The Origins of European Security: the Factor of Neutrality in the early 1970s

The article continues to explore a topic of "Sources of European Security". The author analyzes the role of personalities, processes and factors that have influenced the modern European security system, sustainable and variable elements of the transformation of the European segment of international relations. On the basis of documents from the Swiss Federal Archives, this article highlights the position of Switzerland and, in some cases, Austria before the start of the substantive discussions of the agreed agenda at the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). The 1970 Moscow Treaty between the USSR and the Federal Republic of Germany and the start of the CSCE process led to the Soviet Union abandoning its longstanding attempts to establish cooperation between the great powers in parallel with the UN structures. The Foreign Minister of the USSR Andrei Gromyko warned against this. Subsequently, the role of the small and medium-sized countries in the two ideological camps increased. The overall picture of interstate relations became more complicated. It is therefore no coincidence that the CSCE is treated controversially in historiography. Considering that transformations are associated with continuous forms, positions, and mechanisms that have been tested over time, the author makes hypotheses and recommendations at the end of the article.