Nineteen ninety-seven was a historic year in the aspirations of the Central European states. July of said year saw the final decision taken by NATO, as to which countries would be invited to join the World's most successful alliance following the earth-shattering events of 1898 and 1990. This decision brought at the Madrid Summit of the Alliance can be taken to be the supreme embodiment of those steps which the region's countries had taken since the so-called "system-change" initiated by the opening of Hungary's western border and the subsequent fall of the Berlin Wall. It represents a point in the evolution where the debates of the first stage have been brought to an end through a concrete act. Thus, Madrid heralds a new era for all sides undergoing the changes we witness on our continent.

For several years now the Budapest-based Institute for Strategic and Defence Studies has concerned itself with the issues of Euro-Atlantic security and cooperation, most especially with the changing NATO. As a result we have regularly held both domestic and international conferences with the aim of examining given issues in depth. The current edition of Defence Studies contains the presentations from just such an international conference, held jointly with our partner institute, the Hungarian Centre for Civil-Military Relations, on November 21st and 22nd of 1997. In it the Reader will find reassuring answers to a few key questions. For example it is clear that Madrid will assist as opposed to worsen the relations amongst the states of our region. Likewise, it appears that those left out of the first round will not slacken in their efforts to institutionally join the West. Lastly, on examining the following papers, one can reassuringly conclude that the process of expansion is an open-ended one. It is with these personal ideas that the Reader is invited to draw his or her own additional conclusions.

Prof. F. Gazdag
ISDS Director