As the United States and its allies increasingly turn their focus to the global war on terrorism and the stanching of WMD proliferation, strategic interest has risen significantly in those parts of the so-called new Europe that are close to areas of potential terroist and prolferation activities (sucah as Central Asia and the Middle East). This in turn highlights the importance of new and potential NATO members in Southeastern Europe, who can play a more important role both as contributors to future coalition operations. Indeed, the seven states examined in this srudy have just joined or still aspire to join NATO have an opportunity not only to consolidate their own progress toward fuller integration into the Euro-Atlantic community, but to contribute in a very concrete way to the new missions of the Atlantic Alliance, if their defense reform and modernization efforts are successful. With this particular point in mind, this study details current developments with regard to security policy formulation, military restructuring, defense industry adjustment, and regional defense cooperation in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Romania, and Slovenia. A perspective from Greece on these issues is provided as well, given Athens’s key role as a long-standing NATO member within the region and as an increasingly important security partner with a number of the countries examined.
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