For the past several decades, the conventional - and, until recently, the predominant - perspective on development in the international donor community has been that countries are poor because they lack resources, infrastructure, education, and opportunity. By this logic, if rich countries could only transfer enough resources and technology, improve human capacity enough, and support health and education enough, development would occur. To be sure, greater public resources, better physical infrastructure, and stronger public health and education are essential for development. But they are not enough, and they are not most crucial factor.

After the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991, illicit trafficking of nuclear and other radioactive material emerged as a serious international concern. The economic and social conditions that followed the collapse left nuclear and radioactive material often poorly guarded and vulnerable to theft. In the early 1990s, Europe observed a sharp increase in nuclear smuggling incidents, as stolen nuclear and other radioactive material was brought from the former Soviet republics to Western Europe in the hope of finding a market. Since 1994, however, reported illicit trafficking incidents in Europe have declined. By contrast, since 1999 there has been an increase in such incidents in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Turkey. Analysts have long speculated that nuclear smugglers would exploit this region--known as the southern tier--as a transit corridor.

This report looks at the illicit trafficking situation in the southern tier and Turkey in an attempt to establish whether these regions have become new routes for smuggling nuclear and other radioactive material. It discusses reported incidents of illicit trafficking in these countries, assesses their responses to the threat of trafficking, and evaluates foreign assistance provided to the region to combat this smuggling. The report concludes with recommendations for improving international anti-nuclear smuggling efforts.

President George W. Bush has demonstrated impressive flexibility in reshaping his approach to foreign policy to deal with the new international challenges brought to the fore by the terrorist attacks.

Before Sept. 11, President Bush embraced a humble mission for the United States in the world. This country, he believed, had to "preserve the peace" by seeking to maintain the basic balance of power between nations. Now, Bush has abandoned the preservation of the old system. Instead, he seeks to change it by promoting liberty, freedom and eventual democracy in countries ruled by autocrats.

In doing so, Bush lines up next to "idealists" or "liberals" such as Ronald Reagan, Woodrow Wilson and Immanuel Kant, and implicitly distances himself from realists focused solely on the balance of power such as Richard Nixon, Thucydides and his own father, the 41st president.

In a second remarkable change, Bush has become a supporter, at least rhetorically, of nation building. Before Sept. 11, the Bush administration derided nation building as a Clinton-era distraction from the more important issues in international politics. Now, Bush has clearly identified the connection between rebuilding the failed state of Afghanistan and American national security interests. If Congress approves his proposals, Bush will be the author of the greatest increase in the American foreign aid budget since John F. Kennedy's presidency.

Third, the Bush administration before Sept. 11 expressed disdain for multilateral institutions. But in his speech this month before the United Nations, Bush outlined an ambitious proposal for revitalizing the United Nations and American cooperation with this most important multilateral institution.

To be credible, President Bush needs to do more to demonstrate his commitment to the promotion of democracy, nation building and multilateralism. Bush must show that he wants to see political reform in Saudi Arabia as well as in Iraq. Words about promoting liberty ring hollow if they apply only to some people.

To show seriousness on nation building, Bush should press for increases in the peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan. Those working to rebuild Afghanistan unanimously complain that the lack of security throughout the country is the No. 1 impediment to their work.

To make credible his pledge to reinvigorate the United Nations and other multilateral institutions, the president should complement his pledge to enforce U.N. resolutions on Iraq with a rededication of American participation in other international regimes. Bush could start with the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, an agreement that American officials helped craft.

Because many are suspicious of the president's recent embrace of democracy promotion, nation building and multilateralism, he must demonstrate a sustained commitment to his new foreign policy strategy.

If Bush has shown a willingness to consider new ideas about foreign policy, his critics -- both at home and abroad -- have demonstrated amazing conservatism. In a reversal of positions, those most opposed to Bush's new approach to foreign policy now seek to "preserve the peace" by defending the status quo. The core flaw in this is the assumption that the old international system was working. It was not.

Before Sept. 11, the United Nations had failed to enforce its own resolutions on Iraq. If the "international community" cannot act to execute its will when dealing with such grave issues as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, then it has no credibility on anything.

The international community is ineffective in dealing with despotism, poverty and human rights violations because it seeks to preserve state sovereignty above all else. Fifty years ago, this was a progressive idea, which brought about the end of colonialism. Today, it is a regressive idea, which preserves the sovereignty of dictators who defy international law, denying the sovereignty of their people.

It is odd to hear the international community invoked so often as the defender of high ideals and then see representatives from Iraq in the U.N. General Assembly. Should the United States really be a member of the same organization that includes Saddam Hussein? Eventually, autocracy should go the way of slavery and colonialism as simply unacceptable.

To be effective, the international community and the United States need each other. U.N. Security Council resolutions can only be enforced if the United States helps to enforce them. The United Nations can only assist in the building of new states or prevent the destruction of vulnerable regimes if the United States participates, and vice-versa. The international community has no army and no economy, but even the mighty and rich United States can't afford to remake the world alone. For an effective partnership, change has to come from both sides.

Michael McFaul is an associate professor of political science and Hoover Fellow at Stanford University and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The size of the defense industry in Russia has been a primary concern for policymakers and scholars interested in international security and arms control, as well as for students of Russian politics and economy more generally. For an issue attracting so much apparent
interest, however, there appears to be remarkably little quantitative information available on the scope of the military production sector and, particularly, on the extent to which it has changed in recent years. Analysts of the military-industrial complex (MIC)1 have either
combined the scraps of information derivable from official reports to try to form an overall picture (e.g., Cooper (1991a and 1991b), Despres (1995), Gaddy (1994), Sapir (1994), Sanchez-Andres (1995) and most of the published literature in Russian language), or they have been limited to detailed case studies of just a few firms, eschewing any attempt to measure the sector as a whole (e.g., Bernstein (1994)). Both approaches have contributed substantially to our qualitative understanding of the organizational structure of the military industry and of recent changes in the operation of some of its enterprises. But neither provides quantitative answers to the following questions: How large is Russian defense industry? What is the magnitude of decline in military production since reforms began?
What are the sources of the change? To what extent are resources being released for civilian purposes? Yet the answers have important implications for international security and for the design of foreign aid and domestic policies to assist the conversion and industrial
restructuring processes.

As Japan's newfound economic power leads to increased political power, there is concern that Japan may be turning East Asia into a regional economic bloc to rival the U.S. and Europe. In Regionalism and Rivalry, leading economists and political scientists address this concern by looking at three central questions: Is Japan forming a trading bloc in Pacific Asia? Does Japan use foreign direct investment in Southeast Asia to achieve national goals? Does Japan possess the leadership qualities necessary for a nation assuming greater political responsibility in international affairs?

The authors contend that although intraregional trade in East Asia is growing rapidly, a trade bloc is not necessarily forming. They show that the trade increase can be explained entirely by factors independent of discriminatory trading arrangements, such as the rapid growth of East Asian economies. Other chapters look in detail at cases of Japanese direct investment in Southeast Asia and find little evidence of attempts by Japan to use the power of its multinational corporations for political purposes. A third group of papers attempt to gauge Japan's leadership characteristics. They focus on Japan's "technology ideology," its contributions to international public goods, international monetary cooperation, and economic liberalization in East Asia.