Remaking the balkans

This analyzes the political and security implications for South-Eastern Europe resulting from the collapse of communism. For more than four decades the Cold War had ensured not only a flow of aid into the region but also a certain kind of stability, with Greece and Turkey belogning to NATO, Bulgaria annd Romania to the Warsaw Pact, and Yugoslavia and Albania retaining their independence. Now that it is no longer of strategic importance whether any of these countries change allegiance, the old disputes between states, and between nations and minorities within them, have assumed a more important role. There is a threat of some of these conflicts growing into civil wars within states (Yugoslavia, for example) or armed conflicts between states (Hungary versus Romania over Transylvania; Greece and Turkey over Thrace). This could pose problems not only for the neighbouring states but also for the international community as a whole. This study offers ideas on how the map of the Balkans might be recast to deal with some of these problems and how various international mechanisms could be used to contain crises in the short term.