U.S. Strategic Trade: An Export Control System for the 1990s by John Heinz

Author:John Heinz [Heinz, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Trade & Tariffs, Social Science, Political Science, Regional Studies, General
ISBN: 9780813381268
Google: 4KybDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 34020479
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1991-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

The Future of the Warsaw Pact

It is presumptuous at this point to predict the future of NATO and the Warsaw Pact The unilateral reductions announced by President Gorbachev certainly augur well for a reduced threat by Warsaw Pact conventional forces to Western Europe and the United States. NATO is also undergoing an internal assessment of its own force reductions, aided in no small measure by President Bush's reductions announced at the Brussels summit in June 1989.

There are, perhaps, some hopeful signs that the Warsaw Pact is in the process of evolving from a purely offensive military organization to a political-military defense structure. In April 1987, during a visit to Prague, Gorbachev hinted that Moscow would put aside the Brezhnev Doctrine of tight control over the Warsaw Pact members and eventually adopt what his Foreign Ministry spokesman, Gennadi Gerasimov, recently described as "the Sinatra doctrine," letting each state do it "my way."

On July 9, 1989, the Warsaw Pact leaders concluded their annual meeting in Bucharest by affirming the right of member states to decide their own pace of reform and pledging to work for additional agreements with NATO to reduce conventional and nuclear arms. The pact's final communique proposed to create a "center for lessening the military threat and preventing surprise attacks in Europe."52 The communique also affirmed the right of the pacf's member nations to decide their own futures and further stated, "There are no universal models of socialism . ... No country has the right to dictate events in another country, to assume the position of a judge or arbiter," a theme Gorbachev had earlier announced in Prague.53

On November 26, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze visited Poland a month after the Solidarity-led government took office. Shevardnadze's visit overlapped with a meeting of foreign ministers of the Warsaw Pact nations. Speaking of the future orientation of the Warsaw Pact, he said the military aspect should be deemphasized in favor of a more "political" defense agreement. In the future, he added, the security of the pact should be resolved "through political measures."54

The Polish government added its own wish list. According to a government spokesman, Poland wants the Warsaw Pact to make a distinction between the Soviet "zone of security" in Poland and its "sphere of influence."55 The Polish government proposed to remain within the Soviet security sphere but did not want to be considered within the Soviet sphere of influence. The latter is an important distinction: It justifies Soviet interference in the domestic affairs of the Warsaw Pact members. Although the Soviet government has not gone as far as Poland would like, Shevardnadze did pledge not to interfere in Poland's internal affairs. So far, the Soviet government has kept its pledge.

Several confidence-building measures are currently under way that U.S. analysts say raise "new questions about the viability of the Warsaw Pact as a cohesive, effective military alliance."56 For example:

Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria have announced their intention to reduce military spending by 25 percent in 1991.

Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary have declared that their approval must be given before military forces can be used outside national territory.

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