Word: ostpolitiking
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Brandt's Concern. The Soviets' tough position may well be only a repetition of their familiar bargaining tactic of demanding the maximum before settling for somewhat less. Nonetheless the Russian stance posed a threat to Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, which rests on the assumption that the Soviets are willing to make at least limited accommodations in central Europe. Brandt has vowed that he will not submit the Treaty of Moscow to the Bundestag for ratification until there is substantial progress on Berlin, and he has urged Britain, France and the U.S. to press for a quick agreement...
...mindful of the dubious value of nonaggression pacts and the tragic history of earlier German-Soviet diplomatic cooperation, raised warnings. "The haste on both sides," wrote Neue Zurcher Zeitung. "poses the question "Who plucked the rose before it bloomed?' Is it a success of West Germany's Ostpolitik or Soviet WestpolitikT' London's Economist pointed out that while the Russians talk peace in Europe, they are extending their sphere of influence in Asia, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic. "This is not the behavior of a country looking for a settlement...
Willy Brandt's own ideas about Ostpolitik date from the years he served as mayor of West Berlin from 1957 to 1966. Brandt became disillusioned early with the Dulles-Adenauer policy, which assumed that German reunification would be achieved as an inevitable consequence of the West's economic and military strength...
...prepared to risk confrontation with the Soviets over the German issue. So Brandt set out to try to do something himself. He decided on a policy of "small steps" toward the same ends -modest efforts at relaxation on a bilateral basis. His first attempt at Ostpolitik, after becoming Foreign Minister in 1966 in the Grand Coalition, was in Czechoslovakia. The Soviets seized on the West German rapprochement with Czechoslovakia as one of the main justifications for the invasion. The Czechoslovakia experience taught Brandt that progress could only be achieved through direct dealings with Moscow...
Some observers feared that the whole fabric of Ostpolitik could be rent by the fall of Brandt's tiny coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party, whose 30 members give him a bare twelve-seat majority in the 496-seat Bundestag. A defeat of the Free Democrats in the state elections in Hesse and Bavaria in November could result in a coalition crisis that could end the Brandt government as presently constituted. Even so, Brandt's foreign policy seems to enjoy solid support among a large majority of West Germans, who grew weary of the cold-war posturing...