Book description from the publisher:

If the build-up of nuclear weapons was a significant factor in maintaining the "long peace" between the United States and the Soviet Union, will the spread of nuclear weapons beyond these two superpowers stabilize or disrupt international relations. In this book, two scholars of international politics debate the issue. Kenneth Waltz argues that fear of the spread of nuclear weapons is unfounded - "more may be better". Nuclear proliferation may be a stabilizing force, as it decreases the likelihood of war by increasing its costs. Scott Sagan, however, argues that nuclear proliferation will make the world less stable - "more will be worse". Nuclear-armed states may not possess the internal structures that would ensure safe and rational control of nuclear weapons. Written for a general audience, this book is intended to help the public understand more clearly the role of nuclear weapons in the new world order.

The end of the Cold War has fundamentally altered the international system, as well as the major threats to global peace and security. The ideologically driven competition between the superpowers which was the defining feature of the Cold War, with its attendant dangers of nuclear confrontation, has been replaced with a whole array of new challenges. Among the most critical is the challenge of dealing with the consequences of the collapse of the USSR.

The emergence of fifteen independent states with uncertain identities, contested boundaries, weak institutions, and enormous political and economic problems carries with it considerable potential for future instability. Although the level of both inter-state and interethnic conflict in this vast region has thus far remained relatively low, and its scope contained, the tragic conflicts in Tajikistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Chechnya, among others, are a reminder, if any is needed, that the dangers of serious escalation are very real. Moreover, the political, economic, and security environment of the entire region is critically dependent on the future evolution of Russia itself.

The rapid and unexpected demise of the Soviet system gave rise to overly optimistic expectations of Russia's rapid transition to a democratic polity, market economy, and constructive partnership with its new neighbors and with the West. It is now abundantly clear that the formulation of effective policies for dealing with this region requires a serious reassessment of these initial premises as well as the elaboration of new institutional arrangements, norms, incentives, and constraints capable of contributing to conflict prevention as well as to the more effective management of those conflicts which have already erupted in the region.

This essay by Ambassdor Maresca, presented at the Center for International Security and Arms Control in January 1995, and the varied responses it invited, are intended to stimulate further discussion of these central issues by the larger academic and policy community.

The economic, political, and social changes underway in the former Soviet Union are of unprecedented scale and importance. Figures published in March 1993 cite that 839 defense enterprises, employing a total of four million workers, were undergoing conversion; 600 conversion programs were in effect to guide the process, and conversion of 400 of those enterprises was expected to be complete by the end of the year. In this process, 410,000 people, 210,000 of them engineers and technicians, have left the employ of the military industrial complex. These changes will affect all spheres of post-Soviet society, including the economy, social integrity, science, and culture, for decades to come. The complete restructuring of Russia's economic and social life will mandate in turn significant changes in the scientific establishment and its place in post-Soviet society.

Five years after the dramatic fall of communism in Eastern Europe, there is an opportunity to evaluate the efficacy of different forms of liberalization.

The most obvious and controversial difference between reform strategies is in the pace of transition. Previous theories of development have focused on the slow growth of Third World countries into modern economies. Some experts have ascribed current failures in Eastern Europe to the instantaneous liberalization of economies and the forceful application of tight monetary policies.

But this theory is contradicted by the fact that the most successful Eastern European countries, Poland and the Czech Republic, are those that initiated the most dramatic and rapid reforms. The authors of Economic Transition show how educate, relatively modern societies can make major changes in political and economic institutions almost overnight.

Economic Transition in Eastern Europe and Russia is a work of substantial academic merit that is also accessible to the interested layperson. Thirteen essays by acknowledged economic experts explore the rapid changes in the transition economies of Eastern Europe, with discussions on political and economic freedom, monetary control and privatization, labor markets and social safety nets, and taxation and crime.

This report is an expanded version of the executive summary of a much larger report, "Defense Industry Restructuring in Russia: Case Studies and Analysis." Many people contributed to that report, and to the underlying research. In writing that report, we did not attempt to reach consensus among the authors on the interpretations to be drawn from the data.

In this study we have looked at some of the most important elements of restructuring involved in the attempt to generate a viable civilian industrial sector from the assets of the military-industrial complex. Many other reform activities must be implemented at the national level to create the environment and infrastructure necessary for the functioning of a restructured industrial sector. Although not addressed here, they are important and difficult to implement. Another issue that we have not addressed is the pandemic presence of organized crime, which is a huge financial "tax" on economic activity as well as a disincentive to entrepreneurship and investment. I join those who believe that this is the largest single problem threatening the economic stability of Russia today.

In comparison with the postwar decades from 1945 to 1990, East Asian prospects for peaceful stability and economic growth have never been better. The Cold War confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States has ended. The arms race that flooded the Pacific region with Soviet and U.S. nuclear weapons systems has been replaced by a gradual phasing out of tactical and intermediate missiles. The navies of the two superpowers are diminishing, albeit involuntary on Russia’s part. Moscow’s alliances with Pyongyang and Hanoi now exist only on paper. Washington’s bases in the Philippines were closed by mutual agreement.

The neoliberal economic and political models used by Western analysts to explain Russia's recent transformation ignore the interrelationship between the economy and politics. Russia is in the midst of a social revolution. Economic reform without political reform-as attempted by Yegor Gaidar-will fail. Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin's policies have met with some success because of accompanying political changes. This interrelated pattern of reform must continue.

In January 1992 Russia's first postcommunist government launched a comprehensive economic program to transform the Soviet command system into a market economy. Privatization was and remains the heart of this plan. The original program had a clearly defined objective, namely, to create profit-seeking corporations, privately owned by outside shareholders and not dependent on government subsidies for their survival. As of two years later, however, this objective had not been achieved. By the summer of 1993 insiders had acquired majority shares in two-thirds of Russia's privatized and privatizing firms, state subsidies accounted for 22% of Russia's GNP, little if any restructuring (bankruptcies, downsizing, unbundling) had taken place within enterprises, and few market institutions had been created. During the first two years of its existence, the Russian state simply did not manage to dismantle old Soviet institutional arrangements governing property rights of large enterprises. Specifically, the state failed to implement its original vision of privatization, enforce hard budget constraints for large enterprises, or stimulate the creation of market-supporting institutions such as a legal code regarding private property and corporate governance or a social safety net. In sum, the allocation of property rights according to market principles had not yet even begun to occur.

This report comprises a description, summary, and analysis of an entrepreneurial training workshop for Russian nuclear scientists held at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), May 9-20, 1994. This is the third in a series of such workshops. The first workshop was held in Boston, July, 1992. The second was held in Moscow, June, 1993. The workshop was cosponsored by the U.s. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy (Minatom).

The goals of the workshop were to provide the Russian scientists with academic and practical background in several basic business areas, and then to assist them, in conjunction with American industry representatives, in the preparation of business plans for possible cooperative projects.