Hungarian Heritage Review, 1986 (15. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1986-04-01 / 4. szám
24 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW APRIL 1986 ^mtuxz of i\\t ptontlj — Part Three — THE FUTURE OF YALTA- BY — ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI VII As President Mitterrand put it some two years ago, “tout ce qui permettera de sortir de Yalta sera bon. . . ” But how to escape from Yalta? Forty years later, there must be a better option for both Europe and America than either a partitioned and prostrated Europe that perpetuates the American-Soviet collision, or a disunited Europe divorced from American acquiescing piecemeal to Soviet domination over Eurasia. And there is such a third option: the emergence of a politically more vital Europe less dependent militarily on the United States, encouraged in that direction by an America guided by a timely historic vision, and leading eventually to a fundamentally altered relationship with Eastern Europe and with Russia. This third option requires a long-term strategy of the kind that the West simply has not devised in dealing with the enduring post-Yalta European dilemma. The point of departure for such a long-term strategy has to be joint recognition of the important conclusion which the experience of the last several decades teaches: the historic balance in Europe will be changed gradually in the West's favor only if Russia comes to be faced west of the Elbe rather less by America and rather more by Europe. Thoughtful Europeans realize, moreover, that the future of Europe is intertwined with the future of Germany and of Poland. Without spanning, in some nonthreatening fashion, the division of Germany, there will not be a genuine Europe; but continuing Russian domination of Poland makes Russian control over East Germany geopolitically possible. Thus the relationship between Russia on the one hand and Germany and Poland on the other must be peacefully transformed if a larger Europe is ever to emerge. Both Americans and Europeans must also face up to the implications of the fact that the division of Europe is not only the unnatural consequence of the destruction of Europe in the course of two world wars; in the long run it is also an inherently unstable and potentially dangerous situation. It is likely to produce new explosions in Eastern Europe and it could also generate a basic and destabilizing reorientation in Western Europe, especially since for many Europeans the existence of the two alliances across the dividing line in the middle of Europe is seen as an extension of superpower efforts to perpetuate the status quo. Accordingly, concentration on the purely military dimension of the East-West problem, or trying to get the West Europeans to hew to the U.S. line in the Middle East or in Central America, is not going to preserve Western unity. America has to identify itself with a cause which has deeply felt emotional significance to most Europeans. Undoing the division of Europe, which is so essential to its spiritual and moral recovery, is a goal worthy of the Western democracies and one capable of galvanizing a shared sense of historic purpose. But that objective, so essential to Europe’s restoration, cannot be accomplished as an American victory over Russia. Nor will it be achieved by an explicit Russian acceptance, through a negotiated agreement, of Eastern Europe’s emancipation from Russian vassalage. Moscow will not yield voluntarily. A wider Europe can only emerge as a consequence of a deliberately but subtly induced process of change, by historical stealth so to speak, which can neither be quickly detected nor easily resisted. The West must shape that process and give it historical direction. As the point of departure for seeking the common goal, one can envisage a strategy combining five broad political, economic and military dimensions. Some involve relatively simple acts and can be summarized succinctly; some require more complicated processes of change, are bound to be more controversial, and thus require a fuller justification. First, on the symbolic plane, it would be appropriate for the heads of the democratic West as a whole, perhaps on February 4, 1985, to clarify jointly, through a solemn declaration, the West’s attitude toward the historic legacy of Yalta. In publicly repudiating that bequest — the partition of Europe — the West should underline its commitment to a restored Europe, free of extra-European control. It should stress its belief that there now exists a genuine European political identity, the heir to Europe’s civilization, which is entitled to unfettered expression. It should affirm the right of every European nation to choose its sociopolitical system in keeping with its history and tradition. It should explicitly reject and condemn Moscow’s imposition on so many Europeans of a system that is culturally and politically so alien to them. Finally, by drawing attention to the positive experience of neutral Austria and Finland, it should pledge that a more authentic Europe would not entail the extension of the American sphere of influence to the European state frontiers of the Soviet Union. Second, and in direct connection with the renunciation of Yalta’s burden, the West should simultaneously reconfirm its commitment to the Helsinki Final Act. This is absolutely essential, for otherwise the repudiation of Yalta could give the Soviets the convenient argument that the territorial integrity of Poland and of Czechoslovakia is thereby again endangered. The Helsinki agreements confirmed the durability of the existing frontiers in central and eastern Europe, and the eastern nations must be reassured on this score. At the same time, the Helsinki agreements legalized and institutionalized the notion that the West has a right to comment on the internal practices of East European governments and that respect of human rights is a general international obligation. Accordingly, the repudiation of Yalta’s historic legacy should be accompanied by the reaffirmation of the West’s commitment to peaceful East-West relations, to the maintenance of —continued next page
