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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JULY 16, 1982
PAGE 10
not have been managed without government pressure.
The deal
needs lots of bank credit, naturally, and involves not incon
siderable risk, given the state of the Soviet economy. With the
help of SS-20's, the Soviets have managed to persuade Western
Europe that Soviet friendship is preferable to the opposite
alternative.
The July 12 WSJ lead editorial criticized the Europeans for not doing more
to develop natural gas deposits closer to home, specifically in the North
Sea. (The leading producer, Norway, has been reluctant to develop its seg
ment of the field more intensively. It claims, in part, that additional
revenues would swamp its small economy.) The WSJ editors remarked:
The lesson to draw from the pipeline deal is how far Europe will
go to grasp for detente: The price tag so far is the $10 billion
(for openers) in hard currency Europe will pay Russia for natural
gas it could just as easily pump from its own back yard. If the
Europeans want to argue with Mr. Reagan honestly, they need to
start explaining how detente remains a viable policy after what's
happened to Poland and Afghanistan. If they are unable to do
this and still want to appease the Soviets with subsidized
credits, they should at least have the decency not to complain
when Mr. Reagan decides the U.S. shouldn't be a party to their
blind gamble.
(We bring these WSJ comments to our readers' attention simply to show how
rancorous the matter is becoming, not to show which side is "right" or
"wrong.• Politics, pride and fixed ideological positions make up the equa
tion on both sides.)
On one front after another, misunderstandings and disillusionments are
growing rapidly between the two halves of the Atlantic world. The mood to
"jettison• Europe is growing in America, at least in intellectual circles.
Yet one more evidence of this fact is a major article in the latest HARPER'S
magazine calling for the U.S. to pull its troops home from Europe--a theme
being repeated quite often these days.
Symbol of an Unraveling Alliance
Another major article on the troubles in the Western world appeared in the
May, 1982 issue of COMMENTARY, entitled "The Atlantic Alliance and Its
Critics," written by Robert
w.
Tucker, professor of international relations
at Johns Hopkins University. It is a long (10 full pages) article: you may
want to acquire a copy yourself. Here are but a few excerpts:
The circumstances marking the crisis are quite unprecedented in
the history of the Alliance••••Within a period of only two years
--a period bounded by the invasion of Afghanistan and the imposi
tion of military rule in Poland--almost every possible challenge
that could be made to the cohesiveness of the Alliance has been
made••••
This apparently one-sided character of the Atlantic Alliance has
frequently led to the observation that it was never a true
alliance ••••The Alliance, we have been reminded recently, "was
strictly Europe-centered: the interest of the United States in