Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

NATO as an Anomoly

In the euphoric period of late 1989 and early 1990, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, symbol of the Cold War, journalistic and popular hopes were raised that Europe's long era of Cold War tension might finally be at an end. It became both possible and popular to imagine a future peaceful, prosperous Europe in which a socialdemocratic or even capitalistic Soviet Union would be a constructive partner. In consequence, it was widely held that NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, had become a coldwar holdover, an anachronism.

A year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a certain sobriety has set in. The Soviet Union has continued, outwardly at any rate, to evolve evermorerapidly away from the familiar StalinBrezhnev monolithic model, but it has become clear that the path of reform is uncertain at best. Separatist tensions run high in most of the outlying republics, several of which have declared their "independence." Mikhail Gorbachev remains in power, but insecurely, challenged visibly by the liberal "left" and perhaps less visibly by the nationalistic, militaristic, and orthodoxcommunist "right."1 A reunited Germany faces deep problems of economic and social dislocation in the former East German territories, problems which have erupted visibly in violent street riots staged by militant "squatters" in Berlin.2 It has become clear that the path of economic, social, and political reform in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union is likely to be extremely difficult at best, and perhaps impossible. A "phased" shift from state socialism to a market economy has been compared to a "phased" shift from driving on the left side of the road to driving on the right  and likely to produce similar results.3 It is therefore appropriate to argue that NATO has a continuing role to play in a continent where instability may well become the rule, and where therefore a potential Soviet (or "postSoviet") threat remains a real ...

Page 1 of 12 Next >

More on NATO as an Anomoly...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
NATO as an Anomoly. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:46, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1703531.html