Can the United States afford to be less concerned with security in its relation with Russia now that the Soviet Union has disappeared? This work argues that the Russian-U.S. relationship is metastable--small inputs can produce large changes--and that serious attention must be given to the cooperative management of common security. Leading experts examine several trends and problem areas in three different contexts--the transition from the Soviet Union to the Russian Federation and its implications for security and foreign policy; the relation between military power and international stability after the Cold War; the political, military, and technological means available for building a Russian-U.S. security community.