Russia's army in the year 2005. (speech delivered by Hoover Institute Senior Fellow Richard F. Staar before the Presidential Lecture Series, Rice University, Houston, Texas, Nov. 2, 1994)

The former Soviet Union faces a number of scenarios for the future. It could unite into a common economic region with a single military and political command or a collapse of economic ties that will encourage authoritarianism. Another scenario pictures fragmentation, with the breakaway of four regions, while yet another centers on a successful coup d'etat by the army.