Russia's information warfare structure: Understanding the roles of the security council,Fapsi, the state technical commission and the military

During the past two years, Russia has made significant progress in improving its infrastructure responsible for information security. Security specialists also have produced a draft information security doctrine (which the US does not possess) that discusses critical information issues and areas, and the internal and external information threats to the state. The primary organizations responsible for information security in Russia are the Security Council, responsible for national interests affected by the information age; the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information (FAPSI), responsible for ensuring the security of state communications and conducting intercept operations; the State Technical commission, devoted to the development of international laws, licensing and certification of IW related policies; and the Russian armed forces, responsible for studying the impact of information operations on military art.     

How We Feel about the Deal

Recent experimental research suggests that humans are prone to systematic errors when determining how they currently feel, imagining how they will feel about future events, remembering how they have felt about past events, and understanding the preferences that underlie their decisions. In this article, we briefly review three basic assumptions that are called into question by recent findings regarding specific kinds of errors that people are prone to make. We suggest that this line of research has important implications for negotiation theory, research, advice, and practice.     

The efficacy of home security measures

Crime prevention through environmental design(CPTED) assumes criminal acts are influenced by their inherent costs and benefits. Policy implications drawn from CPTED suggest home security measures increase these costs and reduce the likelihood of burglary. This paper tests the efficacy of home security measures. A telephone survey of 566 residents in Mobile County, Alabama, inquired about security measures burglary victims and nonvictims employed. A logistic regression solution found some, but not all, of these security measures to be quite effective. The author would like to thank Bill Doerner and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and patience. Thanks also go to Sheriff Jack Tillman, Captain Ronnie Phillips, and Thomas Barclay of the Mobile County (AL) Sheriffs Office for their support in this project.     

Elites and institutions in conservative transitions to democracy: Ex-authoritarians in the Brazilian National Congress

Although many students of democratization accept that new democracies are impacted by various legacies of the previous authoritarian regime, little attention has been paid to the relationship between characteristics of the political class and the imperative of institution building in the new democracies. Conservative transitions to democracy, where continuity in the political class remains high despite the change in regime, are notably dependent on the participation of ex-authoritarians in the process of institution-building. Many such elites were socialized to marginal or fictional representative institutions under authoritarianism, leading them toward political practices which may subsequently be inimical to the development of effective instituions under democracy. A study of ex-authoritarians in the Brazilian Congress reveals their weaker commitment to legislative institutionalization, thus illustrating some of the tradeoffs and drawbacks of conservative transitions to democracy. Timothy J. Power is assistant professor of political science at Louisiana State University. He is currently writing a book on the role of the political right in Brazilian democratization.     

'Golf ball diplomacy': Richard Nixon and Japan, 1969-74

Nixon was one of the first American politicians to advocate the building of a strong US-Japan economic alliance and the Nixon administration laid the foundation for the healthy post-Vietnam dialogue that the Carter and Reagan administrations cultivated with Tokyo. This article examines that foundation, and its contribution to the general post-World War II US-Japan relationship. Vietnam changed America, and it even changed the way a once arch-cold warrior, Nixon, viewed the significance of US-Japan relations. After years of Washington's scoffing at or ignoring Japanese interests, this American 'discovery' of Japan was an important development in itself. Hence, this article also examines a relationship in transition which, for Nixon's America, was an important first step in the construction of a post-Vietnam view of Asian/Pacific cooperation.