ABSTRACT
ONE WELL RECOGNISED TENDENCY of the dynamics of independence is that newly emergent states seek to increase their security and improve their trade positions through adopting policies that tend to reinforce the 'hard shell' of the modem nation-state. The former Soviet states, 'born sovereign' as a result of the rapid and sweeping disintegration of the political and economic ties of the Soviet period, have moved swiftly over the past decade to establish institutions of national policy, create or restore state-centric national identity, and develop foreign policies to pursue their newly formed national security and trade interests. Over the first decade of independence, many of the newly emergent states have discovered that cooperation with their neighbours, even those having like interests and similar goals, was not always easily attainable. Parallel interests, as they have discovered, do not necessarily imply cooperative behaviour. 1 Many of the states found that as a result of their sudden independence they were in a situation in which they were linked in mutual endeavours in pursuit of common security and economic goals in such a way that the more energetically they pursued those goals, the more likely they were to come into conflict with one another.
