Small States and Alliances: The Case of Slovenia

Abstract

In the eight years after attaining its independence, Slovenia has accomplished several essential changes for the successful transition from an authoritarian to a democratic society and political system. One of the fundamental issues of this process of democratization concerns the formation of a new national security framework and, within this, the creation of a system which ensures the effective military defense of the country. Slovenia, which is a small, newly established European state, has since independence been confronted with a number of options concerning the military aspect of its national security. These options are as follows:

• 1. the need for Slovenia to form its own armed forces and to rely upon collective systems of security;

• 2. to gain the status of armed or non-armed neutrality;

• 3. to sign defense agreements with other states;

• 4. to enter the process of European integration and to achieve Slovene membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and/or the Western European Union (WEU); and

• 5. a combination of two or more of the options mentioned above (Grizold, 1996:403).