I started thinking about this book in 2020 and submitted my book proposal to Routledge in January 2021. I have been interested in challenges facing small states/powers for a while, but this time I also wanted to focus on how small states form alliances and are affected by their interactions with great powers. This is a topic of growing importance as we shift from a unipolar world with one great power to a multipolar world. I selected the Baltic states, the Nordic countries and the Visegrád group for comparative analysis. The Baltics states were Soviet republics for decades, the Visegrád counties are former Soviet satellite states, while the Nordic welfare states were part of the West during the Soviet era. The countries discussed in the book have sought to form alliances among themselves and have also joined larger alliances. I have carried out research on the Nordic countries and the Baltic states before but needed to study the Visegrád group in greater depth. This was done during the visits listed below when I met with government officials and aca- demics from those countries.