South-Eastern Europe in quest of national security and Euro-Atlantic integration

Abstract

This paper highlights the problem of national security that has been a subject of extensive debates in the South-Eastern Europe since 1989. After the collapse of the USSR in late 90’s, the most Eastern European states have decided to join Western institutions. The main questions of the integration are: Which new national security concepts do emerge in the region of SEE? How were challenges for security defined in these concepts? How did Bosnian tragedy influence on the improving of security concepts? Will NATO be considered only as the military power or as organization able to accelerate economic modernization in South-Eastern Europe? When will NATO countries accept the idea of enlargement? Which are the basic requirements for the candidate states? How did NATO enlargement influence on NATO transformation? Does NATO Membership Action Plan have any new peculiarities? The theoretical frames of this article are based on the Regional Security Complex Theory. RSCT demonstrates why particularly the security determines the development of all other spheres of social and political life in the peripheral (unstable) regions. The security of each actor in the region interacts with the security of the other ones. There is strong security interdependence within the region, but not among regions. This feature has an impact on the region and makes the regional security an interesting area of study. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the process and results of formulation of the new security agenda in South-Eastern Europe.