ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the security challenges of two small post-Soviet states, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia. It explains and compares the way that each of them has responded to these challenges, and discusses what policy lessons may be learned. The collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 led to the creation of fifteen newly independent states that needed to formulate foreign and security policies allowing them to meet the challenges of a new international system and a transformed geopolitical environment. Moldova is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and borders upon NATO and the EU. The EU fears that the Transnistrian conflict and the instability it brings will affect the security and stability of the EU itself. The collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in the collapse of a Georgian state that included Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two breakaway republics with de facto independence from Georgia since 1990.
