Published in conjunction with the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC), Georgia Institute of Technology.

From the Introduction:
"The election of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1997 signaled renewed interest in IT and the Internet. The BJP advocated economic liberalization and listed IT as one of the government's top five priorities, along with more traditional issues such as the provision of potable drinking water and education [10]. "Indian IT has had many small voices, but the BJP is attempting to give IT a national voice" [10]. In May 1998, Prime Minister Vajpayee organized a national IT task force to make recommendations for a comprehensive policy overhaul. The task force's recommendations were instrumental in initiating wide-ranging and fundamental changes in Indian IT policy.

The speed with which the Indian National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development moved was indicative of the changing government attitude. Within 90 days of its establishment, the Task Force produced an extensive background report on the state of technology in India and an IT Action Plan with 108 recommendations [10,11]. The Task Force could act quickly because it built upon the experience and frustrations of state governments, central government agencies, universities, and the software industry. Much of what it proposed was also consistent with the thinking and recommendations of international bodies like the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and World Bank. In addition, the Task Force incorporated the experiences of Singapore and other nations, which implemented similar programs. It was less a task of invention than of sparking action on a consensus that had already evolved within the networking community and government.

Prime Minister Vajpayee captured the changing attitude toward technology in India in his claim that "IT is India's Tomorrow" [13]. This assessment offers a vision of a 21st century India substantially different from that of the 20th century. With its high levels of poverty, bloated and corrupt bureaucracies, protectionist policies, and large size, 20th century India was like the Asian elephant, plodding and turning slowly. At the dawn of a new millennium, Vajpayee and a growing number of politicians, bureaucrats, industry leaders, foreign investors, and bright-eyed entrepreneurs are trying to teach this Asian elephant to dance [14]."

...

Just about a year ago, this newly created Subcommittee opened its formal hearings with a look at the U.S.-European relationship. I said at the time I felt that the transatlantic relationship was the most important relationship this nation had. Today, in the aftermath of 911, I feel this relationship is even more important and in many respects stronger than ever.

It is fitting today that we open our hearings with what I consider the second most important relationship we have, that with Russia. U.S.-Russian relationships have significantly changed since the terrorist attacks on September 11.

Russian President Putin, in what some have defined as a bold defiance of many in his own population, his bureaucracy and his military, has seized upon the tragedies of the World Trade Center and Pentagon as an opportunity to transform relations with the U.S. from distant and sometimes hostile to one of broad cooperation and new opportunities in many fields.

By identifying terrorism as the common enemy and associating Russia with the common cause of the United States and others to deal with global terrorism, President Putin seems to be attempting to forge a new alliance with the West and with the United States.

...

The transition from communism in Europe and the former Soviet Union has only sometimes produced a transition to democracy. Since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, most of the twenty-eight new states have abandoned communism, but only nine of these have entered the ranks of liberal democracies. The remaining majority of new postcommunist states are various shades of dictatorships or unconsolidated "transitional regimes." This article seeks to explain why some states abandoned communism for democracy while others turned to authoritarian rule. In endorsing actorcentric approaches that have dominated analyses of the third wave of democratization, this argument nonetheless offers an alternative set of causal paths from ancien régime to new regime that can account for both democracy and dictatorship as outcomes. Situations of unequal distributions of power produced the quickest and most stable transitions from communist rule. In countries with asymmetrical balances of power, the regime to emerge depends almost entirely on the ideological orientation of the most powerful. In countries where democrats enjoyed a decisive power advantage, democracy emerged. Conversely, in countries in which dictators maintained a decisive power advantage, dictatorship emerged. In between these two extremes were countries in which the distribution of power between the old regime and its challengers was relatively equal. Rather than producing stalemate, compromise, and pacted transitions to democracy, however, such situations in the postcommunist world resulted in protracted confrontation between relatively balanced powers. The regimes that emerged from these modes of transitions are not the most successful democracies but rather are unconsolidated, unstable, partial democracies.

The United States is in the midst of its third major debate on nationwide ballistic missile defense-the first culminating in the 1972 ABM Treaty and the second sparked by President Reagan's "Star Wars" speech in 1983. This time the Cold War is over, the objectives for the defense are limited, and technology has advanced to the point where some options may be technically feasible.

However, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are not the primary threat to the United States, as events since September 11 demonstrate. Other homeland defense programs, especially civil defenses against bioterrorism, are more important. Yet emerging missile states may acquire ICBMs some day. To the extent that this is a concern, diplomatic efforts can limit the spread of ballistic missiles, and deterrence can dissuade their use. National missile defense (NMD), then, is insurance against the relatively unlikely event that ICBMs will be launched against the United States.

If the United States decides to deploy a limited NMD, the questions become what type and how much? A midcourse NMD system (one that attempts to intercept missile warheads as they fall through outer space) of the sort proposed for deployment in Alaska is the most technically mature option and would probably work well enough against emerging ICBM threats to justify limited deployment, assuming that the threat materializes. However, such a defense should contain only about 20 interceptors to minimize adverse political reactions from Russia and China. Over the long run, midcourse defenses may be vulnerable to sophisticated countermeasures. Therefore, the United States should place greater emphasis on land, naval, and air-based boostphase intercept options (defenses that attempt to intercept the ballistic missile while its rocket motors are still burning) because they are more robust to countermeasures and they pose relatively little threat to Russia and China. Space-based boost-phase NMD systems have the advantage of global coverage; however, they are technically more challenging, probably more expensive, and more destabilizing.

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, questions have arisen as to which course the United States should sail in the new international order. In this volume, some of the nation's foremost foreign policy experts present carefully crafted and bold perspectives of what America's global role should be. All contributors, leading authorities in the fields of economics, history, international relations, and political science, offer alternative viewpoints. These sharply drawn approaches permit the general reader and scholar alike to glean an understanding of the main schools of thought about American foreign policy today.

They are written in accessible prose without esoteric language or scholarly jargon. The past decade witnessed a transition from an era of bipolar confrontation with the Soviet Union to a new and still-emerging epoch. Although American economic, military, and diplomatic influence stood unrivaled in the past decade, the future looks much less predictable. The unique insights represented in this volume will help inform the reader about possible courses America can navigate in uncharted seas. Rogue states, humanitarian interventions, terrorism, major and middle powers, international organizations, global trade agreements, and other political and economic developments are analyzed in the context of the policies recommended in this volume. The perspective spans the spectrum from global activism to antiglobalization.