The United States, Differentiation, and Balkan Cooperation during the Cold War

The policy of differentiation as an integral aspect of the policy of containment towards Communist Eastern Europe remains underexplored and its application and impact on the Balkan peninsula are still at an embryonic stage. The only country that has attracted systematic attention to date has been Romania. This essay considers the role of the Balkans in U.S. Cold War policy and examines the origins, evolution and implementation of the policy of differentiation in the region by successive U.S. presidents. It maps out how it affected the states of the peninsula across the Cold War divide. In parallel, it surveys how the policies and interests of the divided Balkan microcosm revealed the contradictions encapsulated in differentiation. It also depicts how the policy enabled consecutive bouts of regional cooperation across the Cold War divide and evaluates its efficacy against an evolving Cold War background.