THE COLD WAR AND THE WEST
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Two factors have prevented the West from considering such
formal recognition: the trauma of the Yalta agreements and the fear
of \Vest German reaction. The Yalta agreements were an attempt
to undo, at least in a certain measure, the political consequences of
the conquest of Eastern Europe by the Red Army. This was to be
achieved through free, democratic elections. This being the intention
of the West, it could hardly be expected that the Soviet Union would
cooperate in dismantling its recently conquered European empire.
Yet Western opinion has never recovered from the shock over the
failure of the Soviet Union to live up to the Yalta agreements.
The issue of the European status quo has come to a head in the
issues of German unification and the revision of the Oder-Neisse line.
For if the Soviet Union has its way, Germany will remain divided
in virtual perpetuity and the present boundary between East Ger–
many and Poland will remain unchanged. But while the West has
committed itself in words to German unification and the revision of
the Oder-Neisse line, it has been unable to devise a policy in support
of these objectives. Here is indeed the Achilles' heel of the Western
position.
What the West pretends to be seeking in Europe can obviously
not be obtained short of either a victorious war or irresistible diplo–
matic pressure. In other words, it cannot be obtained at all in the
foreseeable future. The statesmen of the West know this, but they
feel compelled to continue their verbal commitment to unattainable
goals. For this verbal commitment provides at the very least the
rationalization for the Western orientation of West Germany. West
Germany has joined the Atlantic Alliance with the understanding that
the Alliance will be used as an instrument for unification and the
revision of the Oder-Neisse line. In the measure that it becomes ob–
vious to West German opinion that the Alliance cannot be used for
that purpose West Germany may tum elsewhere for the satisfaction
of its national aspirations. It is this possibility of an Eastern orienta–
tion of West Germany which threatens the West with a danger and
provides an opportunity for the Soviet Union.
The United States has fought the cold war in Europe with a
considerable measure of success. While it has been unable to advance,
it has not been forced to retreat.
It
has succeeded in doing what
it originally set out to do: to contain the Soviet Union within the
