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The Risks of a 'Unified' Europe
| Article
# : |
13692 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1988 |
2,413 Words |
| Author
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Gerald Frost
Gerald Frost is director of the Institute for European Defense
and Strategic Studies, based in London. |
Intimations that the postwar division of Europe is not a permanent and unalterable state of affairs are beginning to excite the Western imagination and to influence the political agenda. That division is the result of the political realities of the mid-1940s; those conditions have undergone significant changes since and now appear to be changing so rapidly as to defy rigorous analysis.
Starting with the Reykjavik summit, U.S.-Soviet relations have recently undergone some major shifts, while the balance of military forces in Europe is altering under the accelerating momentum of the arms control process. These developments have in turn influenced U.S.-European relations, as well as those between individual European states. All of this has occurred against a background of economic and social turmoil and ethnic unrest within the Soviet Union, coinciding with severe economic crises within virtually all of the Eastern European nations, leading one observer to suggest that conditions conducive to revolution exist within five of them.
According to one optimistic view, the Soviet empire, once seemingly monolithic and impregnable, is on the brink of disintegration. This process, it is said, is already sufficiently advanced to permit the withdrawal of U.S. forces, which, it is claimed, would further accelerate the pace of change, thereby making possible the long-awaited reunification of a divided continent.
Such speculation is fueled by the hopes and aspirations of many Europeans and by some highly selective readings of history. The British and French empires, which were held together by much more than the force that alone binds Eastern Europe
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