The bear and the foxes understanding Soviet policy in the Warsaw Pact.

Abstract

Eastern Europe has been the infant terrible of international politics in the modern era. Conflict within and about this region has precipitated two devastating world wars and continues to threaten the stability of the international system. In the postwar era, the Soviet Union has exerted its dominance in Eastern Europe in a manner which the Tsars would have surely envied. It is this dominance and the instruments through which it is achieved, that this paper is concerned. Born of the East-West Cold War struggle, the Warsaw Pact has evolved, to symbolize the calculated Soviet subjugation of Eastern Europe in the political and military spheres. This unwanted partnership, imposed by the Soviets on their reluctant allies, is far from the alliance Soviet spokesmen would claim. It is rather an instrument of a much broader integrationist program design to entrap and keep Eastern Europe in the socialist web.