Review: East European Security Reconsidered
| Published date | 01 December 1994 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209404900417 |
| Date | 01 December 1994 |
| Author | Stanislav Kirschbaum |
| Subject Matter | Review |
964
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
EAST
EUROPEAN
SECURITY
RECONSIDERED
Edited
by
John
R.
Lampe
&
Daniel
N.
Nelson
in
collaboration
with
Roland
Sch6nfeld
Washington:
Johns
Hopkins
University
Press
for
Woodrow
Wilson
Cen-
ter
Press,
1993,
X,
217pp,
$14.95
paper
This
collection
of
high-calibre
essays
deals
with
a
difficult
topic:
east
European
security.
Whereas
half
a
decade
ago,
questions
of
security
would
have
had
primarily
a
military
meaning,
with
the
fall
of
commu-
nism
in
autumn
1989
and
the
subsequent
changes
in
the region
the
concept
has
been
broadened
to
include
economic,
social,
and
political
issues.
Only
the
environment
is
absent from
the
list.
As
a
result,
the
essays
in
this
volume
examine from
different
angles
the problems
and
challenges
of
security in
an
area
that
for
over
four
decades
had
its
security, in
all
of
its
meanings,
defined
by
the
Kremlin.
The
essays
were
prepared
for
a
conference
in
Potsdam,
Germany,
in
June
1992
in
which
Canadian, American,
and
German
scholars
par-
ticipated.
All
were
revised
for
publication
to
include subsequent
changes
in
central
Europe,
in
particular
the
break-up
of
Czechoslo-
vakia.
Each
is
well
researched
and
documented,
and
the
reader
inter-
ested
in
such
questions
as
the
link between
domestic change
and
international
relations,
the role
of
Germany
in
central
European
secu-
rity,
the
process
of
change
and
democratization
in
the
post-communist
states,
economic
disintegration, the
post-Soviet
state's
security
concerns
in
the
area,
and
reintegration and
minority
problems
in
central
Europe
will
find
ample
material
from
which
to
draw
and
debate.
Two
essays
are particularly
intriguing.
Christoph
Royen
looks
at
potential
conflict
constellations
between
the
four
countries
of
the
Viso-
grad
triangle
(Czech
Republic,
Hungary,
Poland,
and
Slovakia)
and
the
western
members
of
the
Commonwealth
of
Independent
States
(Russia,
Belarus,
and
Ukraine).
He reassures
the
reader
by
indicating
that
in
comparison
with
southeastern
Europe
(where
the
war in
Bosnia
still
rages)
the potential
for
conflict
appears
rather
abstract.
Still,
he
is
cor-
rect
to
suggest
that
a
system
of
interlocking
arrangements,
composed
of
bilateral agreements,
subregional
integration, and
expanded
co-
operation
could
prevent
the
outbreak
of
future
conflict.
The
second
essay,
by
Bennett
Kovrig,
is
on
the
need
to
create
coherence
in
central
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