After World War II, the escalating tensions of the Cold War shaped the international system. Fearing the Worst explains how the Korean War fundamentally changed postwar competition between the United States and the Soviet Union into a militarized confrontation that would last decades. Samuel F. Wells Jr. examines how military and political events interacted to escalate the conflict. Decisions made by the Truman administration in the first six months of the Korean War drove both superpowers to intensify their defense buildup. American leaders feared the worst-case scenario-that Stalin was prepared to start World War III-and raced to build up strategic arms, resulting in a struggle they did not seek out or intend. Their decisions stemmed from incomplete interpretations of Soviet and Chinese goals, especially the belief that China was a Kremlin puppet. Yet Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il-sung all had their own agendas, about which the United States lacked reliable intelligence. Drawing on newly available documents and memoirs-including previously restricted archives in Russia, China, and North Korea-Wells analyzes the key decision points that changed the course of the war. He also provides vivid profiles of the central actors as well as important but lesser known figures. Bringing together studies of military policy and diplomacy with the roles of technology, intelligence, and domestic politics in each of the principal nations, Fearing the Worst offers a new account of the Korean War and its lasting legacy.

This report assesses the "Washington Consensus" on liberalizing markets in pursuit of sustained economic growth. In 1997, the "Asian Economic Miracle," thirty years of rapid growth and low inflation, ended abruptly with runs on Southeast Asian currencies and a massive flight of capital, precipitating deep economic recessions. Meanwhile, the countries of Southeast Europe had been struggling to reconstruct market economies out of the shreds left by socialist economies, their efforts complicated by civil strife or war.

Both regions had been urged by international organizations to adopt a package of policies, often called the Washington Consensus, of opening domestic markets, freeing trade, and opening domestic capital markets to free movements of international capital. Did the crisis in Southeast Asia, and related crises in Russia and Latin America, call into question that advice?

To address that question and study creation of sustained growth, the September 17-18 1998 conference at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars examined these two regions. Panels reviewed the roles of international institutions, central banks, and currency boards; fixing of exchange rates; opportunities and problems of foreign investment; U.S. policy and the international institutions; and financial globalization. Participants included officials from international financial institutions, national banks from the regions, and the United States, as well as economists, historians, and researchers.