The Dilemmas of Collective Security

Abstract

A prominent feature of the cold war regime was that it defined a very definite structure for European security. This was based on a fundamental systemic conflict which expressed itself in the deployment of military forces on a substantial scale, held in check by the nuclear strategic stalemate. At the same time, as we have seen, a political process of consultation and co-operation between the two sides developed, for which the Conference on Cooperation and Security in Europe (CSCE) provided the institutional framework. Embedded within the larger framework of East–West detente of the CSCE was Germany’s Ostpolitik. Both detente and Ostpolitik, just as West Germany’s alliance and European policies, were based on an explicit institutionalist approach, with elements of what we now would call constructivism. The essence of this approach was that the tension between East and West could be mitigated by the absolute gains both sides made as a result of participation in the institutions of detente. As a result, they would have a stake in the continuation of these institutions and this would, in the long run, transform the nature of the relationship itself. This was called Wandel durch Annäherung.