This book presents the results of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) on ‘Political and social impact of military bases: Historical Perspectives, Contemporary Challenges’, an event that took place in Lisbon during December 2007. The ARW, a joint Portuguese-Ukrainian organisation, was the final result of earlier collaboration between several researchers from different countries on the issue of military bases. Our initial idea was to organise a workshop that would focus on the political and social impact of military bases. We intended to go beyond the traditional ‘international relations’ approach and discuss military bases from more than the aspect of their strategic value. The ARW should present innovative ways, both theoretical and methodological, to look at the issue of military basing. We also believed that military bases deserve to be studied from different chronological perspectives: from a historical point of view that takes into consideration the complex contemporary challenges. Finally, we believe it is desirable to have a diverse geographical scope, one that considers the existence of military bases in several regions of the world.

The workshop, which was directed by Luís Rodrigues of the Lisbon University Institute (ISCTE) and the Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI) and Sergiy Glebov of Odessa Mechnikov National University, Ukraine, took place in Lisbon. The ARW's organising committee included Alan Dobson (Dundee University, Scotland, United Kingdom), Alexander Cooley (Columbia University, New York) and Volodymyr Dubovyk (Odessa Mechnikov National University). The organising committee was crucial in helping us put the conference together, in providing ideas for the organisation and moderation of the panels and for inviting the participants.

The event took place at the Portuguese Joint War College (IESM), where the delegates were welcomed by its then director, General Nelson Dias, and Lieutenant Colonel Proença Garcia. The IESM's facilities provided an excellent environment for the workshop.

This book, which is a collection of some of the papers presented at the workshop, is divided into three separate sections. The first of these, which deals with the Cold War period, includes contributions from Simon Duke, Jeffrey Engel, Alan Dobson, Charlie Witham, Rosa Prado Sanz and Luís Nuno Rodrigues. The second section deals with the political and social impact of military bases and includes papers from Adam Seipp, Anni Baker, Mark Gillem, Alexander Cooley, Carla Monteleone and António Telo. The third section addresses the issue of military basing in the greater Black Sea area, and includes contributions from Sergiy Glebov, Pavel Baev, George Melikyan, Alexander Pikayev, Kornely Kakachia and Sebastian Mitrache.

In each of these presentations, the issue of military bases is studied and analysed from several different theoretical and methodological perspectives. This reflects the key speakers' diversified fields of specialisation and the many ways in which the political and social impact of military bases can be studied. During the workshop, the subject of military bases was discussed by historians, political scientists, architects and members of the armed forces.

The workshop also analysed military bases in different time dimensions, which, as the book's subtitle, Historical Perspectives, Contemporary Challenges, suggests, was the workshop's main objectives. While the first round table discussion addressed events that took place during the Cold War, the second and third round tables were largely concerned with the contemporary situation and most recent developments in terms of both American and Russian military bases. Another point to be noted is the diverse geographical origins of the participants involved and, consequently, of the topics debated. There were presentations focusing on southern Europe (Portugal, Spain and Italy), on Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Georgia and Russia), Western Europe (Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom) and Central Asia and the Far East. The Black Sea area was the subject of the workshop's most far-reaching round table discussion. It should be also noted that the issue of military bases was studied from several levels of analysis: from the international, national, regional, local and even individual perspective.

We would like to say one final word about the consequence of this Portuguese-Ukrainian project on military bases. Both the workshop and the subsequent co-operation between Portugal and the Ukraine is an important step towards strengthening academic ties and the cultural trust within Europe from the Atlantic coast to the shores of the Black Sea. Our Ukrainian colleagues believe Ukraine should treat Euro-Atlantic integration as an essential part of the country's strategy towards full membership of NATO and for its future security and prosperity.

The Membership Action Plan, which Ukraine is seeking and which faced hard time in 2008, may in the end be more important for the country, which is currently in transition, than NATO membership itself. This book may be regarded as part of a modest input from academic circles in both countries, Portugal and the Ukraine, towards Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic expectations and its EU aspirations. The experience of Portugal, which was integrated into NATO during the hard times of bipolar international confrontation and domestic political turbulence, may show citizens of a country that strengthened its civil society within the framework of the democratic standards that NATO shares, gained much more than the state with its military expectations. Ukraine can surely rely on the goodwill of its Portuguese academic partners, who are ready to discuss common and specific challenges, opportunities and threats on the way to pan-European security architecture; an architecture that is inclusive, not exclusive. Our colleagues in the elaboration of this project on the Portuguese and Ukrainian sides, and those from NATO and non-NATO countries, may have differing points of view, but they also share common values, and that is why we are confident the views expressed in this book are valuable both for those who regard military bases as units of interdependent stability and assistance in the chain of global security, and those who view them as ‘islands’ of confrontation

Both Portugal and the Ukraine have long experience of hosting foreign and international military bases on their territories; it is this that makes both countries similar and which, consequently, means they face similar concerns. Moreover, Portugal and the Ukraine are situated on the extreme flanks of the Euro-Atlantic space, located ‘on the edge’ of common security values; because of this they are able to bring the interests of the US, the EU, NATO and Russia into one set of possible security solutions. This is why the idea of a joint team of Portuguese-Ukrainian experts has the ability to both deepen and widen future security topics in which military bases are only the starting point for discussions on other acute strategic and non-strategic security problems in Europe and the transatlantic zone.

The organisers would like to thank Professor Carvalho Rodrigues, Nato Science for Peace and Security Programme Director, for all the support, the Portuguese representative to the NATO parliamentary commission, Dr Miranda Calha, who opened the workshop with a very insightful presentation, and Dr Carlos Gaspar, director of IPRI, who moderated one of the panels. The staff from IPRI, particularly Mónica Fonseca, Daniel Marcos and Isabel Alcario were also important for the organisation of the event, by ensuring everything (and everyone) appeared in the right time at the right place. Finally, the editors would like to express their gratitude to Stewart Lloyd-Jones of CPHRC Editorial Services for proofreading and typesetting this book, and for translating the parts that were in Portuguese into English.

We hope that the reader enjoys the book as much as we did organising the workshop and attending it.

Luís Rodrigues, Sergiy Glebov