New Security Challenges in Postcommunist Europe: Securing Europe's East by A. Cottey D. Averre (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 98I outrightcontradictionsand illogical conclusions. To cite but two examples, in the introductory chapter Moran presents the low and declining levels of military professionalism in Russia as a major finding of his work. In direct contradiction, he writes in the conclusion that it was the Russian military's 'institutional professionalism that actually motivated them to engage in increasingly more aggressiveforms of praetorian behaviour' (p. 204). Whilst the explanatory power of 'subjectivefragmentation'has a certain appeal for some episodes of Russian civil-militaryrelations discussedby Moran, it does not follow that the civilian leadership's'divide-andrule' strategycan account for ideological divisionsamongstthe Russianofficercorps. Regrettably, the empiricalevidence presentedby Moran does not make up for the lackof clarityof his argumentation.The predominant sourcesused are English-languageliteratureand media reports.Russian-languagesources are limited in the main to a number of newspaper articles. Many authors have attempted to make sense of the military'spolitical role in post-Soviet Russia. Unfortunately,Moran'sbook has generated more questionsthan answers. Centrefor Russian andEastEuropean Studies B. RENZ University ofBirmingham Cottey, A. and Averre,D. (eds).JNew Security Challenges inPostcommunist Europe: Securing Europe's East.ManchesterUniversityPress,Manchesterand New York,2002. iX + 2I7 pp. Notes. Index. ?45.00; I5.99. WITH the end of the Cold War, rethinking the meaning of security became somethingof a cottage industry.Questions have been raisedaboutthe subjects of security, whether the state, the individual or the planet, the broadening source of security threats, and the process by which events become 'securitized ', or elevated to the status of a security threat. This book localizes this process of rethinking in the region from which it originated, i.e. Europe, highlighting the fundamental questions about securityand identity raised by the watershed events of I989-90 and the decade after. Locating the Eastern boundary of 'Europe', and the significance for its cultural or institutional embodiment, have been at the heart of debates over the enlargement of NATO and the EU, aswell as the conflictin the formerYugoslavia. The various chaptersin the book examine these issuesin relationto distinct challenges. The firsthalf of the book analyses the dynamics of enlargement, including how this has shaped the security perspectives and concerns of differentparties. Stuart Croft'schapter on NATO enlargement askshow the alliance moved in the space of five years from one whose interest did not include enlargement to an open door policy minus Russia. Rather than a product of carefullyweighed strategicoptions, enlargement, he argues, stems from the unwillingnessto create alternativesecuritystructuresto NATO, and the inevitable logic flowing from this. The structuralfocus on NATO and its enlargement, along with the EU, has subsequently created a dynamic of exclusion and inclusion, which is explored by MarkWeber in chapter three. He arguesthat enlargementhas creatednew formsof exclusion. However, the excluded have been drawn into different degrees of formal cooperation, 982 SEER, 8 2, 4, 2004 therebyavoidinga re-creation ofdeepdivisions reminiscent oftheColdWar, as predictedby some. In the immediatepost-ColdWar period, security concernsweredrivenby fearsof a renewedColdWarthreatfromRussiaor thepossibility of a threatfroma reunified Germany.Inchapterfour,Handl, Longhurstand Zaborowskiargue that Germanyhas not slippedinto its historical hegemonicrole,buthasreplicated, in itsrelations withtheCentral andEasternEuropeancountries(CEECs), thehighlyinstitutionalized forms ofcooperation thatdeveloped betweentheFRGandWestern alliesduringthe ColdWar.Chapterfiveby SergijGalaka,shiftsto theperspective ofUkraine which, in the post-Cold War period, finds itself trapped between East and West, stilleconomically dependent on Russia, on the one hand, while striving for EU membership on the other;caught between two poles of power, that is, Russia, on the one hand, and an expanding NATO, on the other. In chapter six, Viktor Kremenyuk explores the Russian perspective,viewing the Kosovo Waras a watershed,following the optimisticexpectations of cooperation with NATO in the immediate post-Cold Warperiod. He examines three potential options for Russia, all of which assume the possibility of a new conflict with NATO, while recognizing thisis something Russiacannot afford.Kremenyuk argues that the major task of Russia is to evaluate the existing balance of power and look for a means to restorethe balance between Eastand West. The firstsection emphasizes how securityis being redefinedvis-a-visstates in Europe, particularlyagainst the background of enlargement. The second section shiftsto furtherdimensions of security. In chapter seven, Dov Lynch looks at peacekeeping as a new dimension of thinking about conflict management, examining the various debates that emerged over the appropriaterelationshipbetween peacekeepingandpeace enforcement...