The Post-cold War European Security Research

The security problem is restricting the survival and development of Europeancountries, influencing the peace and prosperity of this area, too. Meanwhile, the studyon security problem is an important component for the studies on Europe. WithAmerican getting entirely involved to European affairs and the start of process ofintegration after the World War II, European security has already gone beyond theextent of sovereign state, and has become a kind of problem that mainly exerts aninfluence on the regional level. The domestic research of European security mainlyconcentrates on concrete problems, for example, NATO's Eastern Enlargement, CFSP,US-European relations, Russian influence to European security. There is less the studyof European security from macroscopic. As for the study of European security, thedomestic academia doesn't often use the international relations theory to explain. As akind of new developing international relations theory school, constructivism hasoffered a kind of new angle for analyzing the international question. Using this theoryto analyze to European security after the Cold War there are great influences.This article mainly includes four parts:The first part has proposed the regional security view of constructivism: nationalidentities and benefits in regional security cooperation, the impact on regional securitycooperation of the international system, collective identify formation and the theory ofa "security community".The second part has reviewed the history of European security. There are twostages of the mechanism of European security in the 20th century. From early periodof the 20th century to the mid-20th century, the balance of power had played theimportant role in European security. Since the mid-20th century, take WEU andNATO's establishment as the symbol, the security model of Europe is graduallyshowing the model of security community.The third part has mainly analyzed European security structure and takes NATO,CFSP and OSCE as analytical points. As for NATO, this part has primarily discussedthe "new strategy" of NATO and the changes of the nature and functions of it, and theUnited States and Europe hold a positive attitude for NATO to play a leading role inthe security. For the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, this part has analyzedits development and the underlying causes. The Organization for Security andCooperation plays a important role in European security, such as, establishment ofinternational norms of European security, for European countries in the area ofsecurity dialogue and cooperation provided an interactive platform, its preventivediplomacy, conflict prevention and crisis management.The forth part has mainly analyzed the three major factors affecting Europeansecurity. It points US-European relations, the factor of Russian and the eastwardexpansion of NATO and EU have profound impacts on the future development ofEuropean security. US-European relations are factors of stability for Europeansecurity. Between Europe and the United States, however, there are contradictions andconsistency in the area of identify. The consistency induces to their securitycooperation while the differences lead to conflicts. But the consistency betweenEurope and the United States dominates the security areas. For European security,Russia is an element of uncertainty. Large differences of identify exists betweenRussia and Western European countries. The relationship between Russia and theEuropean Union affect the development of the EU common security. To guard againstRussia is the basic cause for NATO's eastward expansion. Expansions of NATO andthe EU have reshaped the European security structure and have a positive impact onthe relationship between the EU and Russia. However, this mainly has destructiveimpact on US-Russian relations.