Carnegie
Corporation
of New York
Spring 2005
Cooperative Security
As the Soviet Union imploded in the early 1990s,
Carnegie Corporation’s commitment to Eurasia did not falter. Rather,
support was reoriented under the Cooperative Security (CS) program in
1991 to seize upon unprecedented opportunities for deepening crisis
prevention activities and redressing new global dangers posed by the
uncontrolled spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), nationalism,
and ethnic enmities that were unleashed by the Soviet Union’s
disintegration. Hamburg likened the CS program to “preventive
public health,” and spurred on by the analytical and operational
detail generated by a steering committee composed of John Steinbruner,
Ashton Carter and William Perry, carved out an agenda for encouraging
collective action to arrest these new international security challenges.
A priority was once again accorded to Eurasia based on convictions that
Russia remained a crucial but vulnerable partner in promoting a stable
and lasting peace, and that the primary threats to new security regimes
derived directly from the stress on political, social and defense industrial
infrastructures enfeebled by the post-Soviet transition. Accordingly,
the Corporation augmented the previous strategy for improving mutual
understanding with emphasis on stemming “loose nukes” and
other military dangers precipitated by the Soviet collapse, strengthening
democratic and market institutions and fostering creative approaches
to conflict resolution within the region.
The Corporation gave new priority to projects that facilitated understanding
of post-Soviet domestic politics and interaction among the newly independent
states (NIS). Institutional grants to Columbia University and the University
of California broadened support for training and research to dissect
the links between Soviet domestic politics and foreign policy behavior.
The CS program also sponsored efforts to build indigenous capacity for
resolving ethnic and nationalist conflicts. This featured development
of a community of U.S. and Russian scholars and experts organized by
the Conflict Management Group and the International Research and Exchanges
Board, who were committed to devising early warning systems, conducting
training programs, and advising officials in the region engaged in managing
ethnic relations.
Another funding priority was placed on Western technical assistance
projects. Prominent grants to Harvard University produced a blueprint
for U.S. government action in support of the dismantlement of nuclear
weapons, safe storage of fissile material and environmental remediation
of the downsized Soviet nuclear complex. This was buttressed by grants
to the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Princeton University
and Stanford University for work with Russian partners, respectively,
on training a new cadre of nonproliferation specialists and developing
a nuclear safeguards culture, reprofiling nuclear weapons scientists
and converting Russian defense companies. At the same time, the CS program
funded initiatives by prominent scholars and experts at Harvard University
to open direct dialogues and workshops on military reform and democratic
reorganization with senior U.S. and Russian officers. Another set of
grants channeled through Harvard generated practical Western advice
for crafting the complex macro-level political, legal and financial
institutions necessary to jump-start progress towards democratic and
market reforms in Russia and the NIS. These projects enlisted diverse
and highly influential partners that included legislators at different
political levels, emerging business leaders, and journalists from across
the former Soviet Union. In an effort to arrest the plight of former
Soviet scientists, the CS program also sponsored exchanges both with
each other and international counterparts via computer networks and
teleconferencing. This included discretionary support for various U.S.-Russian
scientific conferences that drew public, commercial and scholarly attention
to the state of Russian basic science, science policy and the domestic
and foreign dimensions of the country’s “brain drain.”