The collapse of the poltical and social systems in Central and Eastern Europe ten years ago and the subsequent revolutionary transformation of the international system has set the greatest challenges to the countries of the very region where it all began. The states and societies in the Eastern half of Europe, in the long rim stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea region and into the Caucasus, have had to rebuild not only their economic, political and social structures and legal and administrative systems, but also to rediscover and redefine their national and state identities. A vital part of their experience in the post-Cold War period has been the search for security in a new security environment. What is implied by the often-quoted ambition of democratic security building, faced by the countries in transition, consists in fact of three parallel tasks: the organisation of civil-military relations in a manner compatible with the basic tenets of democratic systems; the linking of the said states to wider patterns of pan-European and trans-Atlantic security co-operation; and the understanding and adoption of the concept of comprehensive security. In this book, which is a result from international research collaboration, five authors from the Baltic Sea and Black Sea regions analyse the security complexes of their respective regions and the search for viable security policy alternatives.