1. The Integration of the Western Balkans in NATO: a Logical Step in the Strengthening of the Regional Security Community in South East Europe
- Author:
- Plamen Pantev
- Publication Date:
- 07-2021
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for Security and International Studies (ISIS)
- Abstract:
- In the Spring of 1991 Mette Skak, a Danish political scientist, and the author of this article, discussed in Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridsky” during a BulgarianDanish conference the possibilities of building a security community in the Balkans – in a similar way as it has been created in the Nordic region of Europe and in the territory covered by NATO and then European Community (EC). The core idea of this concept, elaborated during the 1960s by the American political scholar Karl Deutsch, was to get rid of war as a method of solving conflicting interests between states. It is unthinkable and inapplicable for the member countries of the security community to use force in case of a dispute among them. Of course, certain preconditions are to be met by the participating states and key among them is compatibility of the values of the societies and the states in the group. The discussion led to naming this idea of the two scholars as ‘political science fiction’. To some extent this assessment was true – the wars in a dissolving Yugoslavia had not yet started, the former federation has been lured by the EC, USA and still existing USSR to preserve at any cost its integrity, the animosities of the Cold War Balkan international relations were still persisting, the national democratic transformations in the former totalitarian states were just beginning to toddle.
- Topic:
- NATO, Regional Cooperation, International Security, Military Affairs, and Regional Integration
- Political Geography:
- Bulgaria, Balkans, and Southeast Europe