DB4E

Eastern Europe is more than just a geographic concept. We tend to look at it from the cartographer’s point of view in terms of geography. But it is more than just that because what goes along with that is a distinct culture and also a distinct socio-economic pattern. For the most part, when we've looked at Eastern Europe, we've thought of it in terms not of geography, but rather in terms of politics. And so, the concept of Eastern Europe was typically seen as the Communist party states associated with the Warsaw Pact as allies of the Soviet Union. And in that sense, Eastern Europe stretched all the way from Poland, south, going as far as Albania and even Yugoslavia. With the changes in Eastern Europe that were brought about because of relationships with the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia cease to be seen as part of the Soviet Bloc. But it was still part of Eastern Europe in political terms because it was a socialist economic entity. Justice Albania repudiated its ties with the Soviet Union. In the early 1960s, continued to be more than anything else, a rigid Marxist-Leninist, Stalinist state. All of this then underscored the history of the region, its relationships with the Byzantine Empire, with the Orthodox Church. Also, there was the influence of the Ottoman Turks. Probably the best-known country in Eastern Europe to the, in the mind of the average American is Romania. Romania is probably more significant than any other of these nations because of its hostile relationship with the Ottomans. And the most famous remaining evolve time, of course, lad SEPIC better Normally it's Dracula is somebody whose reputation hinges zone. His resistance to the Turkish invaders and his use of psychological operations to undermine their forces. The use of developed terrorist tactics against the Turks that really were successful in stopping the Turkish advance through Eastern Europe. And of course, where it was initially focus known as its ultimate objective was Western Europe. And so Eastern Europe was seen largely as a political entity. With the collapse of the communist party states in Eastern Europe. Though we're once again forced to make a redefinition of what we mean by Eastern Europe. And we recognize that Greece is just as much a part of eastern Europe as Slovakia is a part of Eastern Europe. Something else, it also has changed with the collapse of the Communist Party States has been attitudes toward ethnicity. Ethnicity in the communist party era was suppressed, at least in part because this was nationalism. In nationalism is seen as the antithesis of class consciousness. And so, in an effort to promote an environment in which people define themselves by their relationship to the means of production rather than by their language or their cultural heritage. There was an effort to suppress ethnicity. The best and most violent example of this is Yugoslavia, where the majority Serbs and Croatians effectively govern without emphasizing their Serbian Croatian identity. In fact, the one room in Yugoslav politics and later Serbian politics. I don't talk about ethnicity. With the collapse of Tito or with the death of Tito. In the 1990's, this situation changed. And finally, Milosevic emerges is the Serbian later. And Milosevic is the first prominent Yugoslavian politician to talk about ethnicity. And his emphasis on ethnicity hastened the war in Yugoslavia, which began in full measure in 990 one and spread to Kosovo and involved eventually American and British involvement in that war. One thing that has been important in our examination of Eastern Europe, one theory is the Heartland theory. And it does a lot to explain the important relationship between Eastern Europe and Russia. The Heartland theory was based on the notion that whoever controls the heart land of Europe, which was Eastern Europe, would be in an advance, advantageous position to dominate all of Europe. For decades. That was the Soviet Union. For decades, people that tried to assess the geopolitical future of the region focused on Russian control over Eastern Europe. With the collapse of the East European economies, with the deterioration of the Soviet economy. And in 990 one, the collapse of the Soviet Union, East, East Europe was finally able to assert itself completely from Russian domination. In fact, most of that was accomplished during the revolutions of 1989. This has had a tremendous impact on Russia's geopolitical position as the Soviet Union. This was truly a multi-national state. And you could look at the different regions of the Soviet Union. And you saw in all of this that the Slavic regions really accounting for no more than 50 percent of the population of the Soviet Union. And so what this indicated very early on was the deterioration of the dominant Russian position. With the collapse of the Soviet Union. This brought a humiliation of Russia in particular. And that ushered in the Yeltsin administration. And Yeltsin was not regarded as a serious figure. If you look at Russian diplomats today, people who will talk about Russian politics with, without siders. The one thing upon which they agree is that Yeltsin did not do justice to Russia. The enthusiasm that exists for, for Putin is based enlarge measure on the belief that Putin has been responsible for the restoration of Russian dignity, if not the Russian Empire. Those other regions it used to be part of the Soviet Union. In varying degrees have fallen under a certain amount of Russian influence. Central Asia, for example, independent, ethnically distinct, broke away from Russia in the years after the collapse of Soviet Union, Uzbekistan played a very important role in US policy. In 2001, when the United States responded to the Al-Qaeda attacks, the United States use the same basis in his back withstand that the Russians had used to invade Afghanistan a decade or so before that. That close relationship between the United States in Uzbekistan did a lot to help keep the Russians out. And the Uzbeks, for their part, wanted to do this. In the interest of human rights concerns. Early in the Bush administration, relations between Uzbekistan in the United States deteriorated. And with that, Russia has been able to reassert itself and its Pakistan, along with the Chinese. This has had an important geopolitical impact in that it weakens American leverage, but it's also had a negative impact on the human rights situation. With all of this, what we see is Russia's geopolitical situation is under pressure today because of ethnic considerations. In particular, the fact that this country is becoming increasingly Islamic. And you can look at this in many ways. If you see the number of mosques which exist in the Soviet Union collapsed. There were about 300. Today, there's about 10 thousand, and the number is increasing at the popular level today, there's a great deal of prejudice against Muslims. And there's a general perception that you can express that hostility without any repercussions. But it is a reminder of the fact that Russia is still sensitive about its security situation and recognizes that they face that challenge from radical Islam. Just are the European nations and the United States face a similar challenge.