ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the buffer effect of a belt of smaller states located on the periphery of a great power, in casu the Soviet Union. Eastern Europe, crisscrossing empire boundaries, will be analyzed as a region in which the larger portions have for substantial periods been firmly in the grip of one or another of the great powers. The difference between denial and dominance may be illustrated by the situation of Finland since 1948 vs. that of the rest of Eastern Europe in the same period; or possibly by the situation of Central America as opposed to that of Eastern Europe. The establishment of the state of affairs in Eastern Europe must be seen as a step in a gradual process of change initiated when the stable condition of previous centuries started giving way. Not until the end of the war, in 1919, were the immediate political implications of the long imperial decline in Eastern Europe apparent.
