Publication

This report describes how during the Cold War, northeastern Europe was a strategic backwater for the United States and received relatively little attention from US policy makers. However, since the end of the Cold War, the region has become an important focal point of US policy. The Clinton administration gave northeastern Europe high priority and viewed the region as a laboratory for promoting closer regional cooperation and re-knitting Europe, both East and West, into a more cohesive economic and political unit. The report describes how the policy of the Clinton administration was also designed to reach out to Russia and include Russia in regional cooperation arrangements in northeastern Europe.