Word: blocs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...agreement. He put forward, with full alliance backing, an imaginative, sweeping proposal to speed up the talks to achieve deep cuts in troops, tanks, artillery and aircraft in Europe. The plan not only met Gorbachev's initiatives but topped them by calling for cutbacks that would erase the East bloc's numerical advantage while slashing the U.S. presence on European soil, all within three years...
...dramatic events in China are indicative of many international developments during the past year. In Latin America, the Eastern Bloc and much of Southeast Asia, people sought changes of the old order and freedom from government repression. Brutal dictatorships were defeated in popular elections during the last year in Chile, Pakistan and, for all intents and purposes, Panama, while Poles this week voted in the first openly contested elections in the Soviet bloc. And, lest we forget, democratic openings in the Soviet Union continue to unfold at an amazing pace, astounding even the most cynical of observers, and culminating...
...logic for nuclear weapons in Europe has always been twofold. First, they have compensated for the conventional-force imbalance between the alliance and the Soviet bloc. Second, and more important, they are a deterrent. They raise the level of uncertainty in the mind of a potential aggressor. He has to consider that the cost of war may be too high. It's the element of unpredictability of what might happen in a nuclear exchange that keeps war from happening. So regardless of whether we can ever get conventional-force parity, I believe nuclear weapons have an indispensable peacekeeping value irrespective...
...nearly four decades the Roman Catholic Church had no legal status in a country that is more than 90% Catholic. Last week, however, Poland became the first East bloc nation to recognize the church. The parliament approved a law that permits the church to operate businesses, schools and hospitals, and to run radio and television stations. The action came in the wake of a power- sharing agreement reached between the government of General Wojciech Jaruzelski and the Solidarity labor movement, which has strong ties to the church. Catholic leaders have played a key role in negotiating the agreement with Solidarity...
...establishment of formal diplomatic relations between Warsaw and the Vatican is expected to come next. That would be the first such link between the Holy See and a Soviet bloc government. It would also provide a capstone to a campaign for mutual recognition dear to the heart of Pope John Paul II, the only Polish-born Pontiff in church history...