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.

This book presents a comprehensive comparison of economic aid programs by the United States and the Soviet Union to less developed countries. It examines aid to many of the non-Communist nations of Asia, Africa, the Near East, Latin America. Robert S. Walters views aid programs in terms of their objectives, the size and structure of disbursements, and operational and administrative principles. In addition he examines the delicate balance between trade policy and general foreign policy, and the difficulties and results experienced by the U.S. and Soviet Union in their respective programs.

The evolution of the Soviet Union places the United States and other Western countries in a dilemma with two alternatives. One, to stand by and observe events, only providing economic aid after events solidify and alternatives become clear. or two, provide sufficient economic assistance to ensure that the political sorting-out process in the former Soviet Union is allowed to run its course, fostering an orderly completion of a transition away from a communist-style society and nurturing democratic forces forming in Russia and other republics. This paper discusses economic aid to the former Soviet Union and recommends an expanded assistance role through private investment and peaceful use of the U.S. military. The development of this recommendation is based on an examination of four related topics: United States historical support to Russia and later to the Soviet Union beginning in 1882; principal economic problems facing the former Soviet Union; recent ex-Soviet aid requests and the Free World's response, and the United States' current aid policy for the ex- Soviet republics.

This edition of the Joint Economic Committee's 1993 reports on the economies of the ex-Soviet states tracks the Soviet and post-Soviet economic reform efforts, and looks at issues such as integration and developments.