What War in Europe? The Implications of Legitimate Stability
Fear that war might occur between East and West in Europe persists even after Mikhail Gorbachev's dramatic announcement that the USSR would cut its armed forces by 500,000 men and reduce and restructure Soviet forces stationed in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. That fear has long been exaggerated. Such a war has been and remains a most unlikely eventuality for reasons only secondarily related to Gorbachev's effect on Soviet military doctrines and deployments. East-West relations in Europe are and have been for some time uncommonly stable. That stability represents a prudence that has existed even without reference to the promising new leadership of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev and the reforms that have been launched there, welcome though they are. 1 In the context of that prudence, no issues in Europe have threatened East-West war for decades and none seem likely to. Of course, the status quo is not necessarily engraved in stone for all time. Further tumult and change in the East European political order seem likely. All the same, the use of force by either side against the other has been ruled out by internationally agreed prohibitions and by restraints that have been well established