European Security: A View from East-central Europe

Pál Dunay,Geneva Centre for Security Policy,16 September 2008

East-central Europe

The eastern part of Central Europe. Former socialist/communist countries that were historically East of the Elbe and West of the border of the Soviet Union. (Former non-Soviet Warsaw Pact (NSWP).) The three Baltic states qualified in this group so did Slovenia and Croatia.

Civilizational divide. Empires until 1918... Since then: Small and medium-size countries

EUROPE in 1970

End of the Cold War

The countries of the region used this period for rapid internal and external politico-economic re-orientation.

Challenging tasks: Everything urgent... Countries with little political stability.

(governments come and go). Does not help complex transformation.

Externally: abolish the past, integrate in a new future.

Benign external environment in the 1990s

The advantage of thinking in regional terms. Residual threat perceptions. Difficult to

identify. Difficult to answer the questions:

- Who is the source of threat?- What is the source of threat?

Yugoslavia: War without horizontal escalation tendency.

The changing status quo

Support to the change of political status quo.

- The decisive role of the U.S. in the process.

- Pro-change of status quo in East-central Europe.

- Earns credit in the region. Resistance to change remains limited from

the „loser” of the process: Russia.

The New Europe

Unification or redivision of Europe? Ignoring soft resistance. „Return to Europe” (Hável) Terminating the „ferry-boat country status”. Keep supporting the change of status quo in

the western Balkans. Support for support...

Integration

Institutional integration followed grass-root economic, political and military integration.

Moving from policy-taker to policy-shaper status? (And certainly not to the status of policy-maker.)

Interactive process: The geopolitics of Europe is affected by East-central Europe’s participation in the EU and NATO.

The early-21st century

The global change of status quo under U.S. leadership continues and divides Europe.

ECE hesitantly (?) follows the U.S. The more the countries of the region are

concerned about their security, the more forthcoming they are on supporting the U.S.

The illusion of Europe „whole and free” recedes in a distance and finally vanishes.

Status Quo

U.S.: Seize the moment to continue to change the global status quo. Costs are mounting...

Russia: Builds its own sphere of influence (empire?) and finds the time appropriate to reverse the status quo that has changed to its disadvantage.

Brezhnev-doctrine for the 12 former Soviet republics?

The Problems for East-central Europe

Whose position should countries of the region share if their mentors show in different direction?

The geographic confines of their interests. Security matters are broadly defined and more

integrated with other issues. How could any of these countries deny the right of

others for peaceful democratic transformation when they have benefited from the same process?

Tendencies

A new combination of old and new security matters.– Terrorism?– Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction?– Organized crime.– Energy security.– Hegemonic aspirations to curtail the freedom of

choice of other countries.– Militarization of the political conflict between

Russia and the West.

No new structure, new agenda

The structure of international relations has not changed since the early-1990s.

The issues have changed, most notably with 9/11.

The recent assertive politics of Russia vis-a-vis countries that have embarked upon „colour revolution” is worrying for the region.

No new structure, new agenda (2)

The reaction to the redivision of Europe:- No interest in the division for some.- Joining the conciliatory line of some western countries (Germany, others?)- Confrontational line – resisting the revision of the status quo – for some others.

Are we heading to a world that we once understood? No, but...