U.S. Policies in the Caspian Sea Region: Implementation Issues Nancy Lubin JNA Associates is currently working on two studies that address some of these issues from two different angles. The first study, undertaken at the request of five private foundations here in the U.S., is to assess the U.S. assistance program throughout the former Soviet Union to explore the kinds of things that work, and the kinds of things that do not work. Simultaneously, we have begun directing a Council on Foreign Relations Task Force, under the Chairmanship of Senator Nunn, to take a look at the potential for conflict in Central Asia and how one can begin to address it before it gets out of hand. What I will do today is simply outline some of the broad findings from these and other studies that seem to complement the kinds of issues we have been discussing here. We have found that while often Western strategies themselves might be clear and sensible, carefully balancing all of our different objectives in the region; in practice, once they begin to be implemented on the ground, the tactics can become unclear and often undermine the very overall objectives that we are trying to attain. This is true in terms of western assistance policies and projects on the ground as well as overall foreign policy. Regarding assistance, on the one hand, the commitment that donor organizations have made to encourage fundamental change – to help stimulate democratic change, help create market-based economies, and the like – has been laudable. The amount of support, overall, that has been sent to these countries is high and rising. For Central Asia alone, the U.S. administration is currently requesting about $200 million this year in assistance for the southern tier – a huge jump from what it has requested before. This funding is requested for a wide array of programs that hit questions of democratic and economic change as well as broader commercial and foreign policy issues. Some of these programs have been remarkable, including an army of non­governmental organizations who are working with groups on the ground to start to create a constituency that can lobby these otherwise often entirely authoritarian governments under which they must operate. 62