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Sound Policies for Eastern Europe
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17251 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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2 / 1990 |
6,306 Words |
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In the wake of the Malta summit and looking ahead to the June summit in Washington, D.C., THE WORLD & I asked two distinguished academics to examine U.S.-Soviet relations and to discuss what strategic and economic steps the United States should take to further those relations. Participating in this “East-West Forum” were Dimitri Simes of the Cambridge Endowment and Henry Nau, associate dean of the Elliott School at George Washington University. Lee Edwards, senior editor for Current Issues at THE WORLD & I, moderated.
THE WORLD & I: Is the Cold War over? Are we at the beginning of its end or somewhere in between?
SIMES: I think the Cold war is over. But the Cold War was not just another period of hostility between great powers; it was period when the United States saw the Soviet challenge as the overriding national security problem and everything else had to be subordinated to dealing with this one threat.
The American system of alliances, the U.S. force posture, other international issues - all these have had to be looked at through the prism of this great history-shaping rivalry with the Soviet Union.
This overriding priority, in my view, is no longer there. This is not to say that the Soviet Union will not remain a great power - and even, very often, an adversarial power - or that there will be no serious tension between Moscow and Washington. I can visualize a zigzag in the U.S.-Soviet relationship, or as skirmish here or there.
But the Cold War is over in that absolute, extreme, overriding definition.
NAU: The sense of threat is diminishing, but there are many other aspects of the Cold War that remain: For example, the military forces of the two alliances. It's important to recognize that they are still at enormously high levels, despite some unilateral reductions on the part of the East. Another basic element of the problem that remains is the economic backwardness and the economic stagnation of the Eastern European countries.
That element will take much, much longer to rectify. So yes, the Cold War is over in the sense that the extreme threat that we faced is gone, but it remains in many respects in terms of the very high levels of military capabilities that continue to exist in central Europe. We have to reduce those levels so that they are more in line with the diminished nature of the threat and do not become possible new threats.
Also, we have to hope that the political reforms that have taken place in Eastern Europe can in fact be sustained and ultimately become permanent.
W & I: Secretary of State Baker is going to Moscow to help draft a strategic arms reduction treaty that is to be submitted for signature or possible approval at the June summit in Washington, D.C. Is the United States off to too fast a START?
SIMES: There is always a problem when you have to negotiate against a deadline. President Bush has said that he would never
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