European Security after the Cold War

Abstract

For over four decades, the Federal Republic of Germany was at the frontline of the military confrontation in Central Europe. As the postwar European security architecture, dominated by the cold war and the confrontation between two blocs dissolved at the end of the 1980s, the structure of the international system of states in Europe and of European security had begun to undergo a complete transformation. What would happen after the end of the cold war and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? If the Soviet Union was no longer a threat, what kind of threats to national security would there be, and how could they be addressed? More importantly, what would the European system of states look like with the Soviet Union and the East European states no longer being opponents of the West, but partners. How could the West make sure that the transition from adversaries to partners would be successful, and not fall foul of new authoritarian regimes, brought to power by economic and social chaos? From 1990 onwards German policymakers (and especially Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher) were conscious of the need to transform the collective defence structure of the cold war era into pan-European collective security structures. This was in part motivated by a sense that the end of the cold war and the withdrawal of Soviet/Russian forces from Central Europe was an uncertain process and that everything possible needed to be done to ensure that it was completed and that the realignment of international relations moved in the right direction. The objective was that, with the end of the bitter political and military confrontation of the last 40 years, Eastern Europe including the former Soviet Union, would become part of a system of democratic states united by a common set of values and principles.¹