Anatomy of Post-Communist European Defense Institutions: The Mirage of Military Modernity

摘要

This year NATO celebrates the 20th anniversary of the joining of its first former Warsaw Pact members (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic) and the 15th anniversary for seven other Eastern European nations. As such, it is fitting to take stock of the progress made by the armed forces of those nations towards integration, including steps toward the important goal of adopting Western democratic defense concepts. Thomas-Durell Young does just that by providing a sobering appraisal of progress to date in his new book Anatomy of Post-Communist European Defense Institutions: The Mirage of Military Modernity. The study benefits from good timing in light of recent criticism of NATO's enlargement policy by US President Donald Trump. From the outset, Young states quite unequivocally that Alliance efforts over the past 25 years to reform post-Soviet defense institutions have failed. This is not due to a lack of effort. Indeed, NATO has spent untold billions on training programs for aspiring and new NATO members. The United States alone inserted $2.5 billion into the Partnership for Peace program. Yet in spite of such expenditures, the author euphemistically assesses NATO's return on investment in this endeavor as modest. The truth, sadly, is that notwithstanding better equipment in places and spotty advances in readiness in other places, it could be argued that the state of defense Institutions in post-Warsaw Pact NATO nations is no better than when those nations joined the Alliance.