In the growing literature on middle powers, this book contributes by expanding case study analysis and extending international relations theory in its application to foreign policy decisions. Thus, this book builds on prominent middle power literature and aims to advance our theoretical understanding for why crucial foreign policies were made by the "pivotal middle" powers this book examines-Poland, South Korea, and Bolivia. For this book's three case studies and their first-term leadership's critical junctures-from first term post-communist Poland, post-authoritarian/post-ruling party South Korea, and post-colonial Bolivia-we have the antecedents for contemporary middle powers essential for realizing the regional evolution for cooperative change with greater powers systemically; we may then grasp today why those historical foreign policies, albeit not so long ago, give us crucial antecedents for adapting and trying, yet again, to resolve seemingly perennial power dilemmas regionally, peacefully. Here are why middle power impact matters, not only regionally for stronger, dominant greater power neighbours, but also for transformative middle power leaderships which proved pivotal geopolitically for their region's challenges and changes.

Do middle powers matter geopolitically to great powers when confronting the unconventional, twenty-first-century threats from nation-states or nonstate actors? By studying certain middle power politics in the heart of early, anarchical, and volatile post-Cold War Europe, we can better grasp the impact such middle powers have in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Bridging the European Divide explores how key regional middle powers perceived and advocated their political power options, and tells the largely untold story behind the motives of significant middle power decisions and repercussions. Such regional alignment decisions stemmed from the ideas, opportunities, and realities necessary to transform nation-states amid acute regional uncertainty, global upheaval, and international systemic change. In order to achieve a better understanding of how to bridge the post-9/11 gap between changes in material incentives and the role of ideas, Spero smartly connects two different types of power politics-ways of assessing security dilemmas and foreign policy decisions, and reasons why middle powers and their geopolitical roles matter to great powers.

In the growing literature on middle powers, this book contributes by expanding case study analysis and extending international relations theory in its application to foreign policy decisions. Thus, this book builds on prominent middle power literature and aims to advance our theoretical understanding for why crucial foreign policies were made by the "pivotal middle" powers this book examines-Poland, South Korea, and Bolivia. For this book's three case studies and their first-term leadership's critical junctures-from first term post-communist Poland, post-authoritarian/post-ruling party South Korea, and post-colonial Bolivia-we have the antecedents for contemporary middle powers essential for realizing the regional evolution for cooperative change with greater powers systemically; we may then grasp today why those historical foreign policies, albeit not so long ago, give us crucial antecedents for adapting and trying, yet again, to resolve seemingly perennial power dilemmas regionally, peacefully. Here are why middle power impact matters, not only regionally for stronger, dominant greater power neighbours, but also for transformative middle power leaderships which proved pivotal geopolitically for their region's challenges and changes.