ABSTRACT
The shift in the tectonic plates under the eastern part of the continent, which could already be felt in the mid-eighties, triggered the political earthquake of the winter of 1989-1990, the aftershocks are rocking the former Soviet Union and have fundamentally recast Europe's strategic landscape. New security regimes have emerged, the brainchild of concerted efforts by the former enemies. One must admit that the former Soviet territory is still ringed by Western military bases, that NATO strategy has not yet been fundamentally revised, and that new military technologies are still high on the Western agenda. The most important problem of the European process in the late 1980s and at the very beginning of the 1990s was seemingly that of politico-military stability in the midst of the momentous changes sweeping the continent. The task of restructuring the former Soviet armed forces has become much more complex since the Commonwealth of Independent States was founded in December 1991.
