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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JULY 15, 1983
PAGE 8
of the total population.
More than half of all children born in the
U.S.S.R. in 1978 were children of Islamic parents--despite the fact that
Moslems comprise only about one-fifth of the population. In the year 2000,
it is estimated that there will be 120 million Moslems inside the Soviet
Union--people perhaps ripe to the influence of radical Moslem ideas from
Iran and elsewhere.
The danger to Western Europe from the deteriorating conditions to the East,
believes Dr. Habsburg, is that some future Soviet leader may decide to use
Russia's military advantage in a drive westward to capture Western re
sources before problems become intolerable at home. "A policy which should
prevent this overreaction on the part of the Soviet is the paramount task of
our times in general politics," says Dr. Habsburg.
The West Is Naive
Many people in the West, stresses Dr. Habsburg, are deluded--some self-de
luded--as to Communist intentions. Moscow still preaches, as did commu
nism's founder Lenin, the doctrine of world revolution, which amounts to
nothing less than "a permanent declaration of war against all the nations
which are not under the hegemonial rule of the Soviet Union." The Soviet
Union, he adds, "has one of the most honest governments in the world. They
say to us day after day what they want to do with us." Peace in Europe and
the world can therefore be preserved, Dr. Habsburg maintains, "only by
absolute realism'' regarding the Soviet challenge--a realism backed up with
sufficient military strength so that no aggression is possible.
'
In this light, the philosophy behind the so-called peace movements, he
says, is based on "utter unrealism." The "Greens" in West Germany and their
counterparts elsewhere "have not learned anything from history." No one
has ever achieved peace through disarmament "because those who know history
know perfectly well that armament is not the cause of evil, but the con
sequence of evi1. Armament is 1ike the fever to the disease." ("Nations
disarm automatically when political problems are dissolved," he added at
another point.)
The Second World War was a prime example of unrealistic weakness, especial
ly on the part of the British and the French, in the face of Nazi Germany's
preparation for war. "Without the miserable, weak-kneed policies of the
West, and the active complicity of the Soviet Union," Dr. Habsburg main
tains, Hitler could not have struck. "Peace through weakness has never
been achieved, never in the whole human history."
European Self-defense
Realism further dictates, says Dr. Habsburg, that Europeans do more for
themselves in the way of defense, a policy long advocated by Bavaria's
governor, Franz Josef Strauss (a name that pops up frequently in conversa
tions with Dr. Habsburg). But a common defense for Europe, he admits, as
well as a common currency, presupposes political unity. "You can't have a
money or an army without a government, and therefore we need a political
authority."
Europe's greatest error in its postwar relationship with the United States,
he believes, has been to let the U.S. carry the lion 's share of the Western
Alliance defense burden.
"Let's not forget, Western Europe is superior