Word: would
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze marked the anniversary of the Hungarian uprising by telling Moscow's new parliament that the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan had "blatantly violated" the law. By doing so, he implied that events like the 1956 Hungarian crackdown and the 1968 Czechoslovakian invasion would not recur. In addition, with a candor rare even in the West, Shevardnadze said of the controversial Krasnoyarsk radar station in Siberia: "Let's admit that this monstrosity the size of the Egyptian pyramid has been sitting there in direct violation of the ABM treaty." (His fealty to the treaty was in part...
When Gorbachev first spoke of "new thinking" in foreign policy, many in the West -- especially in the U.S. -- doubted his sincerity. The real test was whether Gorbachev would end the policy at the heart of the cold war: the subjugation of Eastern Europe. At the end of last year, in a speech at the United Nations, Gorbachev declared that he would. "Freedom of choice is a universal principle," he said. Yet the doubts lingered. They always seemed to come down to the question: Is Gorbachev for real...
Raising this skepticism is probably, to use Bush's favorite word, prudent. After all, what if Gorbachev is indeed merely pursuing by more subtle means the old Soviet goals of getting the U.S. to withdraw from Europe, dissolving NATO and neutralizing Germany? Even so, as Baker points out, it would still make sense for the U.S. to "lock in" gains by helping Soviet bloc nations become more independent and by securing agreements that make mutually beneficial arms reductions. In addition, the changes in Eastern Europe have progressed so far that a sudden reversal becomes less likely every...
...predecessors, Britain's Lord Ismay, said the goal of NATO was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down." As the Soviet threat recedes, NATO could serve to keep the West Germans, if not down, at least tethered to the West. The organization's purpose would become more political: preventing the Continent from reverting to the spasmodic shifts in national alliances that sparked centuries of wars. The twelve-nation European Community is likewise poised to play a leading role in belaying the nations that are breaking loose from the Soviet orbit...
...given the sweeping transformations under way, these measures seem limp. Such a step-by-step approach would be, at best, yet another example of the -- dare one say timid? -- incrementalism on arms control and trade that has marked Soviet-American relations for four decades. As Bush himself says, the opportunity is historic. The idea that the Warsaw Pact would launch a land invasion of Western Europe, which is what most of NATO expenditures are designed to prevent, has become nearly inconceivable. "It may be time to abandon incrementalism for a leapfrog approach, to see if we can really make...