ABSTRACT
This article will discuss NATO’s impact on the wider historical currents of south-eastern Europe. It will be argued that the coming of the major Cold War alliances in the Balkans integrated regional historical problems within the global conflict, and had a profoundly moderating effect in the behaviour of the regional powers. Thus, a definite pacification was achieved between the western states of Greece and Turkey with the main Soviet ally in the region, Bulgaria. Ironically, this ‘definite’ pacification was not accomplished in the infra-alliance dispute between Greece and Turkey, although the alliance exerted a moderating influence on that level as well. The article will not discuss states which were not fully integrated in the institutions of the Cold War, such as Yugoslavia, which, however, became the focus of regional destabilization in the post-Cold War period.
