On an unusually cloudy July day in London in 1990, the heads of state and government at the annual NATO summit declared with sunny optimism that a new era beckoned in central and eastern Europe. The declaration itself was banal bureaucratese: invitations to initiate diplomatic contacts, plans to prepare a force structure that would move away from “forward defense” towards “flexible response.” It was, as always, the backchannel talks that were far more interesting.
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