From the Paper
"STRATEGIC BUSINESS PLANNING FOR FOREIGN INVESTORS IN RUSSIA
This research explores the advantages and disadvantages of investment in Russia in the early-1990s through a review of the various aspects involved in the application of the principles of strategic business planning to the Russian economic environment. In the conduct of this exploration, market anomalies between Russia and developed western economies, investment opportunities in Russia, joint venture potentials, and the operation of free economic zones are considered.
Market Anomalies Between Russia and Developed Western Economies
The failure of the attempted coup de etat against the Gorbachev government in the Soviet Union in 1991 led directly to both the official disestablishment and the official disenfranchising of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.."

From the Paper
" The following is an assessment of the changed European defense environment, examining the changes that have been brought about, implications for existing defense relationships, the strategy for European defense through the 1990s, a forecasting of possible threats or changes still to come, and recommendations for future action.

THE CHANGED EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENT
The dissolution of the Soviet Union and its satellite Eastern bloc offers a rare opportunity for curtailing certain defense policies and expenditures on the basis of there no longer being an immediate need. Much of our policy in Europe over the past four decades has been geared to staving off an implied Soviet threat both from the Soviet Union itself and from the satellite nations of Eastern Europe. The disintegration of the.."

From the Paper
" When masses of East Germans peacefully swarmed over the Berlin Wall in the autumn of 1989 - ending almost 3 decades of forcible division of German from German - so began a human mix of euphoria, expectation, dislocation and turmoil that we call "life" and scholars are already terming "an epoch-making historical moment." The drama of release was caught on television; political experts and the media went from speculating idly about reunification of the German peoples in "a generation, or slightly less". - to enthusiastically gushing that the politics of the street had overtaken the diplomatic waltzes of the politicians.
By July of 1990 the two Germanies, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) of the eastern regions and the western Federal Republic of Germany, were united monetarily; in.."

From the Paper
"The institution of a common immigration policy is high on the list of stated goals for the European Community (EC). However, an implicit policy for asylum already seems to be in place. The drop in asylum applications for countries of the EC indicates that Europe is bound and determined to keep poor foreigners out in any way possible (The Economist, July 30, 1994). A big source of immigrant traffic has historically come from economic migrants; however, over the last five to six years, immigration controls have been tightening across many EC countries, which has made such migration increasingly difficult. One of the last routes open to economic migrants had been to seek entry by claiming they were in need of political asylum. The extent of false asylum claims, however, may be leading EC country.."

From the Paper
"The collapse of East European regimes probably had less to do with political opposition from within or economic and military pressure from without than is commonly thought to be the case. When Gorbachev launched perestroika, he apparently made the decision to dismantle the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe, an empire which the Soviets could no longer afford or properly manage. Thus the 1989 demise of communism in Eastern Europe should probably be seen as less a political victory by the democratic opposition within Poland, East Germany, or Czechoslovakia but rather a defeat by default of these local ruling elites, set adrift by a Gorbachev bent on reforming a fast disintegrating Soviet economic system (Ash, 1990).

The nature of the economic crisis in Eastern Europe has to a large extent paralleled the economic crisis in the former Soviet.."

From the Paper
"Religion in Austria
Introduction
Although most of the nations of Europe contain members of many different religions and sects, some of them are dominated by one sort of religious practice. In many instances, the religion of the country has been a central element in the development of that country, and in the unfolding of its history.

In the case of Austria, that has clearly been the situation. Austria is now, and was during the time of the Habsburgs, a Roman Catholic country. Roman Catholicism has influenced its development until the modern era, and even beyond.

The Early History
While Austria had an early history of exposure to Christianity.."

From the Paper
"Single Country Case Study: Romania
Introduction
This research examines the changing political and economic conditions within Romania. The period of interest is subsequent to the general socialist collapse in Eastern Europe that began in 1989.


Political Developments in Romania
It was the ascendancy of Mikhail Gorbachev to the Soviet leadership in 1985, however, that ushered in the most dramatic political and economic changes in Eastern Europe since the Russian Revolution in 1917. Gorbachev assumed office with an agenda calling for a liberalization of the Soviet political structure, a reform of the Soviet economic structure, and a policy of self-determination for the Soviet satellite nation states of which Romania was one..."

From the Paper
"Fascism and Ultranationalism in Contemporary Croatia, Hungary, and Serbia
Introduction
This research examines the development of fascism and ultranationalism in contemporary Croatia, Hungary, and Serbia. Fascism and ultranationalism are not one and the same thing. While a fascist likely will be an ultranationalist (and will certainly be nationalistic), an ultranationalist need not necessarily be a fascist. As these two terms are critical to this examination, they must be defined.


Ultranationalism
Ultranationalism implies not only an intensely patriotic attitude toward and a highly chauvinistic perception of one's own nation, but also implies a desire to exclude others from..."

From the Paper
"Mercenaries in the Former Yugoslavia
This paper will discuss the involvement of mercenaries, especially Russian mercenaries, in the civil war in the former territories of Yugoslavia. The first part of the paper will describe the experience of the mercenaries fighting on the side of the Bosnian Muslims. The second part of the paper will describe the experience of the Russian mercenaries fighting with the Bosnian Serbs.


Mercenaries are a feature in any civil war, where one or both sides are willing to pay for military service and are not particular about where all of their soldiers come from. Soldiers of fortune are particularly attracted to conflicts where strict military discipline is not an attribute of the armies involved. In these situations, they are not closely supervised and are allowed to..."

From the Paper
" In the nineteenth century, the rise of nationalism contributed to the development of the nation-states that would continue into this century, and expansionist programs on the part of many of the stronger nations contributed to the creation of empires built around colonies in different parts of the world. The British Empire was probably the largest of these and included colonies all over the world. In the twentieth century, many of the existing empires and nation-states have undergone transformations as various pressures have caused them to disintegrate, to break up into discrete units around nationalistic, geographic, and ethnic differences. An examination of the decline and disintegration of the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia will serve to develop rules as to why countries decline, and these rules will then be..."

From the Paper
" Eastern Europe has ceased to exist. This artificial creation of Yalta existed only as long as the Soviet army could support the doubtful legitimacy of communist regimes throughout the region. When it became obvious that the Soviets were not going to use force to stop the wave of change in their European empire, the only thing needed was the first hole in the dike. After the change of government in Poland and the collapse of the communist party in Hungary, no one could stop the flood of freedom. The pace of events was astonishing. In a matter of just a few years, the Berlin wall was dismantled allowing for the reunification of East and West Germany and communism collapsed in virtually every nation of the region from Romania to Bulgaria.


The purpose of this research is to examine the political and economic developments in Eastern Europe as revealed in the..."

From the Paper
"The war in Bosnia has baffled many. It would be hard to find a greater divergence between the ideals of any decent, civilized human being and what has gone on in the former Yugoslavia. To the liberals, it follows that this war is a problem for which there will be a solution--even though their record of counter-productive results from previous problem-solving ventures, at home and abroad, leaves them undaunted. Those who look first at the inherent constraints of a situation will find in Bosnia some of the most intractable constraints imaginable. One of these is the past--a history of bitter and lethal intergroup hatreds going back for centuries.


To many, the media images of the bloodbath in Bosnia have also obscured one basic fact: that the Bosnian war is not a civil war in its own right, but an extension of the Serbian-..."

From the Paper
"Ivan the Terrible, 1530-1584
This paper will discuss the life and reign of Ivan the Terrible. The discussion will include a description of Muscovy and Russia during the 16th Century and how Ivan affected this environment. Most of the paper will focus on the reign of Ivan, touching only briefly upon his personal life.


Ivan was born on August 25, 1530 to Vasily III and Elena Glinsky. Vasily III was the son of Ivan the Great, the Prince of Muscovy and ruler of Russia who freed Russia from the control of the Tartars (or Mongols). Vasily expanded and consolidated the power of Muscovy over the greater realm of Russia, establishing the ascendancy of Imperial Russia over the geographical area to the east of Poland. Elena Glinsky, Vasily's second wife, came from a family which had been exiled from Lithuania and was raised with western value..."

From the Paper
"The failure of socialism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union has been apparent in the last three years or so with the breakup of the Soviet bloc and the attempt to shift the centrally planned economies of these countries to a free market system by fiat. What may be less obvious is the degree to which socialism has failed in Western Europe, a socialism that had existed within the parliamentary democracies of that region. Geoff Eley examines the issue of socialism and whether it can be considered in crisis and as a failure, and he finds that it depends on what is meant by socialism. The underlying idea of socialism he finds robust and potentially valuable, but he is not so accepting of the socialism that has actually been implemented, what he refers to as "the unimaginative statist traditions consolidated on either side of the Iron Curtain since the late-1940s.". Eley's..."

From the Paper
"This research examines economic and political stability in Czechoslovakia and Poland from 1945 through 1993. Czechoslovakia separated into two sovereign nations--the Czech Republic and Slovakia--as of 1 January 1993. Thus, Czechoslovakia is treated as a unity in the greater part of this examination.

Background on Economics and Politics in Eastern Europe: 1945- ... "