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Planning for Peace
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11280 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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5 / 1986 |
5,699 Words |
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Morton A. Kaplan
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In 1982 I published a paper in which I argued that discussions of the danger of nuclear war in Europe were afflicted by the same factor that enables magicians to fool their audiences--distraction of attention, however, although the magician's deception is deliberate and its consequence is being entertainment, the deception with respect to nuclear war may be unintentional but it is potentially deadly. The threat of nuclear war in Europe stems from the confrontation of conventional forces and the East-West division of Europe. Even if all nuclear weapons were removed from Europe, it is not unlikely that the losing side in a war in Europe would resort to extra-continental nuclear forces in an effort to avoid defeat. Hence, the first step toward ending the threat of nuclear war in Europe is to end the East-West division of Europe by removing all American and Russian forces, except for limited Russian frontier forces, from the Atlantic to the Urals.
Various versions of the following article published in France and Germany stimulated much discussion. Because I felt it necessary to extend the discussion to Eastern Europe, in March 1985 I arranged an international meeting under the auspices of the Professors World Peace Academy.
Although it took me a year to convince the Soviet Union to send a representative (which indicated that the matter had been considered by the Soviet Secretariat), the U.S. Department of State refused to let Moscow's delegate enter the country. Fortunately, a member of Moscow's institute on the United States was in the country and I secured his participation. But my key proposal--which called for pulling the bulk of Soviet forces behind the Urals--never received any official American consideration. And there was universal agreement that the Soviet Union would never consider such a proposal.
Four years later, on February 18, 1986, general Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev proposed a substantial reduction of forces from the Atlantic to the Urals and the destruction of excess weapons or their removal from the zone. This seems to recognize, if only for immediate purposes, that the key issue is not nuclear confrontation, but the confrontation of conventional forces.
The Soviet proposal is clearly unsatisfactory. The American forces would not be withdrawn to England (as in the first stage of my proposal presented below) but to the continental United States, negating the possibility of a quick return in case of an emergency. It also fails to include a second stage in which the American and Soviet forces would be entirely withdrawn from Eastern and Western Europe (exclusive of the Soviet Union). Indeed, by calling for removing the bulk of the American forces to the continental United States in the first stage, Mr. Gorbachev reduces the Soviet incentive to move to a second stage. Thus, the Soviet proposal would indefinitely continue the division of Europe. By continuing to frustrate national tendencies in Europe, the seeds of a war would still be present. Peace would not be consolidated.
While the Russian proposal is more than I had hoped for, it is much less than the United States should propose. Mr. Gorbachev's February announcement makes it timely to reprint portions of my proposal originally set forth in March 1985.
No serious person believes that any of the major states wishes to initiate a
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