Security and Peace in Post-Cold War Europe

Abstract

This paper discusses security and development issues in Europe's recent history and immediate future. The issue is how the security system affects the pattern of economic development and, conversely, the long-run effects of development on security. To understand this relationship a longer historical perspective is needed. Too much attention has been given to the EC `1992 project' compared to the more unplanned `integration' or political homogenization of greater Europe. Three distinct phases in terms of security orders are distinguished: the Hundred Years' Peace (1815-1914), the Cold War security system (1949-89) and an emerging system called the New European Security Order. We are at present entering a turbulent transition period in which several paths are open. A number of risk factors are identified and analysed. The way the security order is established and immediate security crises managed will influence the possibilities of developing a stable peace order, defined as a structure free from major contradictions and low conflict propensity. A European Peace Order, as distinct from a European Security Order, would presuppose a global peace order, the crucial feature of which will be regionalization on various levels of the world system in accordance with the model of `benign mercantilism', including Europe itself, where subregionalism may emerge as a new form of balance of power politics as an alternative to Pax Germanica.