U.S. Assistance to the Former Soviet Union

The Congressional Research Service, a department of the Library of Congress, conducts research and analysis for Congress on a broad range of national and international policy issues. Some of the CRS work is carried out specifically for individual members of Congress or their staff and is confidential. However, there is also much CRS compiled material which is considered public but is not formally published on the CRS website.

For that reason a number of other organisations try to keep track of these publications and make them publicly available via their own websites. Currently, ESO uses the following websites to track these reports and allow access to them in ESO:

EveryCRSReport.com
Federation of American Scientists (FAS)

In some cases hyperlinks allows you to access all versions of a report, including the latest. Note that many reports are periodically updated.Since 1992, the United States has provided more than $28 billion in assistance to the 12 states of the former Soviet Union (FSU). It continues to provide nearly $2 billion annually. This report describes the broad framework of U.S. assistance programs and policies in the region and then focuses on the FREEDOM Support Act (FSA) account under the foreign operations budget which, encompassing all U.S. objectives in the region, has often been the means by which Congress has expressed its views and sought to influence policy.

Three objectives have been most prominent in the U.S. assistance program to the region — facilitating the transition from authoritarianism to democracy, promoting the introduction and growth of free market economies, and fostering security by controlling the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and expertise. More recently, a fourth objective, very much encompassing the other three, has emerged — supporting the war on terror. A fifth objective of U.S. assistance, humanitarian relief, was mostly applied in the early 1990s in response to countries experiencing food shortages.

Under the State Department’s Coordinator of U.S. Assistance to Europe and Eurasia and encompassing all U.S. policy objectives, the FSA account has been a special interest of Congress since its creation in 1992. About $11 billion of the $28 billion in total U.S. aid provided between 1992 and 2005 has come from the FSA account. Under the terms of a continuing resolution (H.R. 5631/P.L. 109-289, as amended by H.J.Res 20 on February 15, 2007) the FSA account receives $452 million in FY2007 appropriations. Country allocations have not yet been determined. The Administration has requested $351.6 million for the FSA account in FY2008, about $100 million less than the previous year.

Perhaps the most notable feature of the FY2008 Administration foreign operations request is the proposed 22% cut in aid. With democracy challenged in Russia and making headway in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, as well as important U.S. interests in Central Asia, cuts might appear to indicate a low U.S. priority for the region.

The recent rise of democracy in Ukraine and Georgia and its evident decline in Russia have highlighted the role and possible need for U.S. democratization assistance. However, absolute levels of democracy aid to Russia in the FSA account have not increased since 1999 when it reached a level of $64 million; it is roughly $43 million in FY2006 and, under the FY2008 re quest, would fall to about $26 million. Aid to the FSU has always come with conditions. The majority of specific restrictions have been aimed at Russia. As a result, in most years as much as 60% of planned U.S. assistance to the federal Russian government has been withheld. Currently, the most difficult conditionality issue arises with respect to human rights and democracy in Central Asia. This report will be updated as events warrant.

Federation of American Scientists (FAS): Congressional Research Service [CRS] Reports https://fas.org/sgp/crs/index.html

EveryCRSReport.com https://www.everycrsreport.com/

---