Word: east-west
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...across Europe over the past year by calling for a NATO summit in early summer to explore the "future political mission of the alliance." He also paid tribute to the 35-member Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe for seeking to sort out the complications created by eased East-West tensions. But Bush made clear that as far as the U.S. is concerned, NATO should be retrofitted, not demolished and replaced with a new security structure...
Then, Darman lashed out at environmentalists, saying "It would be a regrettable irony if just as the values of the American romance were to triumph in the East-West struggle, they were to be lost in what some environmentalists like to term the struggle for 'global management...
...Lithuanians have got little more than moral support elsewhere, since the Western powers are not eager to punish Moscow for squeezing Vilnius. With the warming of East-West relations at stake, they reason, the fate of a tiny republic and its 3.7 million people -- 1.3% of the Soviet population -- does not merit a fight, unless Moscow turns truly nasty. "Everybody feels for the Lithuanians," says a senior NATO diplomat, "but everybody is keeping an eye on the bigger picture...
Much as the U.S. and its allies would like to see an independent Lithuania, that goal runs a poor second to their desire to remain on friendly terms with Gorbachev. If Lithuania provokes a blast of East-West acrimony, notes a senior British diplomat, "it could plunge us back into the cold war." The process of arms reduction would probably halt, and perhaps reverse. The democratization of Eastern Europe would be imperiled, as would prospects for a smooth unification of the Germanys. A return to superpower tensions would also bolster the influence of conservatives in Moscow and undercut Gorbachev...
...comparison seems ironic in light of the ongoing thaw in superpower relations. As part of that rapprochement, Washington and Moscow have backed away from unstinting support of their respective allies in the Middle East. That has forced realignments in the Arab diplomatic constellation and weakened Israel's once unchallenged claim to being of strategic importance to the U.S. But the unwinding of East-West tensions has done little to alleviate regional stresses. Instead, the Middle East arms race is escalating...