Euphoria and Realism in Post-Cold War European Security

Abstract

Soon after the end of the East-West conflict, European security became the subject of heated debate and speculation. This review of five recent books on the topic aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion. It has now become fashionable to speak about a `new security architecture' and to concentrate on the role various institutions may play under today's fundamentally changed conditions. Such an approach is somewhat misleading, because it does not focus on the problems but rather on the relations of organizations. A main problem is the re-emergence of nationalism and ethnic strife in Eastern Europe. Here one must pay close attention to the domestic developments of the new democracies. If these countries fail at home, first of all economically, they will certainly fail internationally as well. More attention should have been paid to these factors. Most of the books reviewed agree that formerly Western organizations like the EC and NATO will become the core of the new institutional setting in Europe, only one of them gives precedence to the CSCE. The latter approach seems more realistic. Scenario analysis reflecting unpredictability has become very popular recently. This can be valuable if authors make clear which factors determine the likelihood of the realization of one scenario or the other. If not, outlining various scenarios serves no other purpose than to mask unpredictability.