The reunification of Germany is not in the interests of Britain and Western Europe. It might look different from public pronouncements, in official communiqué at Nato meetings, but it is not worth paying ones attention to it. We do not want a united Germany. This would have led to a change to post-war borders and we can not allow that because such development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security. In the same way, a destabilisation of Eastern Europe and breakdown of the Warsaw Pact are also not in our interests.This backs up assertions from former German Chancellor Kohl's new memoir that Thatcher put up obstacles to German Re-unification, fearing the rise of a Fourth Reich.
The game changed with the "fall" of Stalinist communism. Nobody really planned it. Every moment of the west's political movements since the end of WWII had always factored in what the communists would do. No political strategy page would be written without thinking WWCRD (What Would Communist Russia Do?) All of the sudden, the rules and the situations they knew and depended on were faced with drastic change. Change that COULD mean the loss of western influence in the balance of power in Europe.posted by chambers at 10:53 PM on September 10 [2 favorites +] [!]
"It can be argued that Reagan lifting the Carter Grain Embargo kept the Soviet Union from collapsing a couple years earlier",seem to be saying he was a hard-core, idiological anti-commie.
"The same "fuck you reality" hubris that was present in the late administration was also operative in the 80s; Reagan himself was along for the ride, as evidenced by the arms deal with Iran / hostage swap / extra-constitutional funding of the Contras.",
and "The collapse ultimately was down to grain, but Reagan was so fixedly driven to bring down communism that I begin to wonder if his motive there wasn't to ensure an ultimately more catastrophic and fundamental collapse."
The French especially were horrified. Why had Moscow not done anything to prevent the prospect of a united Germany? Mitterrand and the French Establishment, Mr Gorbachev’s colleagues reported, were having nightmares. One, Jacques Attali, even said that he would go and live on Mars if unification occurred.From the recollection of the Thatcher statement:
I can say that the President of the United States is of the same position. He sent me a telegram to Tokyo in which he asked me directly to tell you that the United States would not do anything that might put at risk the security of the Soviet Union or perceived by the Soviet society as danger. I am fulfilling his request.I don't think anyone except (some of?) the Germans wanted a united Germany.
"Many of our people believed the vision of German brothers and sisters reuniting, and many believed the promises of Chancellor Kohl. But all that has failed, and today the gap between East Germans and West Germans is deeper than ever."posted by Sitegeist at 6:48 AM on September 11, 2009
This bitter feeling of disappointment is a result of two basic problems: the accelerating rates of unemployment and the total collapse of East Germany's self-identity, Bortfeldt said.
There are indications, meanwhile, that Mitterrand may have been playing a wily game, baiting Mrs Thatcher into making increasingly hostile public statements on reunification that marginalised Britain.
Mitterrand himself had other aims. While he may have been concerned about reunification, his real ambition was to steer a wider Germany into the project of European Monetary Union and a united Europe.
"The East is supposed to change everything, and the West is not ready to change anything, because everybody knows that the West was a success and the East was a failure. As a West German colleague once told me: 'we won and you lost, and now we're marching in.' "After the opening of part of the wall in late '89 free elections were held in early 1990 with the authoritarian regime losing its majority in the parliament soon after. Their grip on power had already been weakening before the wall came down. Yes, the muck (both political and industrial) may not have been cleaned up so rapidly if they had continued on under their own reforming self-rule, but in the long run I think the change would have been deeper and healthier, for being self-driven rather than being bestowed upon them by their more virtuous big brother.
« Older Somewhere on Earth, in a laboratory, a mouse is le... | There's ceiling cat, then ther... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by delmoi at 6:08 PM on September 10, 2009