ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the challenges posed by nationalism, civil war, economic crisis, and great power resurgence to the Washington treaty system, challenges similar to those which any contemporary European security order must anticipate. It analyzes the maintenance strategies implemented in response, and evaluates the success and failure of those strategies with an eye toward lessons. In the dawn of the post-cold war era, western political leaders face the challenge of creating and maintaining a new security order for Europe. The obstacles they face resemble in important ways those which their predecessors tried to surmount in the decades following World War I. Between the wars, decisionmakers faced the difficult tasks of creating and maintaining a complex security system in the Far East, a region which threatened to become a primary locus of instability. As events unfold in Europe, scholars and policymakers are focused on designing a new security order. Creating such a security system is only the first task, however.
