Over the last several years, world politics has entered into a period of transition that rivals in depth and scope the changes of the immediate postwar era. These changes intrigue many observers all the more since they materialized from orderly and otherwise unexceptional processes rather than among the convulsive aftershocks of war. Nowhere do the effects of these changes stand out more clearly than in Europe.

Brief years after a United States president reaffirmed the Cold War commitment to combat the Soviet Union's “evil empire,” the bipolar division of the European continent is rapidly disappearing. The strident and divisive themes suffusing Cold War rhetoric find little support in emerging visions of world governance and order. After having spent the last four decades trying to undermine the Soviet Union's position in Eastern Europe, the West now encourages Gorbachev's tenure of power in the interest of European stability, as one-party regimes in Eastern Europe topple to be replaced by more competitive political systems. Suddenly, DeGaulle's ambitious call for a Europe “from the Atlantic to the Urals” is upstaged by the possibility of “a unified Europe stretching from Cork to Kamchatka.” While the dismantling of the Soviet bloc and the uniting of the two Germanies serve as striking symbols of the powerful forces of change sweeping Europe, a more subdued revolution continues in Western Europe centering on the European Community (EC).

The causes and consequences of changes across the continent undoubtedly interconnect on a number of points.