V. Conclusions

Chapter:

4. Euro-Atlantic security and institutions: rebalancing in the midst of global change

Source:

SIPRI Yearbook 2010

Author(s):

Alyson J.K. Bailes, Andrew Cottey

The 20th anniversary in 2009 of the fall of the Berlin Wall offered a chance to review how far European security has come since the cold war, where the transition remains incomplete and what new challenges demand solution. The EU, NATO and the OSCE can all claim credit for allowing much of Europe to be reunified through enlargement without East–West violence, for damping down conflict in the Western Balkans, and for starting to seriously tackle new functional and global aspects of security. As this chapter illustrates, however, the unresolved aspects of coexistence with Russia, the future of the post-Soviet space generally, and European action in the wider world are the focus of serious self-examination in the EU, NATO and the OSCE which began in 2009 but will continue in 2010 and beyond.