Washington’s Strategic Priorities in East-Central Europe

American geopolitics and East-Centr al Europe in the light of theory and pr acticeThe realities of power that are at the heart of geopolitics have not only played a decisive role in the history of the United States and East-Central Europe; these realities have also bound the transatlantic parties together.However, the latter's relationship to geopolitics is more nuanced.On the one hand, while today's international order was established according to Washington's expectations, American foreign policy thinking has long rejected great power politics.1 On the other hand, East-Central Europe was constantly the subject of great power politics, as the smaller states of the region were squeezed between the surrounding powers.This is why geopolitics itself has acquired a dubious reputation. 2 While it is debatable whether geopolitical considerations have ever disappeared from international politics, it is undeniable that the power competition between the United States and its challengers has been spectacularly revived in the 2010s.East-Central Europe is one of the sites of these geopolitical ambitions.1 McCor mick 2010: 22. 2 Geopolitics is derived from the German word Geopolitik, which was associated with German (and Nazi) great power ambitions between the two world wars (Owens 1999: 62).Likewise, the German word Mitteleuropa was also taboo (especially in Slavic circles) as one of the first geopolitical concepts targeting East-Central Europe.