The New Soviet Political Landscape

This paper, the text of testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 26, 1991, reviews the implications of post-August-coup changes in the former Soviet Union for U.S. economic assistance policy. The author suggests that the Western world must be prepared in the short term to provide food and medical assistance on a more substantial scale than in the past and that such aid should be precisely targeted and distributed with the participation of government and private volunteer organizations from the sending countries. In addition, there must be an acceleration and expansion of the U.S. technical assistance program, including a large-scale exchange of people with practical business and technical skills. Such an exchange should involve students and practitioners from the various republics of the former Soviet Union coming to the United States. Finally, with more democratically and market-oriented leaders now in place in Russia and the other republics, the United States should be prepared to cooperate in and contribute to a program of assistance, including direct financial aid.