Finlandizing Europe

‘Ask a German under the age of 45 whether Reagan or Gorbachev is a greater threat to peace,” observes a former top Reagan aide recently returned from Western Europe, “and the answer is invariably Reagan.” This despite the fact that the U.S. forces based in West Germany are arrayed defensively, whereas Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces in East Germany are arrayed offensively. The uneasy truth is that the younger generations in Central Europe—with no distinct memory of American largesse after World War II—now cope with the psychological tension of the postwar era by trusting their neighbors to the East more than their allies to the West. “Just as Gorbachev represents the power shift of the postwar generation in the USSR,” adds the Reagan insider, “so these younger Europeans represent changed attitudes toward the superpowers. They’re soft on Gorbachev.”

So Europe, if you believe it, is slipping toward East-West accommodation, despite the admonitions of Great Britain’s Margaret Thatcher and West Germany’s Helmut Kohl. Research carried out by the U.S. Information Agency tends to confirm this: reports on public attitudes in Europe toward the U.S. and the USSR show America losing in the polls. It is this central phenomenon that is likely to dominate the American debate over INF ratification.

JM

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John McLaughlin

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‘Ask a German under the age of 45 whether Reagan or Gorbachev is a greater threat to peace,” observes a former top Reagan aide recently returned from Western Europe, “and the answer is invariably Reagan.” This despite the fact that the U.S. forces based in West Germany are arrayed defensively, whereas Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces in East Germany are arrayed offensively. The uneasy truth is that the younger generations in Central Europe—with no distinct memory of American largesse after World War II—now cope with the psychological tension of the postwar era by trusting their neighbors to the East more than their allies to the West. “Just as Gorbachev represents the power shift of the postwar generation in the USSR,” adds the Reagan insider, “so these younger Europeans represent changed attitudes toward the superpowers. They’re soft on Gorbachev.”

So Europe, if you believe it, is slipping toward East-West accommodation, despite the admonitions of Great Britain’s Margaret Thatcher and West Germany’s Helmut Kohl. Research carried out by the U.S. Information Agency tends to confirm this: reports on public attitudes in Europe toward the U.S. and the USSR show America losing in the polls. It is this central phenomenon that is likely to dominate the American debate over INF ratification.