To the Editor:
It would be nice to believe that Patrick Glynn’s cogent warnings against starry-eyed optimism in current public discourse on U.S.-Soviet relations will be accepted, and that realism will prevail in discussions of Soviet foreign policy [“The Dangers Beyond Containment,” August]. Unfortunately, that is not likely to be the case unless the mounting internal pressures Gorbachev faces, and/or Western appearances of weakness, or some combination thereof, allow the Soviet dictator to believe he can successfully execute an operation, such as an invasion of Afghanistan or Czechoslovakia, that would strike at vital Western interests. . . .
Of the many fine points in Mr. Glynn’s article, particular mention should be made of his emphasis on the increasing detachment of West Germany from the NATO alliance. There are several factors responsible for this, including the INF treaty, continual Soviet overtures to West Germany, the dangerously seductive current idea of a “common European home,” West Germany’s desire for unification, and the partial recrudescence of German nationalism as embodied in the renewed advocacy of “Mitteleuropa.” All these factors contribute to current West German vacillation, . . . but there is a further factor afflicting the West German body politic.
That factor is the . . . historical amnesia and moral cowardice of both the West German government and public in failing to recognize the unremitting antagonism between the Soviet Union and the Western alliance, and in failing to accept that its geographic location will continue to make West Germany a potential or actual fulcrum of . . . conflict. Unfortunately, the very successes of NATO in maintaining peace, and even the partial advancement of freedom in Eastern Europe, have left West Germany a morally enervated society more concerned with promoting its dubious economic interests in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union than in defending West German interests in Western Europe and overseas. . . .
To reverse this drift toward neutralism, West Germany’s leaders must seize the initiative and . . . tell their people that German reunification is an illusory dream, that a unified and domineering Central European power instigated two world wars, and that Mikhail Gorbachev’s ultimate foreign-policy goal in Europe is not peace but rather the neutralization of West Germany and the dismemberment of the Western alliance. . . . Such pronouncements will not be popular or cost-free, of course, and will be denounced as militarism or anachronistic cold-war rhetoric. Nevertheless, West German leaders such as Chancellor Helmut Kohl must warn their people that historical delusions about oncoming “eras of international peace” eventually resulted in conflicts with disastrous results.
Similar candor and realism must also characterize the pronouncements and policies of President Bush’s administration and those of all freedom-loving nations. . . . Failure to enact appropriate and effective policies to defend the values we cherish will surely unleash the ghosts of war we aspire to avoid.
Bert Chapman
Lexington, Kentucky
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Patrick Glynn writes:
While I appreciate Bert Chapman’s passionate endorsement of my arguments, I cannot subscribe to his anti-German tone or to the imprudent policy prescriptions that follow from it. Let us be clearheaded. The problem we face today is not the prospect of a unified Germany that would revive the unspeakable horrors and evil of Nazism or, for that matter, the not inconsiderable threat posed by old-fashioned Prussian militarism. That is a chimera, a red herring. A unified Germany, under a West German-style government and firmly integrated into a strong NATO, would no more threaten world peace than does present-day Japan. As Aristotle pointed out, when the regime truly changes, so does the character of the citizen. Whatever its virtues or vices, the present-day West German regime is fundamentally different from the Nazi regime of the 1930’s and its Wilhelmine forerunner. Moreover, West German citizens, especially younger citizens, are for the most part the opposite of bellicose—if anything, too pacifistic.
Rather, the problem would be a Finlandized Germany under effective Soviet control—a semi-autonomous state under the sway of Soviet power, capable of maintaining a strong economy linked to the West, and of supplying the Soviet military and military-industrial base with a steady flow of new technology and capital. It is to arrive at this not-so-inconceivable goal—i.e., to split West Germany from us, to our grave detriment and to the West Germans’—that the Soviets are playing on the unification theme.
As for candor among leaders, West German leaders certainly deserve their share of blame for the lack of realism and forthrightness about the continuing Soviet threat. But they are by no means alone, and they did not really start the trend. Margaret Thatcher has contributed to the present euphoric environment, and the major cause of the current euphoria was none other than Ronald Reagan himself. There is truth in Helmut Kohl’s complaint. “When Mr. Gorbachev is in the White House and when they sing ‘Moscow Nights,’” he said last February, “people ask themselves whether the threat is the same.”
Senator Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming has observed that the first rule of alliance burden-sharing ought to be to share the burdens and responsibilities of leadership. By this he means, among other things, telling the truth. Unless and until officials in Washington stop talking drivel about “saving” Gorbachev and helping perestroika “succeed,” there is no point in expecting heightened realism in Bonn. We are the leaders of the alliance, and it is up to us to set a tone of sobriety and candor. Unfortunately, even if we were to begin such a trend today, it would be a matter of some time, and no doubt some pain, before the present illusions in Western Europe—and especially in West Germany—could be dispelled.
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