In this book, James W. Peterson and Jacek Lubecki construct a comparative framework through which to explore post-Cold War defense policies. In doing so, they outline the readiness that four nation-states - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia - have shown to confront the Russian challenge that has emerged since 2014. The analysis is anchored in the unique historical experience of each of the four countries, whose legacies infuse the overall character of their current defense postures. The book contributes to understandings of the evolution of defense capabilities, foreign policy approaches, and specific policies of the four respective countries since 1989. The key theoretical concept concerns the alternation of the defensive themes of convergence and divergence. The four nations share imperial pasts, their establishment of independent statehood after the First World War, submission to Nazi regimes in the late 1930s, the rise of ruling communist parties after the Second World War, and anti-communist revolutions in 1989. However, they have also diverged in many ways relating to defense policies, including the nature of the imperial powers under which they lived before 1914, the divergent political systems that evolved in the interwar period, their diversified challenges to communist rule, and varied responses to Russian advances toward the region that were evident in the 2014 Ukrainian-Crimean crisis.

This book will be useful to students and academics in the areas of political history, comparative politics, international relations, and post-communist studies. Foreign policy practitioners in Europe and the United States will also gain valuable information from this work.