ABSTRACT
International security in the twentieth century was dominated by what Stanley Hoffmann has described as “a permanent dialogue” between two contending traditions.1 The first tradition emphasizes the recurrence and repetition of violent conflict in world politics. It is a “tradition of despair” that focuses on the propensity of states to pursue power and engage in relentless competition. According to this realist view, international politics is a kind of anarchy characterized by an inherent lack of trust, with states locked in a security dilemma from which they cannot escape. As such, the future is likely to be like the past, with violent conflict an ever-present possibility. The second tradition is more optimistic about the prospects for international security. It rejects the deterministic view that violence is inevitable and sees peaceful change as being not only necessary but possible. This liberal, or what its detractors have called utopian, school recognizes the brutal nature of international politics but sees the opportunity for cooperation and communitarian values to transform international politics in a more peaceful direction.2 This chapter focuses on the impact of this “permanent dialogue” on the evolution of European security in the post-Cold War era. To set the scene, the first section looks
at the dominance of liberal thinking in the interwar period and realist thinking during the Cold War period. Section two considers the resurgence of liberal thinking at the end of the Cold War reflected in the attempt to build a new European order based on ideas of cooperative security. Section three goes on to consider the limits to the process of communitybuilding that emerged from this “new thinking” about security and highlights the continuing influence of realist thinking in the contemporary debates about European security. The chapter ends with a discussion of the attempts to reconcile the two competing traditions and the ambiguity in European security that this has created.
