ABSTRACT
Introduction Central and Eastern European (CEE) militaries have undergone dramatic changes in the postcommunist era. All have conducted significant downsizing, reoriented their national security strategies and military doctrines to adapt to the post-Cold War strategic environment, and achieved the essential elements of subordination to democratic political control. Three CEE states, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland, were granted North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership in the first stage of NATO’s post-Cold War enlargement in 1997. Seven more received invitations at the Prague Summit in November 2002: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
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Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania. However, all cases are still victims of their Warsaw Pact legacies which have had a long-term impact on their societies, politics, and national security cultures. The greatest challenges exist in states that are adapting national security apparatuses inherited from the communist era. The Baltic states, Slovenia, and to some degree Slovakia, had the benefit of creating their national security systems from scratch.
