This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part argues that alternative options that were discarded, or not even considered, might have produced better results. It deals with the role the European Community/European Union (EU) had in those transformations, particularly the ways in which they projected a distinctly Western set of institutions, practices, norms, and ideas in post-1989 Europe and beyond. The part examines the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the EU, i.e. the combined Western formula for the new European order, with the seemingly more ‘logical development’ of a shared solution, a negotiated, comprehensive pan-European security system. It shows that ‘the end of the Cold War retrospectively offered a window of opportunity through “a common European home,” embodied by the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which was shut in the face of Russia.’