Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
This book blends analysis of Eastern European security needs, foreign threats, political explosions, and aroused publics in theoretical ways that pave the way to stable future defense postures and commitments for each of them. How has NATO and EU membership improved their overall defense protection, and what ingredients are still missing for them on an individual state basis? Individual chapters treat clusters of states that make up the various regions of Eastern Europe. For example, the three threatened Baltic states in the north will receive careful analysis. Second, the complex array of states in the Balkan area of Southeastern Europe merit examination, for their security conditions have been quite varied and diverse. For some, NATO and EU membership has become a reality, and for others that possibility does not yet exist.
Synopsis
Following the passage of the fifteenth and twentieth anniversaries of the entry of many former communist states into both NATO and the EU in 2019, this book takes a comprehensive look at the changed security conditions of these new member states. How has NATO and EU membership improved their overall defense protection, and what elements are still missing for them on an individual state basis? Utilising alliance politics theory, convergence/divergence theory, and defense policy theory, Lubecki and Peterson provide an invaluable assessment of defense policies, from the stable East Central European states to the most jeopardized Baltic states in the north of Europe. With chapters on the Cold War defense conditions during the last two decades of Soviet domination, the post 1989-91 transformations in the direction of democracy, and the impact of the 2014 Ukraine-Russia-Crimea crisis, this book is essential reading for those seeking to understand the changed landscape of European politics in the twenty-first century.
Synopsis
This book utilises three theoretical models to analyse the defence conditions and preparedness of all the states of Eastern Europe. It considers the transition from Cold War communism to post-Cold War democracies, the stability of the East-Central European States, the precarious defence positions of the Baltic states and the uneven defence preparedness of the Balkan states.