Rejoinder to Piers

Abstract

Ploughman highlights three important points. (X) The argument that Eastern Europe is different from other areas of the world is central to my thesis; if that argument falls, so does the overall thesis. The case for the distinctiveness of Eastern Europe is made in the article, and the reader must decide whether or not to accept it. (2) Ploughman suggests that the United States must be opposed to Soviet control of Eastern Europe because it seized control in the past by conquest or stealth and that other position would be regarded as clear notice that an attempted replay-in Africa, the Far East, or elsewhere-would not be effectively opposed. American national interest does not require opposition to any Soviet aggression ipso facto, unless it threatens the territorial integrity, economic prosperity, or social unity of the United States. Ploughman makes no effort to suggest that they are threatened by Soviet control of Eastern Europe; this is rather like a Soviet leader arguing that since the United States was allowed to invade the Dominican Republic without Soviet opposition it will go on to invade Czechoslovakia. Nor is the notion of dominoes finally falling throughout the world twenty-five years after the Soviet takeover persuasive. Obviously there are links between American action in one part of the world and Soviet expectations in another, but they are much more complex than this simplistic formulation. (3) My argument assumes that Soviet control of Eastern Europe is likely to continue for the forseeable future. No doubt all empires have collapsed in the past; so have all alliances and indeed most governments, but that does not mean that we should not attempt to maintain NATO or the American political system. Solid evidence that Eastern European resentment is so great as to seriously undermine Soviet control in the forseeable future would undercut my argument. I could find no such persuasive evidence, and I gather that Ploughman could not either.