The Euro-Atlantic Security System in the 1990s

Abstract

This chapter gives a description and the background for the Euro-Atlantic security system as it emerged after the Cold War and its functioning for about a decade. It shows the genesis of the system; and how it came to include the new Central European democracies, which were admitted to NATO and the European Union; and the cooperation of all the system’s members based on the concept of cooperative security. The evolution of the Euro-Atlantic security system in the nineties produced an asymmetry of security—greater in its western part and weaker in its eastern one. Russia was the weaker partner and agreed to cooperate with the West, but raised reservations about the expansion of its multilateral structures, especially NATO, in which it saw a potentially threatening political and military bloc with a Cold War pedigree.