Europe & Russia

NATO After Enlargement: New Challenges, New Missions, New Forces Dr Stephen J Blank Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "In 1999 NATO will formally admit three new members and adopt a new strategic concept. In so doing, it will take giant strides towards effecting a revolutionary transformation of European security. On the one hand, it could be said that NATO enlargement closes the immediate post-Cold War period that began with the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. But on the other hand, enlargement raises a host of serious new issues for the Alliance and for U.S. policymakers that they must begin to address now. Bearing this fact in mind, the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) organized a conference with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in January 1998 to explore the new challenges confronting the NATO Alliance. These essays are the product of that conference."

Breaking Away from the Bear LTC Dianne L Smith Book by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Central Asian states preferred to ensure their security through the unified command of the Commonwealth of Independent States and collective security. But, the decision of Ukraine, and then Russia, to create independent republican forces compelled the Central Asian states to create their own armed forces. Depending on their relative success at developing viable military forces, each state has compensated with other tools of national power. Budgetary considerations and assessment of real-world threats have compelled each state to make hard decisions concerning relative investment in conventional armed forces, security forces, or border guards..."

European Security and NATO Enlargement: A View from Central Europe Dr Stephen J Blank Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "NATO’s enlargement represents a watershed event in European security. It closes the so-called “post-Cold War” epoch that began with the fall of the Soviet empire and opens the way to a new stage in European and American history. The tendencies that are now pushing Europe towards greater integration have received a new injection of energy. NATO has not only proven itself the only truly effective security provider among European institutions, it has also shown itself to be the moving force behind Europe’s other security agencies, particularly the European Union (EU)..."

Russia's Armed Forces on the Brink of Reform Dr Stephen J Blank Book by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "The Russian armed forces, by all accounts, are fast approaching a point of no return. The crisis in the armed forces is directly traceable to the policies of the Yeltsin government which have alternated among politicization, fragmentation of those forces into multiple, contending militaries, and the creation of a quasi-authoritarian political process where military policy is decided by irregular institutions that account to and answer to nobody other than President Yeltsin. Similar problems plague the defense economy which is probably still too large and at the same time misdirected, while being unable to support the forces presently under arms. In any case, nobody knows how many men are under arms or the cost of maintaining them, or where defense allocations go."

Shadow Politics: The Russian State in the 21st Century Dr Peter J Stavrakis Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "Assessments of Russia's future possess a lamentable tendency to oscillate between enthusiastic optimism about the development of free market democracy or brooding pessimism concerning the vitality of Russia's absolutist heritage, without providing many durable insights. The goal of this essay is to undertake a more penetrating analysis of a paradox of state power that lies at the heart of future Russian politics."

Multinational Land Formations and NATO: Reforming Practices and Structures Dr Thomas-Durell Young Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "In yet another incisive and detailed work focused on the changing face of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Dr. Thomas Young provided a unique perspective on a very timely issue—that of bi-/multi-national land formations within the Alliance. I say timely because, with recent Council agreement on the new command structure, implementation work on this structure will no doubt, in due course, result in a review of the NATO force structure. In this regard, Dr. Young's research and study provide an invaluable source of essential background reading for this subsequent phase of work."

NATO Enlargement and the Baltic States: What Can the Great Powers Do? Dr Stephen J Blank Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "As NATO enlarges and approaches the borders of the Baltic states, it faces one of the most difficult and complex security challenges in contemporary Europe. While the Baltic states crave membership in NATO, Russia deems that outcome as unacceptable, threatens to break cooperation with the West in such an event, and NATO allies themselves remain divided over the wisdom of Baltic membership..."

The United States and Russia into the 21st Century Dr Michael McFaul, Dr R Craig Nation Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "Russia can be counted as a European great power from the battle of Poltava in 1709, several generations prior to the American Declaration of Independence. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the Americas were of only modest interest to the huge, autocratic Eurasian land power, and relative neglect was fully reciprocated by the New World's rising maritime republic. A sensitive 19th century observer like Alexis de Toqueville was able to discern the seeds of future rivalry, but his insights were only hypothetical. Russia was pleased to sell all of Alaska to the Yankees for a pittance in the 1860s."

The Crisis in the Russian Economy Dr Vitaly V Shlykov Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "It seems as if the universal laws of economics do not apply to Russia. According to the economic theory, in the period of transition from a rigidly centralized economy to free market, prices are not set, state-owned businesses are privatized, and then there is a phase--2 or 3 years long--of painful adjustment and rising unemployment. After that--and this has been happening in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states--the economy starts growing."