Southeastern Europe and European security architecture

Traditionally the Balkans had no geopolitical center, gravitating toward great powers outside their own geopolitical space. After the end of the Cold War, the disintegration of Yugoslavia, along with the preceding dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, created a security vacuum in the Balkans. Wars in former Yugoslavia & regional transition problems have decreased international geoeconomic interest in the Balkans. The incorporation of SEE into a wider security architecture is necessary to avert military & nonmilitary threats to the region's stability. "Security architecture" refers to a set of institutions & relations among those institutions. The international community has a sufficient military presence & interest in SEE. Nonmilitary challenges are more difficult to meet. Normalization of relations among SEE countries might ameliorate the current situation of "unstable stability." One could envisage the inclusion of the SEE region as a whole into a new European Security Architecture. 28 References. Adapted from the source document.