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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, SEPTEMBER 21, 1984
PAGE 9
for a new arms control agreement and a return to the balmier days
of detente. The other view--more difficult for the president
politically--will be to continue maintaining the pressure upon
Moscow until•••as the Soviet empire approaches the edge of crack
ing, the ruling elite is forced for its own survival to modify
the system, out of which its imperialistic policies naturally
flow.
The second course is argued by Richard Pipes in FOREIGN AFFAIRS
[the U.S. political science quarterly]. As Reagan's former So
viet adv�ser points out, it is only when Moscow has experienced�
great crisis and national reversal that maJor course corrections
� made
,£Y
the regime. Following the debacle 1n the Crimea, the
serfs were freed: following the humiliation by Japan in 1904,
Nicholas II liberalized his autocratic rule. Following the near
collapse of his regime in 1921, Lenin turned to the West for eco
nomic assistance to save his regime and prevent total collapse.
"Russian history thus strongly suggests," Pipes writes, "••.that
such changes for the better that one can expect in the nature of
the Soviet government and in its conduct of foreign relations
will come about f nly from failures, instabilities and fears of
co!Ia�and not __£2!!!growing confidence and sense of security-
.-
"This assessment is antithetical to the one that underpinned de
tente and that continues to dominate thinking in the foreign ser
vices and liberal circles in Europe and the United States--that
the more confident and secure the Soviet elite feels, the more
restrained its conduct will be. The latter thesis cannot be sup
ported by any evidence from the past."
THE FINANCIAL TIMES of London pointed up an overlooked anniversary in its
September 12 edition entitled "The Real Lessons of Sarajevo."
In the
article, the author showed that superpowers can get trapped in the webs of
their own alliance�, presenting a greater danger than direct competition.
The 70th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Fer
aina'na-rn Sarajevo has come and gone without exciting much�
cussion. Yet it was arguabVthe most important eventol this
century--triggering World War I and all that followed: the Rus
sian revolution, the Great Depression, Hitler, and World War II.
The conventional wisdom is that World War I was inevitable be
cause of qeep hostility between the two great powers which
started it, Russia and Germany. Indeed, it has been suggested
that current u.s.-soviet hostility has created a pre-war situa
tion comparable to that existing in 1914. Both propositions are
wrong. What brought on war in 1914 was less the hostility be
tween the great powers than instability in relations among the
lesser powers to which they were allied--compounded by the mili
tary instability generated by hair-trigger mobilisation plans.
These problems exist again today, and the lesson of 1914 is that
we should focus more on resolving them than on the ups and downs
in our relations with the Soviet Union.