Nordic Security in a Europe Without the United States

The five Nordic countries have quite different security problems and geostrategic settings and have made very different choices about their security policy. They will thus react differently to the new balance of forces in Europe that results from the revolutions in Eastern Europe, the disintegration of the Soviet empire, and the unification of Germany. Should these sweeping changes also be accompanied by a U.S. withdrawal from Europe, the Nordic countries would again react in unique ways. An optimistic view of the 1990s would see great benefits to the Nordic region from the end of the Cold War and the confrontation between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact, and the establishment of a more cooperative pan-European security arrangement. Defense planners in the Nordic countries should also plan, however, for the possibility of greater instability on the Continent, which might generate the need for new security arrangements, different alliance relationships, and a rethinking of the meaning of neutrality in a multipolar world.