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The paradox of state strength: transnational relations, domestic structures, and security policy in Russia and the Soviet Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Matthew Evangelista
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A transnational community of disarmament proponents achieved considerable success in influencing Soviet security policy in the 1980s on several issues, including two examined here: nuclear testing and strategic defenses. Fundamental changes in the Soviet domestic structure after 1989, however, had the paradoxical effect of making transnational actors simultaneously less constrained in promoting their favored policies and less effective in getting them implemented. Transnational relations and domestic structures in combination affect security policy. This interaction likewise has implications for theories of ideas, learning, and epistemic communities.

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Articles
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International Organization , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , Winter 1995 , pp. 1 - 38
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Copyright © The IO Foundation 1995

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References

This research was supported by grants from the National Council for Soviet and East European Research and the United States Institute of Peace and completed under the auspices of Harvard University's Center for Science and International Affairs. I am grateful to all three institutions. My greatest intellectual debt is to Thomas Risse-Kappen for organizing the project on transnational relations for which this article was originally prepared and for collaboration over several years in working out the theoretical basis for understanding the impact of transnational relations on security policy. Peter Katzenstein, Robert Keohane, Stephen Krasner, James Goldgeier, and the other participants in the workshops provided valuable comments, as did Michael Desch, Peter Hall, Christopher Paine, and Joanna Spear. Correspondence with Emanuel Adler and Jeff Checkel was particularly helpful, as were some thoughtful comments of the reviewers and the editor.

1. Risse-Kappen, Thomas, “Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-state Actors, Domestic Structures, and International Institutions,” introduction to Risse-Kappen, Thomas, ed., Bringing Transnational Relations Back In (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Some of the activity I discuss would fall within the category of “cross-level” interactions as proposed by Knopf, Jeffrey W., “Beyond Two-Level Games: Domestic–International Interaction in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Negotiations,” International Organization 47 (Autumn 1993), pp. 599–628.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Influence was not limited to areas with a substantial technical component for which scientists would appear to have an advantage, but include, for example, debates on reducing and restructuring conventional forces as well as broader conceptions such as “common security.” I discuss these issues in my book-in-progress, “Taming the Bear: Transnational Relations and the Demise of the Soviet Threat,” University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1994. I thank Valerie Bunce for bringing this point to my attention.

3. See Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S. Jr, eds., Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S. Jr, “Transgovernmental Relations and International Organizations,” World Politics 27 (10 1974), pp. 39–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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5. Jack Snyder, “East–West Bargaining over Germany: The Search for Synergy in a Two-Level Game,” in Evans, Jacobson, and Putnam, Double-edged Diplomacy.

6. Snyder, “East–West Bargaining,” pp. 115–16.

7. See Meyer, David S., “How We Helped End the Cold War (and Let Someone Else Take All the Credit),” Nuclear Times (Winter 1990–1991), pp. 9–14Google Scholar; Cortright, David, Peace Works.: The Citizen's Role in Ending the Cold War (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1993)Google Scholar; Risse-Kappen, Thomas, “Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War,” International Organization 48 (Spring 1994), pp. 185–214CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Risse-Kappen, “Bringing Transnational Relations Back In”; and Knopf, “Beyond Two-Level Games.”

8. For representative statements, see Moravcsik, Andrew, “Introduction: Integrating International and Domestic Theories of International Bargaining,” in Evans, Jacobson, and Putnam, Double-edged Diplomacy, pp. 3–42Google Scholar; Putnam, Robert D., “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” reprinted in the appendix to Double-edged Diplomacy, pp. 431–468Google Scholar; Haas, Peter M., “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” International Organization 46 (Winter 1992), pp. 1–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Goldstein, Judith and Keohane, Robert O., “Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical Framework,” in Goldstein, Judith and Keohane, Robert O., eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 3–30.Google Scholar

9. For application to the Soviet case, see Snyder, Jack, “International Leverage on Soviet Domestic Change,” World Politics 42 (10 1989), pp. 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anderson, Richard D. Jr, Public Politics in an Authoritarian State: Making Foreign Policy During the Brezhnev Years (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Richter, James, Khrushchev's Double Bind: Domestic and International Constraints on Soviet Foreign Policy, 1953–1964 (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; and Evangelista, Matthew, “Internal and External Constraints on Grand Strategy: The Soviet Case,” in Rosecrance, Richard and Stein, Arthur, eds., The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 154–78.Google Scholar

10. On policy entrepreneurs in domestic politics, see especially Kingdon, John W., Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984)Google Scholar; Walker, Jack L., “The Diffusion of Knowledge, Policy Communities, and Agenda Setting: The Relationship of Knowledge and Power,” in Tropman, John E., Dluhy, Milan J., and Lind, Roger M., eds., New Strategic Perspectives on Social Policy (New York: Pergamon, 1981), pp. 75–96.Google Scholar For a valuable application of this literature to Soviet foreign policy, see Checkel, Jeff, “Ideas, Institutions, and the Gorbachev Foreign Policy Revolution,” World Politics 45 (01 1993), pp. 271–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mendelson, Sarah E., “Internal Battles and External Wars: Politics, Learning, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan,” World Politics 45 (04 1993), pp. 327–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Evangelista, Matthew, “Sources of Moderation in Soviet Security Policy,” in Tetlock, P. et al. , eds., Behavior, Society, and Nuclear War, vol. 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 254–354.Google Scholar

11. Odell, John S., U.S. International Monetary Policy: Markets, Power, and Ideas as Sources of Change (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Shafer, D. Michael, Deadly Paradigms: The Failure of U.S. Counterinsurgency Policy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Reich, Robert B., ed., The Power of Public Ideas (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988)Google Scholar, and especially the chapter by Orren, Gary R., “Beyond Self Interest,” pp. 13–29; Hall, Peter A., ed., The Political Power of Economic Ideas (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; and Goldstein and Keohane, Ideas and Foreign Policy.

12. On the role of policy failures and crises, see Odell, , U.S. International Monetary Policy, especially p. 371Google Scholar; and Hall, Peter A., “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain,” Comparative Politics (04 1993), pp. 275–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In their application to foreign policy, see Snyder, Jack, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Haas, “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” especially pp. 14–15; and Goldstein and Keohane, “Ideas and Foreign Policy,” especially pp. 16–17.

13. See Ikenberry, G. John, “A World Economy Restored: Expert Consensus and the Anglo–American Postwar Settlement,” International Organization 46 (Winter 1992), pp. 289–321CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hall, Political Power of Economic Ideas, especially the editor's introduction and conclusion. Goldstein and Keohane also argue that ideas may serve “to alleviate coordination problems arising from the absence of unique equilibrium solutions.” Less technically, they serve as coalitional “glue.” See their “Ideas and Foreign Policy,” pp. 17–18.

14. An anonymous reviewer and some scholars have used other terms, such as “adoption” and “consolidation.” See Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies; Walker, , “Diffusion of Knowledge”; and for comparative perspectives, the special issue of Governance 2 (01 1989)Google Scholar, edited by John Creigh Peter A. Hallton Campbell.

15. Hall, Peter A., “Policy Innovation and the Structure of the State: The Politics–Administration Nexus in France and Britain,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 466 (03 1983), pp. 43–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weir, Margaret and Skocpol, Theda, “State Structures and the Possibilities for ‘Keynesian’ Responses to the Great Depression in Sweden, Britain, and the United States,” in Evans, Peter B., Rueshchemeyer, Dietrich, and Skocpol, Theda, eds., Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 107–163CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hall, Political Power of Economic Ideas, especially the editor's introduction and conclusion and the chapter by Margaret Weir, “Ideas and Politics: The Acceptance of Keynesianism in Britain and the United States,” pp. 53–86; and Sikkink, Kathryn, Ideas and Institutions: Developmentalism in Brazil and Argentina (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991).Google Scholar The concept of political opportunity structure also resembles my use of domestic structure. See Kitschelt, Herbert P., “Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest: Anti-nuclear Movements in Four Democracies,” British Journal of Political Science 16 (01 1986), pp. 57–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. This argument parallels somewhat the argument made for another issue-area—technological innovation and weapons production—in Evangelista, Matthew, Innovation and the Arms Race: How the Soviet Union and the United States Develop New Military Technologies (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988).Google Scholar That argument drew in turn on Brzezinski, Zbigniew and Huntington, Samuel P., Political Power: U.S.A./U.S.S.R. (New York: Viking, 1963).Google Scholar The fullest application of domestic structure to transnational relations is Risse-Kappen, “Bringing Transnational Relations Back In.”

17. Halpern, Nina P., “Policy Communities in a Leninist State: The Case of the Chinese Economic Policy Community,” Governance 2 (01 1989), pp. 23–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Baskin, Mark A., “The Evolution of Policy Communities in Socialist Yugoslavia: The Case of Worker Migration Abroad,” Governance 2 (01 1989), pp. 67–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar France as a strong state is also relevant here; see Baumgartner, Frank R., “Independent and Politicized Policy Communities: Education and Nuclear Energy in France and in the United States,” Governance 2 (01 1989), pp. 42–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18. Risse-Kappen, “Ideas Do Not Float Freely.”

19. See especially Goldstein, Judith, “Ideas, Institutions, and American Trade Policy,” International Organization 42 (Winter 1988), pp. 179–217CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sikkink, Ideas and Institutions; and, for application to transnational relations, Risse-Kappen, “Bringing Transnational Relations Back In.” For a suggestive discussion of the Russian case, see Jeff Checkel, “Ideologies on the Loose: (Re-) Defining Russia's National Interests in the Post-Soviet Era,” presented at a conference sponsored by the Social Science Research Council entitled, “Bringing Russia Back In: IR Theory, Comparative Politics and the Study of the Former U.S.S.R.,” University of Pittsburgh, February 1993.

20. See Hall, , “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State”; Breslauer, George W. and Tetlock, Philip, eds., Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991)Google Scholar; Mendelson, , “Internal Battles and External Wars”; and Janice Gross Stein, “Political Learning by Doing: Gorbachev as an Uncommitted Thinker and Motivated Learner,” International Organization 48 (Spring 1994), pp. 155–184.Google Scholar For a critique of learning approaches as applied to the Soviet government, see Evangelista, “Sources of Moderation”; and Richard D. Anderson, Jr., “Why Competitive Politics Inhibits Learning in Soviet Foreign Policy,” in Breslauer, and Tetlock, , Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy, pp. 100–131.Google Scholar

21. Personal interview with Paul Doty of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 23 September 1993; with Jack Ruina of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Urbana, lll., 29 October 1988; with Joseph Rotblat of Pugwash, 27 May 1990; and with Jeremy Stone, Federation of American Scientists, Washington, D.C., 10 June 1991. See also Adler, Emanuel, “The Emergence of Cooperation: National Epistemic Communities and the International Evolution of the Idea of Nuclear Arms Control,” International Organization 46 (Winter 1992), pp. 101–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. The quotations are from Haas, “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” p. 3. See also Adler, “Emergence of Cooperation.”

23. See Mendelson, “Internal Battles and External Wars”; and Checkel, “Ideas, Institutions, and the Gorbachev Foreign Policy Revolution.”

24. For clarification of this point I am grateful to fellow participants in workshops on transnational relations organized by Thomas Risse-Kappen at Yale and Cornell Universities, and especially to Robert Keohane and Stephen Krasner.

25. In Taming the Bear, I explore the impact of transnational relations in Soviet security policy since the 1950s, controlling for the presence and absence of transnational actors across issues, controlling for the presence and absence of windows of opportunity, and including variation in outcome between moderation in security policy and lack of it.

26. Risse-Kappen, Thomas, “Public Opinion, Domestic Structure, and Foreign Policy in Liberal Democracies,” World Politics 43 (07 1991), pp. 479–512CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially pp. 485–486. His definition draws on Katzenstein, Peter, ed., Between Power and Plenty: The Foreign Economic Policies of Advanced Industrial States (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978).Google Scholar Within the comparative-politics literature, several similar definitions of state structure have been proposed, but their use tends to be limited to specific issue-areas, usually related to economic policy. See, for example, Hall, “Policy Innovation and the Structure of the State”; Weir and Skocpol, “State Structures and the Possibilities for ‘Keynesian’ Responses”; Weir, “Ideas and Politics”; and Sikkink, Ideas and Institutions.

27. See Risse-Kappen, “Ideas Do Not Float Freely”; and Risse-Kappen, Bringing Transnational Relations Back In.

28. For a thorough discussion of the old system, see Hough, Jerry and Fainsod, Merle, How the Soviet Union is Governed (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979).Google Scholar

29. The events discussed in this section are summarized in the useful “Chronology of Noteworthy Events, March 11, 1985–July 11, 1991,” in Ed Hewett, A. and Winston, Victor H., eds., Milestones in Glasnost and Perestroyka: Politics and People (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1991), pp. 499–536.Google Scholar For a valuable insider account, see the memoir of Gorbachev's top foreign policy aide, Cherniaev, A. S., Shest' let s Gorbachevym: po dnevnikovym zapisiam (Six years with Gorbachev: From diary entries) (Moscow: Progress, 1993).Google Scholar

30. Arbatov, Georgii, The System: An Insider's Life in Soviet Politics (New York: Random House, 1992), p. 351.Google Scholar

31. See Gromov, A. V. and Kuzin, O. S., Neformaly: Kto est' kto? (Informals: Who's who?) (Moscow: Mysl', 1990)Google Scholar; Vyacheslav Igrunov, “Public Movements: From Protest to Political Self-consciousness,” and Fadin, Andrei, “Emerging Political Institutions: From Informais to Multiparty Democracy,” both in Roberts, Brad and Belyaeva, Nina, eds., After Perestroika: Democracy in the Soviet Union (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1991)Google Scholar; and Tolz, Vera, The U.S.S.R.'s Emerging Multiparty System (New York: Praeger, 1990).Google Scholar

32. See Pribylovskii, Vladimir, Dictionary of Political Parties and Organizations in Russia (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1992)Google Scholar; and Tolz, The U.S.S.R.'s Emerging Multiparty System.

33. For a useful overview, see Gambrell, Jamey, “Moscow: The Front Page,” New York Review of Books, 8 10 1992.Google Scholar

34. See Iakovlev, Aleksandr N., “Dostizhenie kachestvenno novogo sostoianiia Sovetskogo obshchestva i obshchestvennye nauki” (The attainment of a qualitatively new state of Soviet society and the social sciences) Kommunist 8 (1987), pp. 3–22Google Scholar; Shevardnadze, Eduard, “Doklad E. A. Shevardnadze” (The report of E. A. Shevardnadze), Vestnik Ministerstva Inostrannykh Del SSSR (The Herald of the U.S.S.R. Foreign Ministry), no. 15, 15 08 1988, pp. 27–46Google Scholar; and Shevardnadze, , Moi vybor v zashchitu demokratii i svobody (My choice: in defense of democracy and freedom) (Moscow: Novosti, 1991).Google Scholar

35. Information for this paragraph comes from the following documents located at the Center for the Storage of Contemporary Documentation, the former Central Committee archive, Moscow: Letter from Joseph Rotblat to A. N. Topchiev, proposing a Pugwash meeting in Geneva to help resolve technical disagreements in the official three-power discussions on a test ban, 5 January 1960; letter from Eugene Rabinowitch, editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, requesting to publish a statement from Soviet scientists at the official conference on nuclear testing, 12 January 1960; letter from A. N. Nesmeianov, president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and E. K. Fedorov to Central Committee proposing to send a delegation to the Geneva Pugwash meeting, 26 January 1960; “On the participation of Soviet scientists in the International Pugwash conference on the question of the cessation of nuclear tests,” all in 20th convocation of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, from protocol no. 138, Secretariat session, 23 February 1960, item 16; and “On the calling of an international conference of scientists on the cessation of nuclear tests,” from protocol no. 45, Secretariat session, 2 August 1957, item 24. Information on procedures in the 1980s comes from a conversation with Roald Sagdeev, College Park, Md., April 1994.

36. See Arbatov, Georgii A., Zatianuvsheesia vyzdorovlenie (1953–1985gg.): Svidetel'stvo sovremennika (Extended recovery [1953–1985]: Witness of a contemporary) (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1991)Google Scholar; personal interview with Evgenii Velikhov, Moscow, 29 July 1992; and Chazov, Evgenii, Zdorov'e i vlast': Vospominaniia “kremlevskogo vracha” (Health and power: Memoirs of the “Kremlin doctor”) (Moscow: Novosti, 1992), especially pp. 90–96.Google Scholar

37. See Velikhov, Evgenii, “Chernobyl Remains on Our Mind,” in Cohen, Stephen F. and Heuvel, Katrina vanden, eds., Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with Gorbachev's Reformers (New York: Norton, 1989), p. 160Google Scholar; and personal interview with Velikhov, Moscow, 29 July 1992.

38. Personal interview with Velikhov, Moscow, 29 July 1992; and Stone, Jeremy, “FAS Visit to Moscow Initiates Star Wars Dialogue,” F.A.S. Public Interest Report 36 (12 1983), p. 1.Google Scholar

39. Hippel, Frank von, “The Committee of Soviet Scientists Against the Nuclear Threat,” F.A.S. Public Interest Report 37 (01 1984), p. 1.Google Scholar

40. See Meyer, Stephen M., “Soviet Strategic Programmes and the U.S. SDI,” Survival 27 (11–12 1985), pp. 274–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Holloway, David, “The Strategic Defense Initiative and the Soviet Union,” Daedalus 114 (Summer 1985), pp. 257–78Google Scholar; and Evangelista, , Innovation and the Arms Race, pp. 258–61.Google Scholar

41. “Doklad tovarishcha lu. V. Andropova” (Report of Comrade lu. V. Andropov), Pravda, 22 12 1982.Google Scholar

42. “Replies of lu. V. Andropov to Questions from a Correspondent of Pravda,” Pravda, 27 03 1983.Google Scholar

43. Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, Arms Control Reporter (Cambridge, Mass.: Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, monthly compendium, 1982–1992), pp. 573.Google Scholar B.15–18 (hereafter cited by title only).

44. Personal interview with Velikov, Moscow, 29 July 1992; and Velikhov, E. P., “Science and Scientists for a Nuclear-weapon-free World,” Physics Today (11 1989), pp. 32–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This article is an expanded version of a speech Velikhov delivered at the Scientific-Practical Conference of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, the original of which was published as “Nauka rabotaet na bez“iadernyi mir,” Mezhdunarodnaia zhizn; no. 10, 10 1988, pp. 49–53.Google Scholar See also Marshal Akhromeev's discussion of Defense Minister Ustinov's reaction to SDI, in Akhromeev, S. F. and Kornienko, G. M., Glazami marshala i diplomata (Through the eyes of a marshal and a diplomat) (Moscow: Mezhdunarodye otnosheniia, 1992), pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

45. Arms Control Reporter, pp. 573.C.3–6.

46. Excerpts of a statement by Igor Iakovlev at the United Nations symposium on preventing the arms race in outer space, 26 January 1984, quoted in the Arms Control Reporter, p. 574.D.5. For the text of the Soviet draft treaty, see pp. 574.D.1–3.

47. See, for example, the remarks by the chief of the general staff, Akhromeev, Marshal Sergei, “Dogovor po PRO—pregrada na puti ronki strategicheskikh vooruzhenii” (The ABM treaty—a barrier on the path to an arms race in strategic weapons), Pravda, 4 06 1985Google Scholar; and the discussion in Mary C. Fitzgerald, “Soviet Views on SDI,” Carl Beck Papers No. 601, Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Pittsburgh, May 1987, pp. 39–40. See also Oberdorfer, Don, “Military Response Planned to ‘Star Wars,’ Soviet Says,” Washington Post, 8 03 1985, p. 1.Google Scholar

48. See Sagdeev, Roald, The Making of a Soviet Scientist (New York: John Wiley, 1994)Google Scholar; Parrott, Bruce, The Soviet Union and Ballistic Missile Defense (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1987), pp. 28–35Google Scholar; and Velikhov, “Science and Scientists for a Nuclear-weapon-free World.”

49. See Matthew Evangelista, “Soviet Scientists as Arms Control Advisers: The Case of ABM,” paper prepared for the fourth world congress for Soviet and East European Studies, Harrogate, England, 21–26 July 1990; Evangelista, Taming the Bear; and Adler, “Emergence of Cooperation.”

50. See, for example, the following published interviews: with Velikhov, Evgenii, Los Angeles Times, 24 07 1983Google Scholar, reprinted in Scheer, Robert, With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush, and Nuclear War (New York: Vintage, 1983), pp. 298–304Google Scholar; with Velikhov, Evgenii, Sovetskaia Rossiia, 21 04 1985Google Scholar; and with Sagdeev, Roald, Sotsialisticheskaia industriia, 9 02 1986.Google Scholar Also see Stone, “FAS Visit to Moscow Initiates Star Wars Dialogue,” p. 3; and Hippel, Frank von, “Arms Control Physics: The New Soviet Connection,” Physics Today (11 1989), pp. 39–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar and p. 40 in particular.

51. Strategicheskie i mezhdunarodno-politicheskie posledstviia sozdaniia kosmicheckoi protivoraketnoi sistemy s ispol'zovaniem oruzhiia napravlennoi peredachi energii (Strategic and international–political consequences of the creation of a space antimissile system using directed-energy weaponry) (Moscow: Institut kosmicheskikh issledovanii AN SSSR, 1984).Google Scholar In 1986 a revised version of the report was published in several languages and attracted considerable attention abroad. See Velikhov, Evgenii P., Sagdeev, Roald Z., and Kokoshin, Andrei A., eds., Kosmicheskoe oruzhie: Dilemma bezopasnotsti, English translation published as Weaponry in Space: The Dilemma of Security (Moscow: Mir, 1986).Google Scholar

52. For example, see Lambeth, Benjamin S., “Soviet Perspectives on the SDI,” in Wells, Samuel F. Jr, and Litwak, Robert S., eds., Strategic Defenses and Soviet–American Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1987).Google Scholar For a similar interpretation of another initiative of the transnational scientists' organizations, see Gouré, Leon, “‘Nuclear Winter’ in Soviet Mirrors,” Strategic Review (Summer 1985), especially pp. 35–36.Google Scholar

53. This is also a point that Arbatov emphasized. He criticized the Soviet propaganda campaign against SDI—after the fact—as having played into the Americans' hands by encouraging the Soviet side to develop costly and unnecessary responses. See Arbatov, , Zatianuvsheesia vyzdorovlenie (1953–1985gg.), pp. 206 and 348.Google Scholar Sagdeev's views were similar. Based on personal interviews with Roald Sagdeev, Moscow, November 1990; Ann Arbor, Mich., May 1991; and College Park, Md., April 1994; and Sagdeev, The Making of a Soviet Scientist. See also Talbott, Strobe, The Master of the Game: Paul Nitze and the Nuclear Peace (New York: Knopf, 1988), pp. 360–361.Google Scholar

54. Andrei Sakharov is, of course, the most famous proponent of these views, but they were evident in the statements and actions of other Soviet scientists, including prominent members of the Committee on Soviet Scientists, such as Sagdeev. See, for example, Goodwin, Irwin, “Soviet Scientists Tell It Like It Is, Urging Reforms of Research Institutes,” Physics Today (09 1988), pp. 97–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ”Perestroika and the Scientific Intellegentsia,” summary of talk by Sagdeev, Roald, Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, Washington, D.C., 16 11 1988Google Scholar; Sagdeev, Roald, “Science Is a Party to Political Decisions,” transcript of a speech delivered to a conference of the Soviet foreign ministry, published in International Affairs (Moscow) 11 (11 1988), pp. 26–28.Google Scholar

55. Garthoff, Raymond L., “Case of the Wandering Radar,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 47 (07/08 1991), pp. 7–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also based on personal interviews with former first deputy Foreign Minister Georgii Kornienko, Moscow, 28 July 1992; and with Aleksei Arbatov, Cambridge, Mass., 18 August 1993.

56. Personal interview with Kornienko, Moscow, 28 July 1992.

57. Arms Control Reporter, p. 603.B.17.

58. Personal interviews with Bernard Lown, Brookline, Mass., 6 April 1994; and with Velikhov, Moscow, 29 July 1992.

59. Experts in the delegation dismissed the Pentagon's claim that the system would be useful for “battle management” as part of a nationwide ballistic missile defense system, but they also found Soviet claims of a space-tracking role for the radar implausible. In their view the radar was best suited for early warning of a missile attack—which, as we now know, was its original intention—although they were not particularly impressed with its capabilities even in this area. See Broad, William J., “Inside a Key Russian Radar Site: Tour Raises Questions on Treaty,” New York Times, 7 09 1987, p. 1.Google Scholar

60. Arms Control Reporter, p. 603.B.182.

61. Akhromeev, and Kornienko, , Glazami marshala i diplomata, pp. 255–56.Google Scholar Kornienko claims to have briefed Shevardnadze himself.

62. See for example, Shevardnadze, “Doklad E. A. Shevardnadze.”

63. Mandelbaum, Michael and Talbott, Strobe, Reagan and Gorbachev (New York: Vintage, 1987), chap. 5.Google Scholar

64. See Sakharov, , Moscow and Beyond, pp. 21–24Google Scholar; and Talbott, , Master of the Game, pp. 360–61.Google Scholar

65. Arms Control Reporter, p. 403.B.426.

66. Gorbachev, M. S., Perestroika i novoe myshlenie dlia nashei strany i dlia vsego mira (Perestroika and new thinking for our country and the world) (Moscow: Politizdat, 1987), pp. 157–58.Google Scholar

67. Arms Control Reporter, p. 403.B.434.

68. Beschloss, Michael and Talbott, Strobe, At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1993), pp. 117–19.Google Scholar Sagdeev at this point served as an informal adviser reporting directly to Shevardnadze. Based on personal interview with Sagdeev, College Park, Md., April 1994.

69. For a review, see Evangelista, “Sources of Moderation in Soviet Security Policy.”

70. For an early assessment, see Evangelista, Matthew, “The New Soviet Approach to Security,” World Policy Journal 3 (Fall 1986), pp. 561–99.Google Scholar

71. Akhromeev, and Kornienko, , Glazami marshala i diplomata, especially pp. 71–73.Google Scholar

72. Marshal Sergei Akhromeev, chief of the general staff, in Pravda, 19 October 1985. See also the remarks of Defense Minister Marshal Sergei Sokolov in Krasnaia zvezda, 5 May 1985, and numerous other quotations cited in Fitzgerald, Soviet Views on SDI.

73. An unpublished report by four Russian ABM scientists is particularly revealing in this regard. See O. V. Golubev, Ia.A. Kamenskii, M. G. Minasian, and B. D. Pupkov, “Proshloe i nastoiashchee Rossiiskikh sistem protivoraketnoi oborony (vzgliad iznutri)” [The past and present of Russian antimissile defense systems (a view from within)] (Moscow: 1992). I am grateful to David Holloway for providing me a copy of this report. See also Cherniaev, , Shest' let s Gorbachevym, p. 121Google Scholar; and Sagdeev, , The Making of a Soviet Scientist, p. 273.Google Scholar

74. Akhromeev, and Kornienko, , Glazami marshala i diplomata, p. 109.Google Scholar Akhromeev claimed that Shevardnadze was prepared to unlink START from SDI as early as December 1987, whereas he and First Deputy Foreign Minister Kornienko insisted that the U.S. forswear pursuit of defenses. See Ibid., pp. 142 and 192.

75. The only alternative explanation for Soviet behavior of which I am aware is Paul Nitze's argument that the change in Soviet policy came about because the “Soviet Union apparently had decided it had more to learn from on-site inspection than we did.” His only evidence for this argument is his observation that U.S. military officials evinced considerable reluctance to allow Soviet inspectors into U.S. facilities once the Soviets had accepted the principle of on-site inspection. See Nitze, Paul N., From Hiroshima to Glasnost (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1989), p. 442.Google Scholar In fact, Soviet military officials—and, indeed, members of the public at large—remained extremely wary of allowing the West access to Soviet military sites even as part of agreed measures for implementing arms accords such as the INF treaty, regardless of what Soviet inspectors got to see on the other side. But in the most significant initiatives—the inspection of Krasnoiarsk and the laser research facilities—Nitze's argument does not even apply. The Soviet concessions were unilateral and unconditional. They entailed no Soviet inspection of U.S. facilities. For some evidence, see Evangelista, Matthew, “Soviet Policy Toward Strategic Arms Control,” in Parrott, Bruce, ed., The Dynamics of Soviet Defense Policy (Washington, D.C.: Wilson Center Press, 1990), especially pp. 293–96.Google Scholar

76. See Bernard Lown, “The Urgency of a Unique Initiative,” speech to the 4th world congress of the IPPNW, 4 June 1984; personal interview with Lown, 6 April 1994, Brookline, Mass.; Cortright, Peace Works, pp. 209–10; Defense Monitor, vol. 13, no. 5, 1984Google Scholar; and Arms Control Reporter, pp. 608.B.50–51. This account also draws on Frank M. Castillo, “The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War: Transnational Midwife of World Peace,” Institute of International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, 1990. I am grateful to Dr. Castillo for providing me a copy.

77. See Halpern, “Policy Communities in a Leninist State”; and Evangelista, Innovation and the Arms Race.

78. See Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies; and Bunce, Valerie, Do New Leaders Make a Difference? Executive Succession and Public Policy Under Capitalism and Socialism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981).Google Scholar

79. ”Vstrecha M. S. Gorbacheva s predstaviteliami mezhdunarodnogo foruma uchenykh za prekrashchenie iadernykh ispytanii” (Meeting of M. S. Gorbachev with representatives of the international forum of scientists for the cessation of nuclear tests), Pravda, 15 July 1986; and personal interviews with Velikhov, Moscow, 29 July 1992, and with Sagdeev, College Park, Md., April 1994.

80. Gorbachev, , Perestroika, pp. 157–58.Google Scholar

81. Cherniaev, , Shest' let s Gorbachevym, p. 62.Google Scholar

82. Jeffrey W. Knopf, “Soviet Public Diplomacy and U.S. Policymaking on Arms Control: The Case of Gorbachev's Nuclear Testing Moratorium,” paper presented at the International Studies Association annual meeting, London, 28 March–1 April 1989.

83. NRDC, Natural Resources Defense Council Annual Report 1986–87, pp. 29–30.Google Scholar

84. The following account draws on von Hippel, “Arms Control Physics,” and on discussions with Christopher Paine, Arlington, Va., 2 April 1994.

85. The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in April 1986 probably influenced Gorbachev's decision to extend the nuclear testing moratorium and support other efforts, such as the joint seismic experiment, to boost the prospects for a test-ban treaty.

86. The U.S. case provides a striking contrast. The cooperation required of the U.S. government in the monitoring scheme was fairly modest—the granting of export licenses, visas for visiting Soviet scientists, and permission for setting up seismic stations on U.S. territory. Although at the highest levels most U.S. officials were unenthusiastic about the NRDC–SAS project, their views seemed to have little effect on how the various aspects of the project were handled. The decentralization of the U.S. system meant that many decisions were taken by middle- or low-level bureaucrats following standard operating procedures and adhering to statutory regulations. The result was that some potentially controversial questions—on the export of sensitive technologies needed for seismic monitoring—went rather smoothly, whereas other seemingly routine matters—issuing visas—ran into trouble. The contrast between the domestic structures of the United States and Soviet Union seems to account for the differences. See Schrag, Philip G., Listening for the Bomb: A Study in Nuclear Arms Control Verification Policy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1989).Google Scholar

87. Akhromeev, and Kornienko, , Glazami marshala i diplomata, p. 56.Google Scholar

88. Ibid., pp. 95–96.

89. Press conference broadcast on Moscow television, 25 August 1986, reported in Arms Control Reporter, p. 608.B.107.

90. Pravda, 20 July 1989, quoted in Arms Control Reporter, p. 575.B.370.

91. Ironically, the project—called Bear—had evidently benefited considerably from published Soviet research on laser technology in the late 1960s. Soviet research, according to Colonel Thomas Meyer, head of SDI Office's directed energy program, “enabled the U.S. to shrink the machinery enough to loft it into space.” See Arms Control Reporter, pp. 575.B.369, 375, and 392.

92. Ibid., p. 575.B.375.

93. In August 1989, for example, a U.S. congressional delegation visited a laser research facility in Sary Shagan, which was affiliated with Velikhov's Kurchatov Institute. See Gordon, Michael R., “U.S. Visitors See Soviet Laser Firing,” New York Times, 17 08 1989Google Scholar; Hippel, Frank von, “Visit to a Laser Facility at the Soviet ABM Test Site,” Physics Today (11 1989), pp. 34–35Google Scholar; Hippel, Frank von and Cochran, Thomas B., “The Myth of the Soviet ‘Killer’ Laser,” New York Times, 19 08 1989Google Scholar; and Arms Control Reporter, p. 575.B.373.

94. The prospects for such transnational antidisarmament coalitions were, of course, enhanced not only by the Soviet domestic structural transformation but also by the changes in the international environment. Even under the previous cold war system, however, hawkish politicians on both sides of the Iron Curtain “could form what amounted to a de facto coalition in favor of hostility and arms-racing just by giving belligerent speeches.” See Snyder, “East–West Bargaining,” p. 116.

95. In November 1990, Keith Payne, of the National Institute for Space Policy, for example, cited an article in the Soviet journal Voennaia Mysl' (Military thought) arguing that the Soviet Union was becoming more accepting of strategic defenses. See Arms Control Reporter, p. 575.B.399.

96. Ibid., p. 575.B.403.

97. Ibid.

98. Ibid., p. 575.B.405.

99. Bunn, Matthew, “The ABM Talks: The More Things Change …,” Arms Control Today 22 (09 1992), pp. 15–23Google Scholar, especially p. 19.

100. Arms Control Reporter, p. 575.B.405.

101. See Ibid.; and Iklé, Fred C., “Comrades in Arms,” New York Times, 13 12 1991.Google Scholar

102. Golubev et al., “Proshloe i nastoiashchee Rossiiskikh sistem protivoraketnoi oborony.”

103. Aleksei Arbatov and, to some extent, Andrei Kokoshin are good examples. See Arms Control Reporter, pp. 575.B.414–415.

104. Krasnaia zvezda, 21 July 1989, quoted in Arms Control Reporter, p. 608.B.181.

105. Krasnaia zvezda, 25 December 1990, quoted in Arms Control Reporter, p. 608.B.208–9.

106. Other deputies, mainly military officers, also supported the continuation of testing in the absence of U.S. agreement to a mutual ban. See, for example, the remarks of Col. N.S. Petrushenko in Krasnaia zvezda, 29 November 1989, quoted in Arms Control Reporter, p. 608.B.188; and of retired Chief of the General Staff Marshal Sergei Akhromeev on Moscow television, 9 October 1990, quoted in the Arms Control Reporter, pp. 608.B.204–205.

107. My main sources on the Nevada movement include: Zheutlin, Peter, “Nevada, U.S.S.R.,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (03 1990) pp. 10–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mather, Ian, “Life and Death Under a Cloud in Radiation City,” European, weekend ed., 1–306 1990Google Scholar; various issues of the movement's newspaper, Izbiratel'; Erzhanov, S., “Krepnet golos razuma” (The voice of reason is becoming stronger), Vecherniaia Alma-Ata, 25 05 1990Google Scholar; “O Budushchem mira—s trevogoi i bol'iu” (About the future of the world—with worry and pain), Kazakhstanskaia Pravda, 26 May 1990; Iurii Dmitriev, “Semipalatinsk-Nevada as viewed by a people's deputy of the U.S.S.R.,” interview with Suleimenov, Olzhas, Moscow News, no. 51, 24–31 12 1989, p. 15Google Scholar; Young, Daniel, “Thousands in Alma-Ata Demand Test Ban,” PSR Reports 10 (Summer 1990)Google Scholar; Vital Signs (IPPNW newsletter) vol. 3, no. 1, 03 1990Google Scholar; vol. 3, no. 2, August 1990; and Zheutlin, Peter, “Kazakhstan: Life and Death in the Shadow of the Mushroom Cloud,” Los Angeles Times, 1 04 1990.Google Scholar

108. PSR Reports (Summer 1990); and personal observation.

109. See Mandel's, William collection of interviews, “Soviet Miners Speak,” special issue, The Station Relay 5 (1989–1991), p. 28Google Scholar; Rutland, Peter, “Labor Unrest Movements in 1989 and 1990,” Soviet Economy 6, no. 4 (1990)Google Scholar, reprinted in Ed Hewett, A. and Winston, Victor H., eds., Milestones in Glasnost and Perestroyka: Politics and People (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1991), pp. 287–325Google Scholar, esp. p. 315.

110. It received little attention, however, in the United States and had no impact on U.S. plans for nuclear testing. Members of the transnational test-ban coalition tried to come up with ways to tap the power of the grassroots Kazakh movement to influence U.S. policy. Velikhov at one point jokingly suggested flying one-hundred thousand Kazakhs to Washington, D.C., on Aeroflot, with or without visas, to demonstrate at the White House. Based on a personal interview with Thomas Cochran, Moscow, 22 May 1990.

111. Zheutlin, “Nevada, USSR,” p. 11.

112. “Soviet Union to Close Testing Site,” Arms Control Today (04 1990), p. 31.Google Scholar

113. Arms Control Reporter, pp. 608.B.208 and 608.B.216.

114. See Sichka, I., “We Blast Without Warning,” Komsomol'skaia Pravda, 26 10 1990Google Scholar; “Resolution Adopted on Novaya Zemlya Nuclear Test,” TASS report, 31 October 1990; and “Arkhangelsk Leadership Protests Nuclear Tests,” TASS report, 31 October 1990; all translations from the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: Soviet Union, FBIS-SOV-90–210, 30 October 1990.

115. Arms Control Reporter, pp. 608.B.220–21.

116. Washington Post, 5 02 1992Google Scholar, cited in Arms Control Reporter, p. 608.B.225Google Scholar.

117. Based on discussions with Frank von Hippel of the FAS, Thomas Cochran of the NRDC, and Steve Fetter of the University of Maryland, in Moscow, Alma Ata, and Semipalatinsk, 22–25 May 1990.

118. TASS report, 29 May 1990, cited in Arms Control Reporter, p. 608.B.199.

119. Arms Control Reporter, p. 608.B.227.

120. Mikhailov apparently had a direct financial stake in such operations. See Arms Control Reporter, pp. 605.B.120–22.

121. Discussion with Frank von Hippel, Princeton, N.J., 24 April 1992.

122. Arms Control Reporter, p. 608.B.226, citing Nezavisimaia gazeta (Independent newspaper), 24 March 1992, and the Russian television news program Vesti of 3 March 1992.

123. Ibid.

124. Rossiiskaia gazeta (Russian newspaper), quoted in the Arms Control Reporter, pp. 608.B.233–234.

125. Beschloss and Talbott, At the Highest Levels.

126. Logically, a shift in domestic structure from less centralized to more centralized would have the opposite effect on the fortunes of transnational actors, all else being equal (including, for example, favorable “policy windows”). I owe these points to John Odell.

127. Clinton's reversal of the Reagan and Bush policy owes a great deal to the efforts of members of the U.S. side of the transnational disarmament coalition, particularly Christopher Paine and Thomas Cochran of the NRDC and Frank von Hippel of the FAS. Their influence on U.S. policy grew as that of their counterparts in Russia declined. See NRDC News 15 (Fall 1993), p. 49Google Scholar; Jehl, Douglas, “Energy Department Led Shift on A-Tests,” New York Times, 1 07 1993Google Scholar; and McGrory, Mary, “O'Leary's Energy Is Felt,” Washington Post, 14 12 1993.Google Scholar

128. Arms Control Reporter, p. 608.B.267.

129. Friedman, Thomas L., “U.S. Formally Rejects ‘Star Wars’ in ABM Treaty,” New York Times, 15 07 1993.Google Scholar

130. Ibid.

131. Foye, Stephen, “U.S. Defense Team Presses Moscow on Cooperation,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Daily Report, no. 87, 6 05 1994Google Scholar (electronic version). For background on the administration's position and opposition to it, see Hersh, Seymour M., “Missile Wars,” The New Yorker, 26 09 1994, pp. 86–99.Google Scholar For views of some of the Russian military technologists, see Golubev et al., “Proshloe i nastoiashchee Rossiiskikh sistem protivoraketnoi oborony.”

132. Risse-Kappen, “Brining Transnational Relations Back In.”

133. This terminology comes from Haas's definition. See “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” p. 3. For a related argument about environmental policy, see Sheila Jasanoff, “The Normative Structure of Scientific Agreements about the Global Environment,” in Hampson, Fen O. and Reppy, Judith, eds., “Global Environmental Change and Social Justice,” Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1994Google Scholar.

134. For representative Soviet critiques, see the comments of Lieutenent General (retired) Volkov, E., “Ne raz'iasniaet, a zatumanivaet,” Krasnaia zvezda, 28 09 1989Google Scholar; Major Kirilenko, General G., “Legko li byt' oborone dostatochnoi?” Krasnaia zvezda, 21 03 1990Google Scholar; Major Liubimov, General lu., “O dostatochnosti oborony i nedostatke kompetentnosti,” Kommunist vooruzhennykh sil, no. 16, 08 1989, pp. 21–26Google Scholar; General Moiseev, M. A., “Eshche raz o prestizhe armii,” Kommunist vooruzhennykh sil, no. 13, 07 1989, pp. 3–14Google Scholar; and Akhromeev and Kornienko, Glazami marshala i diplomata.

135. The use of Thomas Kuhn's terminology from the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970)Google Scholar comes from Hall, “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State,” but seems to inform much of the literature on learning. For a more extensive critique of the learning metaphor as applied to Gorbachev's foreign policy, see Evangelista, “Sources of Moderation in Soviet Security Policy.”

136. In “Internal Battles and External Wars,” Mendelson broadens the definition of epistemic community to “a group of experts in different fields who share common understandings and beliefs about certain issues as well as some idea of how best to implement their belief”; see p. 329 n. 7. This definition is broader than that of Haas and his colleagues. Given that Mendelson's actors comprise people at several levels of the Soviet system, from politicians, to scholars, to journalists, and that her community is not a transnational one, it is not clear that her otherwise fine analysis either contributes to or benefits from the literature on epistemic communities.

137. Risse-Kappen, “States and Transnational Relations: What Have We Learned?” in Bringing Transnational Relations Back In. See the similar criticisms raised by Milner, Helen, “International Theories of Cooperation among Nations: Strengths and Weaknesses,” World Politics 44 (04 1992), pp. 466–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

138. Adler, Emanual and Haas, Peter M., “Conclusion: Epistemic Communities, World Order, and the Creation of a Reflective Research Program,” International Organization 46 (Winter 1992), pp. 367–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially pp. 384–385. For similar arguments, see Hall, “Policy Innovation and the Structure of the State; Weir and Skocpol, “State Structures and the Possibilities for ‘Keynesian’ Responses”; Weir, “Ideas and Politics”; Sikkink, Ideas and Institutions; and Goldstein and Keohane, “Ideas and Foreign Policy.”

139. Ikenberry, “A World Economy Restored, p. 292; Hall, Political Power of Economic Ideas; Goldstein and Keohane, “Ideas and Foreign Policy,” pp. 17–18.

140. For a particularly strong but not exceptional statement of this view, see Herspring, Dale, The Soviet High Command, 1967–1989: Personalities and Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a critique, see Evangelista, Matthew, “New Politics in the Soviet Union,” American Political Science Review 85 (12 1991), pp. 1433–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

141. See especially Zhurkin, Vitalii, Kortunov, Sergei, and Kortunov, Andrei, “Reasonable sufficiency—or how to break the vicious circle,” New Times 40, 12 10 1987Google Scholar; and the discussion in Evangelista, “Sources of Moderation,” especially pp. 329–30.

142. This finding calls into question Risse-Kappen's emphasis on winning coalitions in his discussion of transnational relations in the Soviet Union. See his “Ideas Do Not Float Freely.”