ABSTRACT
As the preceding chapters have indicated, the end of Soviet hegemony in Central and Eastern Europe and the collapse of the USSR have been followed by a whole raft of new security concerns, perhaps even more dangerous in their unpredictability. Ethnic conflict is clearly the "heir to the throne" of Soviet Russia as the perceived number-one global security issue of the post-Cold War era. Both the conflicts that have boiled over on what is now Europe's periphery, from Bosnia to Chechnya to Tajikistan, and the tensions that are as yet only simmering will shape the future of peace and stability in Europe for the next decade.
