The analysis will be structured in four parts. The first part provides an over­view of the first decade of the country’s independence, which is crucial for a country’s positioning in a newly established international system. Being part of a large federal state in a Cold War era is completely opposite of being an independent small landlocked country in the turbulent environment of the Balkans. The first part will provide a comprehensive picture of the real sourc­es of threats to the national security, the identification of the national inter­ests, the definition of policies and the build-up of a national security system of the country. The second part will focus on the internal ethnic conflict of 2001 and its security implications for the country. It will also elaborate on the EU’s involvement in the peaceful solution of the conflict and the post-conflict management, which greatly coincided with the EU’s internal development of crisis management institutions and capacity. The third part continues with the redefinition of the country’s security culture after the Bucharest NATO Summit and the disappointment from not becoming a NATO member. This part will focus on the vacuum that was left with the Republic of North Mac­edonia not becoming a NATO member and the fact that the EU integration process has been stalled. These developments led the country to easily be­came target of the rising influence of different actors whose presence was becoming increasingly dominant in the region. The fourth part will focus on how the new geopolitical and regional context has urged the country to slow­ly redefine its national security culture and move forward in solving the name issue with neighbouring Greece in order to become NATO member. It will further elaborate on the modern security threats in the country and the chal­lenges in the military defence as a NATO member. Contextualizing Macedonian National Security in its very Beginnings: The Role of International Positioning After the collapse of the Socialistic Federal Republic of Yugoslavia(SFRY), alongside other changes on the political map of the region, following a successful referendum on independence that took place on 8 September 1991, conditions emerged for the Republic of Macedonia 41 to become an 41 For historic relevance the first two parts of this chapter will use the name of the country as it was provided in the Consti­tution of 1991 – the Republic of Macedonia or Macedonia. With the”Final Agreement for the Settlement of the Differences as Described in the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 817(1993) and 845(1993), the Termination of the Interim Ac­cord of 1995, and the Establishment of the Strategic Partnership Between the Parties”, known as”Prespa Agreement”, the of­ficial name of the country was changed to the Republic of North Macedonia or North Macedonia and it will be used according­ly in the third and fourth part of this chapter. Chapter 3 – Case Study: The Republic Of North Macedonia 115