NATO, Neutrality and National Identity

András Kovác

When the cold war was over, a vehement discussion of the new alternatives in security policy started in almost all former Warsaw-Pact States and in the neutral and nonaligned nations, Austria and Hungary among the latter. These nations' entry into the NATO has been the pivotal question. These discussions were the subject of comparative research that was done in Hungary and Austria. The results are presented in the book "NATO, Neutrality and National Identity - the Case of Ausria and Hungary". The book does not focus on the manifold security problems that the concerned nations' joining of NATO would entail but deals with the discourses and debates on neutrality and NATO. The argumentation strategies that were applied in these discourses and debates touch on important motives of national identity and are thus creating identity. Moreover, the NATO discussion is a discussion on security...