"The threat of world war is no more." — Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev

The end of the Cold War ushered in a new age of European expansion. Central and Eastern Europe had emerged from dictatorships and wanted to consolidate their democracies. They sought European integration to ensure they would not fall back into the Russian sphere of influence. The EU and NATO offered a guarantee of this, and the EU was also seen as vital to ensuring the economic success of those countries. Russia — a shell of its former power as the Soviet Union — could do nothing to slow the European expansion.