Of Linkage and All That

By the time NR readers see this, the Geneva summit will have come and gone, whether to affect history or to merit no more than a footnote in the history books, only time will tell. Writing before the event, I merely offer some comments on the permanent verities of the East/West conflict and on the persistence with which some Western statesmen overlook them.

An unusual example of realism in this respect was offered by President Reagan in his address to the United Nations General Assembly on October 24. The tendency, deeply anchored in the West, to consider power in military terms only, and strategy in nuclear terms only, was neatly breached when the President referred to the wars in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola, Ethiopia, and Cambodia. (He might have added El Salvador and Mozambique to the list, and the fact that he didn’t is perhaps instructive.)

BC

About the Author

Brian Crozier

Featured Tags

By the time NR readers see this, the Geneva summit will have come and gone, whether to affect history or to merit no more than a footnote in the history books, only time will tell. Writing before the event, I merely offer some comments on the permanent verities of the East/West conflict and on the persistence with which some Western statesmen overlook them.

An unusual example of realism in this respect was offered by President Reagan in his address to the United Nations General Assembly on October 24. The tendency, deeply anchored in the West, to consider power in military terms only, and strategy in nuclear terms only, was neatly breached when the President referred to the wars in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola, Ethiopia, and Cambodia. (He might have added El Salvador and Mozambique to the list, and the fact that he didn’t is perhaps instructive.)