Changing Military Doctrines in Central Europe

Abstract

After Yalta, the division of Europe into hostile camps became institutionalised. As a result of decisions made at Yalta, our continent shared an ill-matched security system of military alliances, achieved at an extremely high price. The European coalition system that emerged between 1947 and 1955 was flawed from the very beginning. Instead of creating genuine security borders, this system created ideological ones which, in turn, had been a fertile soil for countless misperceptions, collective enemy images, military automatisms signifying permanent direct danger, arms race psychosis serving the ‘balance’ mania, and an everyday cognitive world of messianistic ‘commitments’ that took the place of concrete obligations.