ABSTRACT
U.S. policies toward the countries of Central and Eastern Europe aim to ensure their rapid and irreversible transition to democratic societies with market-based economies, and ultimately to build a more secure Europe. The scale of assistance required to support this historic transformation demanded an international pooling of resources—human, technical, and financial—and the coordination of efforts by the United States and its allies to avoid duplication and improve efficiency. As the countries shedding their communist mantles grew in number, the assistance programs of the United States and its allies evolved—as they learned from mistakes and grew in size and complexity.
From the beginning, the United States vigorously championed the cause of the Central and East European (CEE) countries— pressing its allies, especially the EC and its members, to open their 206markets to the CEE states and to accept them more readily into the greater community of Europe and the world. The United States also moved ahead with its own unilateral program of economic assistance, the “SEED” program and its unique Enterprise Funds. The United States also moved quickly to liberalize its trade regimes vis-à-vis the CEE states and proceeded with a number of other initiatives to promote U.S. trade and investment with the region.
U.S. efforts to promote the security of the CEE countries—which felt adrift since the collapse of communism in Europe and were troubled by the turbulence in the former Yugoslavia and unsettled conditions in the former Soviet Union—evolved from promoting closer relations with largely political and economic organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) to the contemplation of full membership in NATO. This latter goal has been advanced significantly with the launching in January 1994 of the U.S.-inspirea Partnership for Peace. The United States also has developed bilateral security relations with most of the noncombatants in the region, particularly with the Visegrad countries—the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia.
