Carnegie
Corporation
of New York
Spring 2005
Preventing Deadly Conßict
Between 1994-1997, Carnegie Corporation’s
grantmaking strategy in Eurasia shifted in concert with the acceleration
of transformation. The Corporation moved to broaden the “prevention
agenda” to meet an array of challenges of mass inter-group violence
spawned by collapsing state structures, social unraveling, economic instability
and the loss of national identity left in the wake of the Soviet disintegration.
While continuing to place priorities on promoting nonproliferation and
U.S.-Russian cooperation, the new Preventing Deadly Conflict (PDC) program
modified emphasis from strengthening generic democratizing efforts to
more focused study of intra- and inter-state crisis prevention and resolution,
and the spillover effects for consolidating democratic reforms and arresting
military dangers concomitant to the Soviet collapse. As recollected by
PDC program chair David Speedie, the prevention theme “was embraced
with a vengeance,” with the Corporation committed to a proactive
posture for developing novel methods of non-violent problem solving for
the region. Drawing on substantial intellectual capital generated by the
Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict for analytical guidance,
PDC grants in this area were targeted at identifying the sources of inter-group
violence, as well as the role, modalities and range of international assistance
for dealing with diverse ethnic, civil and national “hot spots”
across Eurasia.
Consistent with the broadened strategic
horizon, the Corporation funded practical activities designed to build
international and inter-regional elite networks and dialogues. The Center
for Post-Soviet Studies used Corporation support to mobilize Central Asian
and Russian policymakers and security experts to discuss mutual interests
and approaches to regional conflict prevention, as well as to undertake
comparative analysis of ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Renewed grants to the Conflict Management Group created electronic links
between regional ethnographers, international institutions and foreign
counterparts, as well as funded the “Hague Initiative,” which
provided a forum for political and ethnic leaders from Russia,
Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia to discuss alternative approaches to federalism
and intrastate conflict management. Similarly, repeat grants to Stanford
University promoted scholarly inquiry of ethnic conflicts in the Transcaucasus
and Central Asia, fostered an off-the-record meeting of the three presidents
of the South Caucasus, as well as established multilateral working groups
comprised of experts and representatives of affected governments and ethnic
communities to address actual and potential flashpoints in the former
Soviet south.
The Corporation continued to support policy-relevant activities related
to nonproliferation and strengthening strategic ties between the U.S.
and Russia. This included grants to the University of Georgia for assisting
the Soviet successor states to draft and implement arms export control
laws compatible with international norms and agreements. At Stanford University,
a multidisciplinary team of scholars was funded to analyze the motives
behind the mutual benign neglect that characterized U.S.-Russian relations
and to assess critically the contours of respective nuclear postures in
a post-deterrence era. The Corporation also broadened the range of high-level
Track II diplomacy to augment the ongoing Congress-Duma exchanges orchestrated
by the Aspen Institute. This included sponsoring dialogues and working
groups on selected security and foreign policy issues involving bipartisan
groupings of leading American and Russian policymakers, insiders, military
officers and “strategic thinkers” that were organized by the
Aspen Institute in collaboration with Russian partners, including the
Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.
Additionally, the Corporation directed new support for projects designed
to strengthen democratic institutions through professional training programs
for executive decision makers, legislators, military professionals and
policy analysts from the region. One form involved bringing these individuals
to the U.S. for workshops, as reflected in grants to RAND for the training
of policy experts and multiple grants to Harvard University for training
seminars on democratic processes for Duma members and staffers and high-ranking
Russian military officers. This was complemented by working with other
foundations to support formation of the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace’s Moscow branch, the Carnegie Moscow Center, as the main locus
for indigenous capacity building with an explicit training element. In
addition to generating wide-ranging research on contemporary Russian political
and social issues, the Center emerged as the first neutral forum for Russian
domestic and foreign policy discussion and collaboration between leading
academic and policymakers of the two countries.