnya alone but have dramatized the inability of the Russian government to adequately protect the security of its population.

The inept and chaotic handling of many of these terrorist attacks has brought into stark relief the poor performance of the security services, the incompetence of local officials, serious intelligence failures, and above all widespread official corruption. In the Beslan episode, to take just one example, the siege was carried out by some thirty-two terrorists, of several different nationalities, who were apparently able to bribe their way across a series of checkpoints to enter the republic and to utilize weapons and explosives stored on the site beforehand. The local authorities and the federal security services proved incapable of coordinating their actions to control the situation, and the Moscow-appointed president of the republic proved completely inept. Indeed, the most courageous and effective actor was Ruslan Aushev, the former president of Ingushetia, a figure removed from power by Moscow for resisting pressure for more coercive policies.

The Putin government has used these events to justify a series of measures which

are ostensibly intended to more effectively combat terrorism but which appear to

have little relation to the real terrorist threat. First, it has refused to seek a political solution to the conflict in Chechnya and has deliberately sought to undermine possible negotiations or international mediation and to delegitimize potential negotiating partners by demonizing a broad array of Chechen political figures within the country and abroad as "terrorists."

Conflating Chechen resistance with international terrorism, President Putin has explicitly refused to distinguish between more moderate figures and extremists and has exaggerated their ties to international terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda.

Domestically, the Russian government has used security concerns to justify ever greater restrictions on freedom of information, on civil rights, and on the role of nongovernmental organizations, particularly those engaged in the defense of human rights. The military and the organs of law enforcement have been given an ever freer hand, rarely if ever held accountable for their abusive behavior and atrocities against civilians.

Refugee camps in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia were closed and the international non-governmental organizations providing medical care and humanitarian assistance to refugees there were compelled to depart. The mass media have largely lost their independence and editors and journalists have been dismissed or attacked for expressing critical views.

A whole series of measures aimed at further centralization of political power and the strengthening of the executive branch have eroded the already fragile elements of federalism and separation of powers in the Russian political system. The autonomy and political influence of regions and republics has been sharply reduced. Parliament, now dominated by a single pro-presidential party, no longer acts as an independent check on executive power, and liberal political parties and their leaders have been marginalized. Most recently, the popular election of regional governors was abolished in favor of their appointment by Moscow, and a discussion is now under way of bringing even local government under tighter central control by eliminating the election of mayors as well.

Moreover, a high proportion of President Putin's appointees to key positions in

the regions are drawn from the military and security services, selected for their presumed loyalty to the president but often lacking political skills or understanding of local conditions. But the substitution of appointed for elected officials does not necessarily guarantee either loyalty or competence.

In the absence of a competitive party system in which political parties help create a web of ties between the central government and local populations, Putin's centralizing measures could well widen the chasm between state and society.

This growing emphasis on centralization, unity, repression, and secrecy is arguably exacerbating rather than mitigating the problems and making state power even more dysfunctional. In Chechnya and in the broader Caucasus region the brutality as well as the corruption of Russian military and security forces and their local allies-and their extensive reliance on torture, mass roundups, indiscriminate executions, disappearances of civilians, and simple extortion-has embittered many toward Moscow and made it increasingly difficult to win "hearts and minds" and build popular support. Indeed, the lack of transparency, and the difficulty of holding Russian officials accountable for abusive behavior, has led unprecedented numbers of Russian citizens frustrated by the unresponsiveness of their own government to seek redress at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Lacking a positive agenda for ameliorating socioeconomic conditions in the Northern Caucasus, the expanding operations of security forces across the Northern Caucasus, the closure of mosques, and the wave of often indiscriminate arrests have served to drive Islam underground and facilitated the spread of extremist ideologies. Without a coherent and sustained program of economic development that would create employment, housing, and education and offer alternative opportunities to an impoverished and alienated population, particularly young males, and absent a serious effort to eliminate corruption, these trends are likely to worsen.

Russia under Putin is facing a somber future.

Ten years ago, on January 25, 1995, Russian early-warning radars detected a scientific rocket launched from Norway. Details of what followed have never been officially disclosed, but the detection apparently generated an alarm that made its way to the Russian political leadership. The nuclear forces' command-and-control system worked exactly as it was supposed to, stopping the alert without launching an attack, but the accident vividly demonstrated the dangers inherent in the launchon-warning posture of nuclear forces.

The Soviet Union and the United States are the only nuclear states to have implemented launch-on-warning, a combination of early-warning systems to detect a missile attack and command-and-control systems that can launch a retaliatory strike while the aggressor's missiles are in flight. The United States and Russia have preserved this capability as an option for using their strategic nuclear weapons.

The dangers of this rapid-response nuclear posture are widely recognized, but the United States and Russia have nevertheless failed to address this issue. Reducing the level of readiness, known as de-alerting, has not come to the forefront of the U.S.-Russian agenda. One of the reasons for this is their reluctance to enter into new arms control agreements, which are thought to be necessary for a coordinated action in this area. Careful examination of the arguments for de-alerting, though, suggests that there are a number of steps that the United States and Russia could and should take unilaterally.

Discussion of launch-on-warning dangers usually concentrates on the decline of Russian early-warning and command-and-control systems. As a result, most de-alerting measures proposed on the U.S. side are seen primarily as a way to create incentives for Russia to reciprocate. But this perspective overestimates Russia's reliance on the launch-on-warning posture and underestimates the dangers associated with that of the United States.

History shows that the Soviet strategic forces could never rely on radars and satellites to get a timely and accurate assessment of an incoming attack. As a result, the Soviet military never displayed high enough confidence in its early-warning system to make a launch decision based solely on the information provided by the early-warning system.

The United States, on the other hand, built a highly capable and sophisticated earlywarning system. It provides global coverage and very high probability of detection of a missile launch, which allows the United States to have a very high degree of confidence in the system. Paradoxically, this confidence potentially makes a catastrophic technical malfunction more dangerous than in the Russian case, since operators might be less likely to question the data provided by the system.

Although it is difficult to quantify the two systems' vulnerability to a possible technical malfunction, the less sophisticated Russian system does not necessarily pose a substantially greater risk of a catastrophic accident than its U.S. counterpart. This means that efforts to reduce the readiness level of the U.S. forces would bring benefits regardless of reciprocity.

Concerns about the deterioration of the Russian early-warning system are well founded. With the breakup of the Soviet Union most radars were left outside of the Russian territory, and many are not operational. The system's space-based tier is hardly better off. Russia is currently operating only three early-warning satellites, while a complete constellation would require ten satellites. Russia would need at least five satellites to provide minimum coverage of the U.S. territory.

Although the Russian system's decline is indeed serious, it does not necessarily increase the dangers associated with launch-on-warning. A loss of early-warning capability would pose a dire risk only if it were sudden and unexpected or discovered at the time of an attack. But this is not the case in Russia, where deterioration of the early-warning network has been gradual and well understood.

Since the early-warning system is an essential element of a launch-on-warning posture, it is understandable that a number of proposals that aim at reducing the risks of accidental launch suggest helping Russia to repair or upgrade its system. Instead of reducing the risk, however, upgrades would most likely increase risk by introducing new elements into the already complex system and increasing confidence in its performance.

Instead of trying to help Russia repair its early-warning system, efforts should be directed at helping Russia change the command-and-control procedures to accommodate the loss of early-warning capability. These changes would almost certainly result in a shift away from the launch-on-warning posture, reducing the risk of an accidental launch.

Trust And Do Not Verify

One reason de-alerting measures have not yet been implemented is that most of them are thought to require intrusive verification procedures. Indeed, measures like removal of nuclear warheads from missiles or limiting strategic submarine patrol areas, proposed by many, would be very difficult to implement in a transparent and verifiable manner.

Transparency, however, is not required to achieve the main goal of de-alerting-reduction of the risk associated with the launch-on-warning postures. The benefits of de-alerting do not depend on the ability to verify them. For example, submarines that are out of range of their targets cannot take part in a launch-on-warning strike regardless of whether the other side is able to verify their locations. Of course, without verification the opponent would have to assume that these submarines are in full readiness, but there is nothing wrong with that as long as we do not consider de-alerting a substitute for disarmament.

In fact, transparency makes de-alerting not only harder to implement but potentially dangerous. If measures that reduce the readiness level are visible and verifiable, an attempt to bring missiles back into operation could create instability in a crisis situation, when countries could find themselves in a rush to re-alert their forces. The dangers associated with this kind of instability could well outweigh any benefits of de-alerting.

Ideally, de-alerting measures should be designed in a way that would make them undetectable. That way, each side could reap the benefits-missiles not being available for launch-on-warning-while avoiding the instabilities associated with re-alerting.

Unilateral Solutions

The greatest challenge to de-alerting is not devising technical proposals but finding ways to convince the United States and Russia to implement them. This would be very difficult, for the United States and Russia have grown wary recently of negotiated agreements that would impose limits on their strategic forces. However, de-alerting seems ideally suited for unilateral non-binding declarations that might work now.

Russia and the United States could begin with a public commitment to de-alert a portion of their strategic arsenals. Of course, there will be plenty of questions about the value of a commitment that is neither enforceable nor verifiable. But this value would be quite real if both sides follow through and change their practices and procedures to exclude at least part of their forces from the launch-on-warning arrangements. The risk of a catastrophic accident will be reduced and these practices could then be extended to the whole force, further reducing the risk.

Making practical steps toward reducing the danger of accidental launch will not be easy. But de-alerting is one of those few arms control issues that still enjoy fairly strong political and public support. This support certainly creates an opportunity for action.

A new united nations report recommending the most sweeping reform in the institution's history offers a global vision of collective security for the 21st century that is as committed to development in poor nations as it is to prevention of nuclear terrorism in rich ones.

The point is, according to the report's research director, Stephen Stedman, a threat to one is a threat to all in today's world. "Globalization means that a major terrorist attack anywhere in the industrial world would have devastating consequences for the well-being of millions around the developing world," the document states. The report's value lies in putting forward a comparative framework of collective security that addresses all the compelling threats of the day, Stedman explained. "The recommendations really are the most important possible makeover of the institution in 60 years," he said. "I think something is going to come out of it." Stedman, a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at the Stanford Institute for International Studies (SIIS), was recruited a year ago by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to direct research for the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change. Stedman is an expert on civil wars, mediation, conflict prevention, and peacekeeping.

Annan created the 16-member blue-ribbon panel, made up mostly of former government leaders and ministers, in the wake of widespread heated criticism of the United Nations following the U.S.-led war in Iraq. In Annan's annual report to the General Assembly in 2003, he said, "Rarely have such dire forecasts been made about the U.N. ... We have reached a fork in the road ... a moment no less decisive than 1945 itself, when the U.N. was founded." The panel was charged with analyzing global security threats and proposing far-reaching reforms to the international system.

On December 2 the panel, chaired by former Thai prime minister Anand Panyarachun, issued its 95-page report: "A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility." The document identifies six major threats to global security:

-War between states;

-Violence within states, including civil wars, large-scale human rights abuses, and genocide;

-Poverty, infectious disease, and environmental degradation;

-Nuclear, radiological, chemical, and biological weapons;

-Terrorism; and

-Transnational organized crime.

Although states do not face these threats equally, a collective security system must take all member states' threats seriously and deal with them equitably, the report noted. It specifically mentioned the world's appallingly slow response to AIDS.

The report makes 101 recommendations for collective prevention and response to the threats, including ways to reform the United Nations. Annan described these in a December 3 editorial in the International Herald Tribune as "the most comprehensive and coherent set of proposals for forging a common response to common threats that I have seen."

The document also reaffirms the right of states to defend themselves-even preemptively-when an attack is imminent, and it offers guidelines to help the Security Council decide when to authorize the use of force. Stedman said other significant proposals involve improving biosecurity, strengthening nuclear nonproliferation, and defining terrorism. Panel members agreed that any politically motivated violence against civilians should be regarded as terrorism and condemned.

The panel was very critical of the Human Rights Commission, a body that has often harmed the United Nations' reputation by permitting the membership of some of the worst human-rights violators, including Cuba, Libya, and Sudan. The report also discussed the need for new institutions, such as a peace-building commission, that would support countries emerging from conflict.

Scott Sagan, co-director of CISAC, described the report as hard-hitting, although he said he would have tried to extend the withdrawal clause of the nonproliferation treaty from three months to a year. "I think it's the beginning of some major changes that will be helpful," he said. "We need to get states to work together to reform the U.N. rather than sniping at it."

CISAC was closely involved in the panel's work and was named in a cover letter accompanying the report from Panyarachun to Annan. Co-director Chris Chyba served on the panel's 30-member resource group, providing expertise on nuclear nonproliferation and bioterrorism. Bruce Jones, a former CISAC Hamburg Fellow, acted as Stedman's deputy, and Tarun Chhabra, a graduate of CISAC's undergraduate honors program and recent Marshall Scholarship recipient, worked as a research officer. Political science Professors David Laitin and James Fearon, and SIIS Senior Fellow David Victor, provided, respectively, expertise on terrorism, civil wars, and the environment, Stedman said. "There is an immense amount of Stanford influence in the report," he added.

CISAC also hosted a nuclear nonproliferation workshop for the panel on campus last March and helped organize a meeting during the summer in Bangkok. SIIS co-hosted a conference on governance and sovereignty on campus in April and a meeting at Oxford University in June. CISAC provided workspace to give the research team a quiet place to focus on writing the report's first draft in August.

The report has attracted intense international media interest in part because it calls for expanding the U.N. Security Council, its top decision-making group, from 15 to 24 members. The panel was unable to agree on one proposal and offers two options that would make the council more representative and democratic. "I believe either formula would strengthen the legitimacy in the eyes of the world, by bringing its membership closer to the realities of the 21st century-as opposed to those of 1945, when the U.N. Charter was drafted," Annan wrote in the International Herald Tribune.

According to Stedman, the media has highlighted the Security Council's proposed expansion because so many nations have a stake in it. "But in the absence of a new consensus on international peace and security, expansion of the council will not be effective," he explained.

In March, Annan will use the report to inform a series of proposals he will present to the 191 U.N. member states. These, in turn, will be submitted to a summit of world leaders before the General Assembly convenes next September in New York. Stedman said he has been asked to stay on for another year as a special advisor to the secretary general to keep the United Nations "on message" during negotiations.

Engagement by the United States, which has openly questioned the institution's relevance, will be critical to implementing the report's recommendations, said Stedman, who added that the superpower can benefit from a revamped United Nations. "Putting threats to the United States into a global framework makes it more secure," he said.

Stedman noted that one of the most disturbing aspects of the panel's consultations was listening to government representatives from civil-society organizations dismiss the seriousness of bio- and nuclear terror threats against the United States. "They were essentially denying this as a real threat to American security," he said. "I said it's as real a threat to the U.S. as other threats are to you."

When Stedman accepted the job, he thought he would spend 80 percent of his time on research and writing and 20 percent on consultations and negotiating. In fact, he said, it was the other way around. "It's unlike anything I've ever done," he said. "It's been a blast." In contrast to academia, where a researcher presents his or her best findings and defends them, Stedman was faced with 16 people who would push back, reject, or accept his work. "I had to work to change language to include their concerns," he said. "My biggest concern at the beginning was that the report would be based on the lowest common denominator. It's not."

Stedman said the panel members remained open-minded throughout the year. "They showed flexibility, listened to arguments, and changed their minds," he said. "Our job was to be as persuasive, rigorous, and comprehensive in our analysis as we were able to achieve."

In the end, Stedman said, the report belongs to the panel. "Parts of what the exercise shows is that access to those making policy is really important," he said. "If you do really good work and you have access, you have a chance of being heard. Kofi Annan gave me that opportunity."