From Hamburg and Munchen to Tallinn and Burgas

This chapter covers a period of one and a half decades. During this relatively short period, Europe has moved from an unprecedented détente and positive peace towards negative peace and rising military tension. It was the result of two waves of the NATO eastwards enlargement and of the Russian reactions to this process. This chapter will analyse key events that occurred during this period as well as the role of the most influential operational realists and the attitudes of realist and neorealist thinkers.