CHIS 21A00 - Small States, History, War, and Security on Europe’s Eastern Flank

This seminar examines how states in Eastern Europe have sought to secure themselves through history and experience. The Baltic countries, Poland, and parts of Central Europe have repeatedly operated on a geopolitical fault line, navigating shifting borders, competing empires, and recurrent breakdowns of European security order. Sovereignty of the countries in this region has historically been often challenged and almost never generational.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has forced these dynamics back to the forefront. Questions once treated as theoretical have again become practical: how war might spread beyond Ukraine, how credible deterrence is along Eastern Flank, and how small states manage risk when great-power guarantees are uncertain?

Most Eastern Flank states are territorially small and geographicaly exposed. Unable to rely on mass or strategic depth, they have sought to offset these constraints by

anchoring their security in alliances, rules and values, and institutions. As great-power competition returns and allies reassess their role in Europe, these countries face a

sharper task than before: preserving agency, deterrence, and political subjectivity in a security environment they do not control.

The seminar traces how historical experience, geography, and power politics have shaped Eastern Europe’s security choices, and how small states in the region have

attempted to shape their environment rather than merely adapt to it. It combines historical cases with contemporary policy dilemmas to assess what strategic options

there are for Eastern Europe in a more unstable European order.