The price of freedom. (former Soviet Union)

In the next 43 pages, journalists from 10 "new" countries describe their nations' costly struggles.

Even Mikhail Gorbachev, "architect of perestroika," "godfather of glasnost," and "hope of the West," could not have imagined the consequences of his brief, eventful presidency. In the end, his desperate efforts to preserve the Soviet Union failed. He ended up as the last leader of the huge empire of communism. And now that the Soviet empire has bought the farm, 15 new countries have come into existence--not in theory but in political, economic, and social reality.

These developments were so sudden and so surreal that the world often treats the new nations as if they were in the realm of virtual reality--take the visor off and you can ignore them. In this issue of the Bulletin, journalists and specialists from even the most obscure of these new nations demonstrate that this is not so. Whether we understand or not, whether we approve or not, reality has shifted, and we ignore these new countries at our peril.

Let me run down a list of armed political and ethnic conflicts just in the 10 nations we treat in this issue. (We have eliminated Russia and Kazakhstan, which the Bulletin visited in the January/February and October 1993 issues, respectively. And to simplify our task a bit, we are not treating the Baltic states, which became part of the Soviet empire last and left first--and are now trying their best to regain their place in the West European community.)

Armenia is at war with Azerbaijan, in a conflict that seems destined to be as endless as those in the Middle East. Georgians who support President Eduard Shevardnadze are fighting with Georgians who support …