East Central Europe after the Warsaw Pact

Andrew A. Michta examines the security of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary in the aftermath of the 1989 collapse of communism and the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe. He reviews the old geopolitical dilemmas in the region as well as the new conditions in Europe as it approaches the remainder of the decade, and offers a country-by-country discussion of security policies and military reforms underway in the region. The analysis is set against a background discussion of the region's history as well as a review of the key events leading to the disintegration of the Warsaw Treaty Organization, including the reformulation of Soviet security policy in the late 1980s. Michta concludes with an assessment of security challenges facing the Triangle states of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary as they work to join Western Europe by the end of the decade. He argues that the Triangle will remain in a gray security zone in Europe for the foreseeable future, with an implicit security commitment from NATO, but without explicit formal security guarantees.