Collision and Collusion The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe

When the Soviet Union's Communist empire collapsed in 1989, the West had won the ultimate victory--it had driven a silver stake through the heart of communism and buried it at last. Soon after, the nations of Eastern Europe needed aid to reconstruct themselves as democratic states and full partners in the First World Order. Collision and Collusion tells the bizarre and sometimes scandalous story ofthe West's attempts to aid the former Soviet block. An expos on a classic tale of greed, ignorance, and the use (or misuse) of tax-payers' dollars, Janine R. Wedel looks behind the scenes at the bureaucrats, politicians, and consultants who worked to set up Western economic and political systems in Eastern Europe. Collision and Collusion details the extraordinary costs of institutional ignorance, cultural misunderstanding, and unrealistic expectations.

Janine R. Wedel is an associate research professor and a research fellow at the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Affairs at George Washington University.