Introduction

Eastern Europe1 has been in the forefront of international attention since the evolutionary modifications initiated in Hungary and Poland in mid-1989 and the extraordinary revolutionary changes in the political makeup of the entire area, including the Soviet Union, since then. These transitions, one at a time, have been swelling a flood that has rapidly gushed across one of the critical watersheds of postwar economic, political, strategic, and security arrangements in Europe. For the time being, although the foundations of that divide have been severely damaged, it has not yet been replaced by a more robust structure.