Neutral Beyond the Cold

The concept of neutrality in the international system dates back more than 350 years, but it gained particular salience after 1945, when Europe and the Asia-Pacific region were divided between rival Cold War blocs led by the United States and the Soviet Union. The starkness of the Cold War divide spurred some countries to seek permanent neutrality, avoiding affiliation with either bloc. Outside Europe, as decolonization led to the emergence of dozens of new states, many joined what became the Nonaligned Movement, a grouping that eventually encompassed 120 countries around the world. The end of the Cold War division of Europe in 1989-1991 prompted speculation that neutrality in the post-Cold War world had lost its raison d'etre. This book shows that such claims were incorrect. Although the meaning of neutrality has changed in the post-Cold War era, the concept retains much of its cachet. The essays gathered here explain why many countries nowadays continue to pursue some variation of neutrality. Even readers who might question some of the arguments in the book will find it an exceptionally valuable and stimulating collection of ideas about the multiple forms of neutrality in the post-Cold War international system.

This volume opens a fascinating overview on how the fluid, varied and always contested policy of neutrality has traveled through the post-Cold War decades -- disappearing here, resurfacing there. Extending the scope of analysis in both analytical and geographical terms, the chapters of this volume truly reach beyond the established western and Eurocentric Cold War and post-Cold War narratives of neutrality. The end of neutrality has been proclaimed many times in history, yet, as this volume shows, as long as there will be wars and conflicts, there will be formulations of neutrality as well.