Exploring Europe's Future: Trends and Prospects Relating to Security.

摘要

The postwar order in Europe has come to an end. The contours of the new order are still vague and in the making. Canonical military threats are disappearing, replaced by the risks that flow from uncertainty. 'Managing peaceful change' is replacing 'managing deterrence' as the key security task confronting governments in Europe. The future architecture of European security is hardly discernible; the states of Europe have embarked upon a journey toward a destination unknown. For heuristic purposes we can posit a set of alternative European futures, not as an attempt to predict the unpredictable, but rather to explore the end points of alternative trajectories from the present. One possible future is a 'Europe of the balance of power,' characterized by shifting alliances and a clear hierarchy of power and influence. Major European powers constitute the key players; the United States, though not having retreated into isolation, has divested itself of the chains of an entangling alliance. Another possibility is a 'Europe of two alliances,' essentially a security order based on a reconstitution of the recent past but in a modified form.