Word: westing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...inauguration of a new world order at all but a holding action on behalf of the old one. George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev have a shared interest in slowing down the rush of events, particularly the juggernaut of German reunification. Consummate Atlanticist that he is, Bush is sensitive to West European anxiety about the disproportionate strength of a single Germany...
...with the division of Europe after World War II; the stage of history now beginning is "post-post" insofar as that division is ending. The phrase, with its catchy double prefix, is well on its way to becoming a cliche on the op-ed pages and airwaves of the West. It helps experts who are groping for sound bites more erudite than "Wow!" as they ruminate about the astonishing pace of change in Europe...
Gorbachev has his own reason for believing that one Germany is an idea whose time should not come again soon. Reunification is a euphemism for East Germany's voluntary annexation by West Germany. If the G.D.R. merges with the Federal Republic, the Soviet Union could see an ally not only leave the Warsaw Pact but defect to NATO. Estimates on how long Gorbachev would survive the wrath of his comrades range from 20 minutes to 48 hours...
...Bush had to choose between the success of Gorbachev's program to reform the Soviet Union and the fulfillment of West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl's plan to create a German "federation," the President would almost certainly pick perestroika, since that is what is driving the new Soviet foreign policy. On this issue, Malta was an exercise in private commiseration and public obfuscation. With Bush at his side at their joint press conference, Gorbachev said that "history" should be allowed to determine the status of the two Germanys, and he warned against any "artificial acceleration" of the "process of change...
...welcoming Eastern Europe into the capitalist world. A Shearson Lehman Hutton commercial shows Slavic women wearing U.S. running shoes and a teenager riding a skateboard past a hammer-and-sickle sculpture. The tactics have even been adopted by the other side: one of the products to extol improved East-West relations in its ads is Stolichnaya, the Russian vodka...