Three of the largest and strategically most important nations in the world -the Soviet Union, China, and India - are currently in the throes of historic change. The reforms in the giants are transforming global economic and geopolitical relations. The United States must reexamine central tenets of its foreign policy if it is to seize the opportunities presented by these changes.This pathbreaking volume in the Overseas Development Council's series analyzes economic reform in the giants and its implications for U.S. foreign policy. Each of the giants is opening up its economy to foreign trade and investment. What consequences will this have for international trade? Each giant is attempting to catch up to global technological frontiers by absorbing foreign technologies: In what areas might cooperation enhance American interests, and in what areas must the U.S. protect its competitive and strategic assets? What role can key international economic institutions play to help integrate the giants into the international economy? The contributors suggest how U.S. foreign policy should anticipate these new circumstances in ways that enhance international cooperation and security.Contents: Overview: Economic Reform in the Giants and U.S. Policy, by Richard E. Feinberg, John Echeverri-Gent, and Friedemann Miiller; Economic Reform in the USSR, by Friedemann Miiller; Economic Reform in China, by Rensselaer W. Lee III; Economic Reform in India, by John Echeverri-Gent; The Politics of Economic Reform in the Giants, by John Echeverri-Gent, and Friedemann Miiller; Economic Reforms and International Trade, by Thomas Naylor; Technology Transfer to the Giants: Opportunities and Challenges, by Richard P. Suttmeier; and The Geopolitical Consequences of Reform in the Giants, by Elena Borisovna Arefieva.

"Economic reform by Third World governments is usually portrayed as the product of outside pressure, especially from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. This welcome collection provides an important counter-perspective by putting domestic politics at center stage. Miles Kahler demonstrates that international institutions only rarely play an important role."--Orbis' "Joan Nelson and her collaborators have performed a valuable service for those concerned about the politics of reform by bringing together a series of informed and insightful essays that address clearly and concisely the difficult political dilemmas of economic adjustment."--Merilee S. Grindle,Economic Development and Cultural Change

This volume, one of the ODC's U.S.-Third World Policy Perspectives series, "offers useful steps for policymakers concerned with the critical challenges of integrating environment and development concerns," --Jessica Tuchman Matthews, World Resources Institute. Six out of every ten of the world's people are being inexorably pushed by agricultural modernization and continuing high population growth rates into ecologically vulnerable environments: tropical forests, dryland and hilly areas, and the fringes of great urban centers. Unless development strategies support their capabilities to ensure their own survival, the 470 million people living in these vulnerable areas will be forced to meet their short-term need to survive at the cost of long-term ecological sustainability and the well-being of future generations. In response to these startling statistics, the authors call for new policies and new forms of collaboration among participants at the local, national, and international levels. They offer practical and stimulating recommendations to bring together population planners, water engineers, health professionals, bankers, among others, to find solutions to both poverty and environmental problems.

The end of the Cold War is reverberating far beyond its European theatre--in the killing fields of Afghanistan, Indochina, Central America, Southern Africa & the Horn of Africa. For some of these people, peace has come already; for others it is in sight. But beyond peacemaking lie the delicate challenges of peacekeeping & huge tasks of political, social, & economic reconstruction--& construction--in some of the world's poorest areas. The roots of these wars were deeply embedded in indigenous strife & history, but the superpowers--by adding their own ideological & strategic agenda--intensified the bloodshed. The results of the conflicts are appalling: nearly 3 million dead (2.5 million of them civilians); 16 million refugees; battered people, towns, & transport; a generation of unschooled youth & unskilled adults; countrysides planted with explosives; & teeming cities lacking in jobs & essential services. In this, the sixteenth volume in ODC's U.S.-Third World Policy Perspective series, the authors provide valuable timely analysis of the differing problems of polity & economy confronting the governments of these devastated countries. In short, Cyrus R. Vance calls it "a stimulating & provocative book."

"Suggests specific guidelines for linking responsible environmental management and economic development. Includes proposals for international peace parks, fostering conservation institutions, and modifying nontraditional agricultural exports"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57.

The vision of a hemispheric system of free trade charts a bold new course for U.S--Latin American relations that promises to transform the economic and political landscape of the hemisphere well into the next century. In "The Premise and the Promise, "analysts from the United States, Latin America, and Canada explore the dynamics of the process under way in the Americas today, what features free trade ought to have, how the process of regional integration should proceed, and how the regional architecture should be related to the international trading system. Mexico's decision to seek a free trade agreement with the United States and Washington's announcement of the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative turned the incipient integrationist revival of the mid-1980s in Latin America into a seemingly unstoppable force. If regionalism is to be a benign force, however, it must overcome the impulse toward closed, exclusionary arrangements and emulate the best features of the multilateral approach: a regional arrangement should be flexible enough to accommodate vast regional diversity, inclusive enough to allow all countries in the region to participate, and efficient enough not to impose unduly large costs on those excluded from the arrangement. The contents include: Sylvia Saborio, "Overview: The Long and Winding Road from Anchorage to Patagonia," Peter Morici, "American Free Trade: A U.S. Perspective," Jos" Salazar and Eduardo Lizano, "Free Trade hi the Americas: A Latin American Perspective," Richard Lipsey, "Getting There: A Canadian View on WHFTA's Structure," and Refik Erzan and Alexander Yeats, "Empirical Evidence on the Impact of Free Trade Agreements with the United States on Latin America." In six separate chapters, analysts weigh the costs and benefits of subregional free trade agreements between the United States and Mexico, Chile, Central America, Caricom, the Andean Pact, and Mercosur.

This book explores the primary issues and organising principles that define the United States-Third World relations in the New World Order. This book consists of six sections. The first section includes three essays on the political economy of the United States-Third World relations and American political, economic, and military involvement in the developing countries. In section two, there are two chapters that address the political and cultural challenges facing the United States-Latin American relations in the post-Cold War era, followed by a regional and a country study. Section three devoted to the United States-Asia relations in the New World Order consists of two general essays and three case studies. In section four, we find a chapter that will focus on the relationship between the United States and the Middle East, an essay on economic development, and two case studies. Section five consists of one general essay on the economic decline of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in the post-Cold War era followed by a case study of structural adjustments in an African country. The final section of the book is comprised of four chapters on the political economy of development in the New World Order.