Introduction: the Professionalisation of Armed Forces in Postcommunist Europe

Abstract

The collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe had a profound impact on armed forces across the region, and all the postcommunist states have faced significant challenges in relation to defence policy and military reform. The political and strategic environment that regional defence policies and armed forces had developed to address altered fundamentally with the end of the Cold War. In addition, the 1990s saw a shift in the role of armed forces more generally, with broad technological, geostrategic and societal changes challenging the utility and legitimacy of previous systems of military organisation, and in particular those based around mass armies and conscription. Professionalisation is a useful way of analysing these developments. It encompasses regional processes of military reform, and is closely linked to the technical and political demands and developments of the postcommunist period — not least of which for many states is the desire for closer integration with Western security institutions, particularly the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the European Union (EU).