European Security: New, Old and Borrowed

Pekka Sivonen
Additional contact information
Pekka Sivonen: Tampere Peace Research Institute

Journal of Peace Research, 1990, vol. 27, issue 4, 385-397

Abstract: A conceptual distinction is made between the Cold War and the Cold War system. The former lasted from 1946-47 until about 1963, when the political freeze of East-West relations began to melt. However, the structural features of the system remained until 1989: the role of superpowers and politico-military blocs, the high peacetime level of military confrontation in Central Europe. This Cold War system was based on perceiving the risk of a major European war as both a problem (conflict escalation) and a solution (deterrence). However, over the years the dominant role of the superpowers and the alliances contributed to the management of tension reduction, and provided a framework for organizing negotiations. The system itself contributed to its own disappearance. Today, the organizational framework created during the years of the Cold War system plays a central role in managing the transformation towards increasing security dependence. Eventually, a comprehensive European security regime may emerge. Preparations for such a combined political and security order would seem to include developments on three dimensions: all-European security, military cooperation and politico-economic integration. Rather than systemic stability, the immediate objective should be predictability of change. In this situation, developing formal organizations is of secondary importance. What is urgent is to create a network of institutionalized rules for internal and international state behaviour.

Date: 1990
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/27/4/385.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:joupea:v:27:y:1990:i:4:p:385-397

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Peace Research from Peace Research Institute Oslo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().