The Belgian Curtain: Europe after Communism

"The Belgian Curtain: Europe after Communism" by Samuel Vaknin is a study of Europe after communism, probably written in the early 2000s. It explores the political, social, and economic changes that happened in Europe after communism ended. The study talks about what happened when the European Union got bigger and how NATO changed as the world's political situation changed too. The book starts by explaining the difficult situation of the European Union and NATO's competing groups, especially after the 2002 Nice Treaty. When former communist countries joined these Western groups, it was both a necessary political move and a difficult part of history. Vaknin talks about how Eastern European countries started to see things differently as they formed new relationships with the United States and Western Europe, which sets the scene for the rest of the book.