Birds Of A Feather The Curious Case Of U.S. - Polish Military Partnership And Defense Reform.

摘要

I. Introduction and Thesis. In 1989, the house of cards called communism collapsed in Central Europe. Regimes and political parties that had endured nearly unopposed for 40 years suddenly ceased to be. Much like William Cowper Brann's socialites of the 1890s, these sartorial kings and pseudo-queens have strutted their brief hour on the stage, disappearing at daybreak like foul night-birds or an unclean dream....1 Standing in the ruins of this precipitous demise were the leaders of the democratic rebellious factions, who were now charged with putting their countries back together again. In the decades since, there has been much academic work published on the marvelous transformation of communist political and economic enterprises into liberal democracies with market economies. However, another remarkable revolution has taken place that scarcely is appreciated or recognized: the successful transformations of communist-era militaries from instruments of control and repression into sources of national pride and stability.