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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JANUARY 11, 1985
PAGE 13
United States will have to take the first steps, even perhaps
unilaterally through � ten-year program of annual cuts in the
level of the U.S. ground forces in Europe•••• It would also have
to be made clear that some American combat forces would remain in
Europe, as they do in Korea, thereby ensuring immediate American
engagement in the event of hostilities•••• [Earlier in his
article Mr. Brzezinski said: "The U.S. deficit will, in any case,
drive Congress toward a more eritical look at the cost of the
U.S. NATO commitment."]
In the final analysis, only Europeans can restore Europe; it can
not be done for them
BY
others. To be sure, Moscow will resist
the aspirations of the Europeans.
No empire dissolves itself
voluntarily--at least not until it becomes evident that accommo
dation to gradual dissolution is preferable to the rising costs
of preserving the imperial system. So it will be also with the
Soviet empire•••• As time passes, with the organic growth of a
larger Europe gathering momentum, it will become more and more
difficult for the Kremlin to resist a process that over time may
acquire the hallmarks of historical inevitability••••
'
.
One should not underestimate in this connection Moscow's adapta-
bility. Despite his ruthlessness, even Stalin accommodated him
self to the reality of an independent Catholic Church in Poland;
Khrushchev to a Polish peasantry free from collectivization and
to a separate Romanian foreign policy; Brezhnev to "goulash com
munism" in Hungary and to army rule in Poland. Why then should
not the next generation of Soviet leaders be pressed also to come
to terms with the fact that even the interests of the Soviet peo
ple would be better served by a less frustrated and oppressed
east-central Europe, partaking more directly of the benefits of
all-European cooperation?
As divided Europe enters the fifth decade after Yalta, it is im
portant to reiterate that undoing Yalta cannot involve a precise
blueprint or a single dramatic initiative. The shape of the fu
ture cannot be reduced to a neat plan, with specific phases and
detailed agreements. Rather, it requires an explicit commitment
and a sense of strategic direction for a process of change that
is bound to have _also its own dynamic. In any�, for America
the emergence of� more vital Europe would be� positive outcome,
for ultimately a pluralistic world is in America's true interest.
Mr. Brzezinski, like so many others, believes that a united Europe would
"naturally" be in the best interest of the United States. Nevertheless,
his studied analysis represents one of the clearest prognoses to date on
the likely path European unity will take. And now, finally, is an article
which appeared in the SUNDAY TIMES of London, December 30, 1984, analyzing
the nostalgic fascinations that Hungarians are having with their "golden
era" of Habsburg rule. It goes along with Brzezinski's belief that the
Eastern Europeans, especially, are longing for a more "authentic" Europe.
Communist hardliners in Hungary are becoming nervous about a re
markable wave of nostalgia which is sweeping the country. There
now seems to be a widespread belief that the 19th century, when