Eastern Europe post-February 2022 – embracing geostrategic “in-betweenness” or bracing against it?

The SI has sought to cast an “inside-out” perspective on the much-studied competition between the EU and Russia over their shared neighbourhood in the Eastern Europe and Southern Caucasus (EE&SC) region, examining the impact of this rivalry on the states caught “in-between” the two competing actors. The articles within the SI have focused on the agency of the “in-between” states and examined the choices they have in terms of their foreign and security policies within the context of their triangular strategic interaction between the EU and Russia, and their ongoing competition for power and influence. It examined the “in-between” states’ own perspectives and (geo)politics that seek to defy and/or deploy their peculiar geostrategic positioning – and it will do so through the involvement of the authors from within the region.