Disengagement in East Europe

Abstract

the current debate on the various proposals for disengagement in Central Europe one factor seems to be largely neglected. This is the attitude towards these plans on the part of concerned nations in the Soviet bloc. Yet it is certainly a very potent factor, at least as important as the attitude of the Germans. For in the same way as the West must take into consideration the potential effects of disengagement in Germany, the Soviet Union has to take into account its possible consequences in East Europe. Disengagement could be acceptable to the Russians providing the Eastern European countries would adopt friendly or at least strictly neutral positions towards the Soviet Union. As much as Russia could not accede to the unification of Germany within the Western alliance, she would not agree to the restoration in East Europe of what was described in the inter-war period as the cordon sanitaire. Thus in the last resort the Soviet attitude towards disengagement to a considerable extent would depend on its relations, within such a frame of reference, with the smaller nations in East Europe.