History has forced Central Europe to become accustomed to politics of the extreme. Central Europe historically has been a region where states have rarely conformed with the nations living within their territorial boundaries; states in the region have merged, disintegrated, disappeared, and even been moved to different locations. Perhaps because of these historic experiences, Central European nations have become accustomed to the extreme; they have demonstrated remarkable resilience and capacity to reassert national will.
During the eighteenth century, Germany comprised more than 350 independent duchies and principalities. By the end of the Napoleonic era, Germany comprised roughly forty states; only to be finally unified by Otto von Bismarck after the Franco-Prussian war in 1871. Defeat in World War I and the Treaty of Versailles mandated Germany's loss of the Alsace-Lorraine to France, Poznan West Prussia to Poland, the Hultchin district to Czechoslovakia, and Memel to Lithuania. Danzig became a free city.
Hitler's attempt to resurrect the Third Reich led to World War II and Germany's defeat again, which resulted in the four power occupation of Germany's capital Berlin, the loss of much of its eastern territory, and the division of the remainder of Germany into two states; the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and German Democratic Republic (GDR).
The German Democratic Republic's brief history has been one of dramatic changes. After Germany was physically moved 125 miles westward to make room for the "new" Poland, the GDR emerged under communist rule. Because of the communist Socialist Unity Party's (SED) complete loss of control and legitimacy in the Fall of 1989, the GDR was "unified" (in reality absorbed) on October 3, 1990 to become five "eastern" laender in a united Germany and NATO. The GDR simply disappeared. In Orwellian fashion, the former cornerstone of the Warsaw Pact now finds itself in NATO; an organization that had been for 40 years the GDR's "enemy" object and formed its raison d'etre. Germany's unification exemplifies Central Europe's return to historical patterns and NATO's ability to expand east.
Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia have also experienced historic transformations; each has thrown off the yoke of 45-years of communist party domination and regained national sovereignty; each is attempting to erect liberal democratic political institutions, establish market economies, guarantee civil/human rights, acquire civil control of its military, and join the European Union and NATO. At the same time, they successfully negotiated the withdrawal of Soviet (now Russian) forces from their soil, contributed to the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CEMA)--structures that provided some semblance of economic and political-military order to the region--and observed Germany's unification to the west and the Soviet Union's disintegration to the east.
Poland's history has also been a study in politics of the extreme. After experiencing three partitions during the 18th century which ended in Poland's total absorption by Prussia, Russia, and the Hapsburg Empire, the Polish state disappeared from the European stage in 1795. Statehood was finally resurrected for the Polish nation only at the end of World War I by the Treaty of Versailles when the Russian part of Poland aligned itself with Polish areas under German and Austrian rule to establish the independent Polish Republic.
Poland's experience with democratic rule was brief; in May 1926 it ended with Marshall Pilsudski's coup and military dictatorship. This was followed by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, resulting in the German and Soviet attack on Poland on September 1, 1939. With Germany's impending collapse, Soviet military forces entered Poland in 1944 and "temporarily" occupied the country with its Northern Group of Forces. Communist rule followed. Despite popular challenges to communist rule in 1956, 1970, 1976, and 1980-81, Polish democratization did not begin until 1988-89.
Hungary remained an isolated linguistic and cultural island within the Hapsburg empire and managed to gain a semblance of autonomy from Hapsburg rule after the 1867 ausgleich, which created the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy. As a successor to the Danubian Monarchy after World War I, Hungary was considered one of the powers responsible for the war. As a result, the Treaty of Trianon greatly reduced Hungary in size by ceding Slovakia and Carpato-Ukraine to Czechoslovakia, Croatia-Slavonia to Yugoslavia, Banat to Yugoslavia and Romania, and Transylvania to Romania. Hungary's efforts to develop democratic institutions in the interwar period also met a similar fate as the rest of Central Europe, ending in Admiral Horthy's dictatorship.
During World War II, Hungary participated on the side of the Axis powers; hence, its Trianon-mandated borders remained unchanged. After the war Communist takeover and rule terminated Hungary's newly acquired independence. Hungary's effort to revolt in 1956 was thwarted by Soviet invasion and resulted in "temporary" occupation by the Soviet Southern Group of Forces. With its revolution in 1989, Hungary, too, embarked upon a liberal democratic experiment for the third time this century.
Czechs lost their statehood after the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, when they were absorbed under Hapsburg rule. After the 1867 ausgleich, the Czechs remained under Austrian influence and Slovakia under Greater Hungary. Czechoslovakia, also recreated after World War I by the Treaty of Versailles, was the only Central European state during the inter-war period to maintain democratic rule under Thomas G. Masaryk and Edvard Benes. Hitler's demands for the Sudeten lands at Munich in September 1938 interrupted Czechoslovakia's brief twenty-year democratic interlude. In March 1939 the Third Reich totally absorbed Czechoslovakia; though they permitted an independent fascist state to exist in Slovakia between 1938 and 1945.
When Czechoslovakia once again set out to establish liberal democratic political rule after World War II, a communist coup in February 1948 interrupted the experiment. Czechoslovakia's efforts to create "socialism with a human face" in 1968 were thwarted by a Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion and resulted in the "temporary" stationing of the Soviet Central Group of Forces in the country. The November 1989 Velvet Revolution marked Czechoslovakia's third twentieth century effort to establish liberal democratic institutions.
Framed against this tumultuous background, the revolutions of 1989-90 provide a number of challenges to European security. One of the immediate consequences has been the unleashing of aspirations of 80 million Central Europeans (16.3 million East Germans, 37.8 million Poles, 15.7 million Czechs and Slovaks, and 10.6 million Hungarians) to "return to Europe." Reflecting this popular will, the new Central European governments have adopted policies designed to join West European political, economic, and military institutions; the European Union and NATO. And it is in Europe's and the United States' interest that this process succeed!
Another consequence of the 1989 revolutions has been the unleashing of tribal and ethnic instincts and aspirations that had been contained for forty-five years by Soviet-imposed instruments of order and control. Likewise, it is in Europe's and the United States' interest that Central Europe's return to history does not flow in anti-democratic directions or result in intra- or inter-state conflicts.
Central Europe faced new challenges during late 1991-1992, when post-World War I state-disintegration extended to Europe's east and south. After the failed 18-19 August 1991 Soviet coup, the USSR disintegrated. At the end of 1991, Yugoslavia disintegrated. As a result, Europe witnessed the creation of many "new" independent states: from Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia in the Baltic; to Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia in the Balkans; to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova in Eastern Europe. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) also emerged. The future complexion of these new states' governments and alliance orientations also will have a profound impact on the security of Central and Western Europe.
European institutions are important to Central Europe because they legitimize the programs of their political leaders to society. But NATO is especially important because it anchors the United States to Europe and provides additional psychological security to these states which have been so tossed about by history. NATO, with its trans-Atlantic ties, is seen not just as an Article 5 guarantee against aggression but as a stabilizing instrument that ensures continued statehood.
The challenge to the U.S. and Europe posed by the historic processes unleashed by annus mirablis is not just to accommodate the aspirations of eighty million Central Europeans to re-establish liberal democratic rule and rediscover their historic heritage, but to ensure that the revolutions succeed. This is necessary because Central European liberal democracies represent a model--a roadmap--to the other Eastern and Southeast European nations and states such as Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania; Yugoslavia's and the USSR's successor states--who also seek a return to Europe.
Indeed, one might argue that if the liberal democratic experiments fail in Central Europe--in united Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia--that the likelihood of, and opportunities for those other Eastern or Southeast European states wanting to re-enter Europe will become quite bleak, if not impossible. If such a denouement were to result, then from the vantage point of the twenty-first century, the revolutions of 1989, rather than representing events of momentous historic proportions, will come to symbolize nothing more than a manifestation of the West's ability to seize failure from the jaws of Cold War "victory." And twenty-first century European history will be doomed to revisit the twentieth century.
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