The full-scale war launched by the Russian Federation against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, began under a false assumption regarding the underlying grand strategy.The ongoing conflict has presented difficult choices for the states in the former Soviet Union, who have approached it with a mix of rational calculation and emotional considerations, viewing it as a conflict between two once brotherly nations.While Russia continues to wield significant influence, and some states depend on it as a security guarantor, the general consensus among the ten states is that Russia's power and influence are waning.Consequently, they anticipate that Russia will pay less attention to its regional partners, allocate fewer resources to them, and that close association with Russia would strain relations with other important actors, particularly in the West.Russia's influence has led seven of the ten states to not fully align with either the West or Moscow.While multilateral cooperation through organizations like the CSTO and EAEU was not paramount due to the prevailing "hub and spoke" structure, these states now face a noticeable stalemate.Despite Russia's lingering influence, fueled in part by economic disparities, a rapid "growing apart" occurs in the area of the former Soviet Union.Some actors are distancing and disengaging faster than ever, leading to a shifting geopolitical landscape.

Ellentétben a hidegháború végének optimizmusával, Európa nem lett sem egységes, sem békés. Míg a kilencvenes években a fegyveres konfliktusok még éppúgy jelen voltak az egykori Szovjetunió térségében, mint az egykori Jugoszláviában, a 21. században Európa háborúi és kisebb intenzitású fegyveres összetűzései kizárólag a volt szovjet köztársaságok között vagy azokon belül zajlanak. A különböző irányokból kihívásokkal szembenéző Oroszország hegemón rendszert szeretne létrehozni, amelyben vezető szerepét senki nem kérdőjelezheti meg. Ez azonban hol más államok lakosságának, hol vezetőinek, hol mindkettőnek az érdekeivel ellentétes. Ezért az erőszakba torkolló bizonytalanság nem szűnik meg tekintet nélkül arra, hogy a térségben riválisként megjelenő hatalmak hozzájárulnak-e ahhoz, hogy Oroszország ellenségesként érzékeli környezetét, vagy bizonytalansága abból fakad, hogy a társadalmak távolodnak egymástól egy emberöltővel a Szovjetunió elmúlta után. Ez a tanulmány előbb általános megfigyeléseket tesz a széttartó erőkről, a posztszovjet azonosságtudat lehanyatlásáról, majd néhány térségbeli elhúzódó konfliktus megoldatlanságán és szaporodó számán mutatja meg az egyáltalán nem megnyugtató tendenciákat, végül leszűri a következtetést: Európa Közép-Ázsiát is magában foglaló keleti vége változékony mértékben, továbbra is békétlen marad. Olyan térség, ahol a szervezett erőszak alkalmazása része a politikának.

Central Asia is a region where the OsCE has been engaged for more than two decades, including with missions and field presences in all five participating states. This engagement reflects the hope that these countries will gradually align themselves with the values, principles and norms of the organization. The region, however, presents the following challenges. First, Central Asian states strictly adhere to state sovereignty and want to constrain the OsCE's involvement in domestic affairs. Second, these states prioritize the organization's economic and ecological dimension, and want to reduce the importance of its human rights dimension. Finally, the activity programmes of the remaining OsCE field presences in the region are subject to the approval of host governments.

This article presents the reaction of the East-central European (ECE) countries, members of the EU and NATO, to the Coronavirus pandemic.Understandably, there are major similarities as the pandemic-a global challenge-hit every state of the region, by and large, in the same way.The geographical location, size (absence of great powers), and historical traditions led to the exposure of these countries to the pandemic being closely aligned.The points of international reference of these small and medium-sized countries can be seen to align in different directions as to which other states they watch and often follow when deciding about their steps in such a global crisis.This article cannot be fully comprehensive and will, therefore, focus on the reactions of health and emergency services.It raises the question as to whether any similarities are deterministic or whether there are noticeable differences due to the variety of their political systems and current history.

International Organizations and State Failure Prevention: The Dilemma of the OSCE Operations in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan 1998–2017. By Steve Schlegel. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2019. 369 pp. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Figures. Tables. Maps. $97.00, paper. - Volume 79 Issue 4

IntroductionBetween 14-18 May 2018, the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies brought together 54 civilian, law enforcement and military mid- to senior level security policy practitioners and experts from 19 countries in order to

The CSCE-OSCE has strong legacy in conventional arms control both as far as limitations and reductions and constraints on military activities.Although the last two decades since 1999 did not add much to the arms control acquis and there was a "retreat" in arms control with the suspension of the CFE Treaty.It is Germany that keeps European conventional arms control on the agenda as part of security dialogue since the Harmel Report of 1967 and takes symbolic initiatives as a demonstration.Although compliance is not full and some activities demonstrate the intention to cheat, their level is more important as part of the communication of the main parties rather than of direct strategic significance.

Between 23-27 January 2017, the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, brought together sixty civilian and military midto senior level security policy practitioners and experts from 26 countries in order to collaborate on the second European Security SeminarEast (ESS-E). The group’s task was to explore how to address the hybrid threats and contribute to making the West, as redefined since the end of the East-West conflict, more resilient against them. However, the definition of the prospects had to be based on an accurate and realistic assessment of the security situation and the concerns that are associated with the security challenges emerging in Europe’s east. The meeting was held at a turbulent and somewhat unpredictable time, during the week after the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, a few months after the Brexit referendum and a week before the renewed intensification of hostilities in the southeast of Ukraine between the Ukrainian armed forces, the separatists and those that back the latter. As the seminar addressed potential responses to hybrid threats, including building resilience to counter them, it faced the challenge of working with ill-defined categories and overcoming disagreements as far as their meaning and interpretation.

Central Asia is the 'best customer' of the OSCE. It is the area of five post-Soviet OSCE participating states that are in significant need of support by the organization that prides itself on cooperative security and that have many shortcomings primarily in the humanitarian dimension, which the organization should foster to change. Central Asia has demonstrated less political and socio-economic transformation since its independence than it could have. While it receives reduced interest due to the declining importance of those two matters that contributed to it (rich natural resources and energy bearers and the vicinity of Afghanistan), the OSCE is the organization where Central Asia is 'at home'. Central Asian states would like to face less soft persuasion (and even less hard pressure), but they would like to benefit from the assistance of the organization and its participating states. It is for this reason that there is more than one OSCE in Central Asia trying to meet the different needs of the area.

This chapter will address the role of certain European and Euro-Atlantic organizations in European security, in light of recent developments and with a view to the future. It is necessary to emphasize that this analysis will thus necessarily remain partial and lop-sided. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to take into account the role played by universal international organizations in conflicts on the "old continent." Neither will it take into account other regional organizations such as the Council of Europe, or those institutions that have been established in the former Soviet area and which have played practically no role in conflict management (understandably, given the strong hegemonic dominance of Russia in the decision-making of organizations such as the CIS, CSTO or the EaEU).

Conflicts and their management in Central Asia have never been prioritised by the osce although five states of the region are among its participating states. This has been due to that unlike in some other parts of the post-Soviet space most of the conflicts did not threaten with military escalation, and the intensity of strategic rivalry is less noticeable in this distant part of the osce area than closer to the heart of-Europe. The fact Russia is not a direct party to the conflicts in Central Asia also reduces the interests of many participating states. There was one high intensity conflict in the region, the Tajik civil war that came too early for the osce. Lower intensity conflicts, ranging from border skirmishes, disputes about access to water, violation of rights of national minority groups, rigged elections are monitored and their resolutions are facilitated by the organisation. Some of them, like the 2010 Kyrgyz-Uzbek conflict had such short shelf-life internationally that no consensus-based inter-governmental organisation could have effectively intervened into it. The osce has been successful in conflict management when the party or parties also wanted to break the stale-mate that the Organization could facilitate. Domestic change in some Central Asian states is essential for advancing the osces cooperative security approach.

Pál Dunay *IntroductionSince the so-called Kosovo conflict of 1999 the views of states, including those of major players, have been divided as to whether it was a humanitarian intervention or the collective aggression of NATO member states. In 2014 the R