ABSTRACT
The end of the Cold War in 1989 produced two monumental changes in the nature of European defense and security arrangements. First, and most obviously, the enormous military power of the Soviet Union was gone. With a rapidity that seems all the more remarkable in retrospect, the Soviet/Bolshevik menace that had influenced European history for more than 75 years had disappeared. In the years immediately following the end of the Cold War, Russia turned much of its focus away from defense and toward its massive domestic problems. Events in the 1990s, most notably a war in the breakaway republic of Chechnya (1994-1996) also distracted Russian attention. As a result, Russia played a much reduced role in the defense plans of European states. The absence of a Russian threat truly revolutionized the nature of European politics and defense. Expenditures on defense dropped dramatically and many European states ended conscription.
