Security Policies of European Countries Outside the Soviet Sphere

Security policies of states have a military and a diplomatic aspect. For the European countries outside the Soviet sphere a basic characteristic of their security policies is the extent to which these are aligned to the American- European security relationship. A typology of security policies is set up based on military and political alignment. There are five types: Faithfuls, Marginals, Neutrals, Partners, Fortresses. For the last two types, scores differ con siderably. For various reasons these types also have higher defense burdens than the others, which in their turn do not differ systematically on this count. Military alignment does not necessarily coincide with political alignment. To the extent that alignment is one dimension of security policy at all, it is apparently a different one from defense burden. Although the types are quite stable over time, some evolution occurs: variation in military alignment in creases, political alignment with the US generally decreases, defense burdens diminish. Cross-unit and over-time differences are related to power position and geography, but there also seems to be an element of routinization to explain the evolution of the system. It is finally argued that the trends towards qualitative changes in the system unfortunately are not necessarily for the better.