Neutral Beyond the Cold: Neutral States and the Post-Cold War International System

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the wars in Yugoslavia radically changed the security environment in Europe and Central Asia. Some predictions assumed the emerging unipolarity of the liberal world order would end neutrality policies in East and West, but, as this volume shows, this was not the case. While some traditional Cold War neutrals like Sweden and Finland have been edging closer to security alignment with western institutions, there are others like Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, and Malta that remained committed to their traditional nonaligned foreign policy approaches. More importantly, there are areas of Eurasia that developed new forms of neutrality policies, most of them only noticed on the margins of academic discourse. This is the first book to systematically explore this “new neutralism” of the Post-Cold War. In part one, the book analyzes contemporary neutrality discourse on several levels like international organizations (UN, ASEAN), diplomacy, and academic theory. Part two discusses neutrality-related policy developments in Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Serbia, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Mongolia. Together, the 15 chapters show how on this vast, connected landmass references to neutrality have remained a staple of international politics.

Table of Contents:
Part I: Re-imagining Neutrality in the Post-Cold War Chapter 1: Neutrality and Geopolitics: Responding to Change by Laurent Goetschel Chapter 2: Neutrality and Small States: A Strategic Approach by Hillary Briffa Chapter 3: Neutrality and Neutralization: A Geopolitical Statecraft by Herbert Reginbogin Chapter 4: Neutrality and Peacemaking: A Compass for Austrian Peace Policy by Thomas Roithner Chapter 5: Neutrality and Diplomacy: Voices of Diplomats by Eva Nowotny and Peter Jankowitsch Chapter 6: Neutrality in International Organizations I: The United Nations by Angela Kane Chapter 7: Neutrality in International Organizations II: ASEAN by Charis Si En Tay Part II: The New Neutrals in the Post-Communist Space Chapter 8: Belarus: Between Alliance and Neutralism by Yauheni Preiherman and Pascal Lottaz Chapter 9: Moldova: The Whims of Neutrality Politics by David X. Noack Chapter 10: Ukraine: Overcoming Geopolitical Insecurity by Heinz Gärtner and Maya Janik Chapter 11: Georgia: Neutrality as an Alter

About the Author :
Heinz Gärtner is professor and lecturer in the department of political science at the University of Vienna and Danube University. Pascal Lottaz is adjunct professor at Temple University Japan and adjunct researcher at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study. Herbert Reginbogin is professor of international relations and international law and currently fellow at The Catholic University of America.

Review :
The concept of neutrality in the international system dates back more than 350 years, but it gained particular salience after 1945, when Europe and the Asia-Pacific region were divided between rival Cold War blocs led by the United States and the Soviet Union. The starkness of the Cold War divide spurred some countries to seek permanent neutrality, avoiding affiliation with either bloc. Outside Europe, as decolonization led to the emergence of dozens of new states, many joined what became the Nonaligned Movement, a grouping that eventually encompassed 120 countries around the world. The end of the Cold War division of Europe in 1989-1991 prompted speculation that neutrality in the post-Cold War world had lost its raison d'être. This book shows that such claims were incorrect. Although the meaning of neutrality has changed in the post-Cold War era, the concept retains much of its cachet. The essays gathered here explain why many countries nowadays continue to pursue some variation of neutrality. Even readers who might question some of the arguments in the book will find it an exceptionally valuable and stimulating collection of ideas about the multiple forms of neutrality in the post-Cold War international system. This volume opens a fascinating overview on how the fluid, varied and always contested policy of neutrality has traveled through the post-Cold War decades -- disappearing here, resurfacing there. Extending the scope of analysis in both analytical and geographical terms, the chapters of this volume truly reach beyond the established western and Eurocentric Cold War and post-Cold War narratives of neutrality. The end of neutrality has been proclaimed many times in history, yet, as this volume shows, as long as there will be wars and conflicts, there will be formulations of neutrality as well.