14 - IIASA Conference '07 on Global Development - 14-15 November 2007

Yegor Gaidar

Managing Nuclear Proliferation: A Response

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Lecture Summary

After hearing Nobel Prize Laureate Thomas Schelling present his rather optimistic interpretation of the recent nuclear past and a nuclear future, Yegor Gaidar – Director, Institute for the Economy in Transition, Russia – scraps his own prepared conference address to respond. Gaidar warns the world underestimates the danger of a mistake leading to the first use of nuclear weapons in warfare since 1945.

Gaidar warns that soldiers playing with nuclear weapons always risk disaster. In Cuba, during the missile crisis of 1962, Russian nuclear warheads on the island “were not controlled by Moscow. It was for a three‑star general to decide whether to use them in the event of a [US] invasion.” The reason? US missile silos were so close that there would not be time – 8 minutes isn't long! – to refer back to Moscow if someone feared that had been launched.

NATO weapons in Poland today would be able to reach Moscow in four minutes, says Gaidar. They pose a similar risk. US reassurances that the weapons were not aimed at Russia would not help. “The military are trained not to trust.” Accidents will happen.

Speaker Biography

H.E. Dr. Yegor Gaidar is Director of the Institute for the Economy in Transition, co-Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Union of Rightist Forces, and Vice-President of the International Democratic Union. He was the 1996 Hitchcock Honorary Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the 1997 Terry Sanford Distinguished Lecturer at Duke University, North Carolina.

Dr. Gaidar earned his PhD in Economics from Moscow State University in 1987. He worked as a researcher, journalist, and government minister of the Russian Federation at the threshold of reforms and just afterwards. He has served as First Deputy Prime Minister, Acting Prime Minister, and Minister of Economy and Finance.

After resigning from the government, he became founder and the Chairman of the Democratic Choice of Russia, a pro-market liberal party, and was elected to the first Russian Duma (Parliament) in 1993. From 1992 to 1994, he was also Counselor on Economic Policy to the President of the Russian Federation, but resigned in protest over the war in Chechnya.

In 1996, while holding the positions of Director of the Institute for the Economy in Transition and Chairman of the Democratic Choice of Russia party, he became Vice-President of the International Democratic Union and returned to research. He established the Union of Rightist Forces political party in 1998 and became its co-Chairman. From 1999 through 2004 he was once again a Member of the Russian Duma.

Dr. Gaidar is the author of several monographs and has authored over 200 papers.

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Last updated: 03 Apr 2009