*-ON THE SUBJECT OF THE MEANING OF (THE WORD...AND PRINCIPLE OF) "GLASNOST," TAKE YOUR NEXT FOOTSTEP HERE.By RICK GIBBONS
Canadian
Press
BRUSSELS-"Speaking for myself, I want a fat Russian," says NATO Secretary General Lord Carrington as he peers over the rim of his glasses from behind a large oak table in his office.
It is a short, succinct response to a question NATO's defence and political analysts in Brussels have been grappling with almost since the ascendancy of Mikhail Gorbachev to the leadership of the Soviet Union.
Would success by the Soviets in restructuring their economy and boosting productivity be in the long-term interests of western security?
Would success mean an economically healthy, less politically hostile rival for the West or simply a more powerful Russia, capable of allocating even greater resources to military expansion in the future?
"The question, put in the vernacular, is do you want a fat Russian or a thin Russian?" says Carrington, a former British foreign secretary.
And if one opts for the "fat Russian" approach, "you've got to be extremely careful in what you do to help it along, that you're not merely helping along the defence complex of the Soviet Union."
It is that dilemma which has left NATO planners not entirely certain how to respond to the winds of change from the Soviet Union carrying the now familiar messages of glasnost (openness)* and perestroika (restructuring).
The West has been left "slightly breathless by the tempo Gorbachev has set," admits one senior NATO political adviser."
"We are now leaning to believe in a more fundamental and large-scale level of change" being undertaken in the Soviet Union, he says.
Should the West cooperate?
"There is a theory that those of more similar ideologies will not fight," says a NATO diplomat with several years of experience working in Moscow.
Despite resistance in some Soviet quarters to the measures embarked upon by Gorbachev, "the military is quite positive toward the civilian modernization program," adds a NATO economist involved in assessing Soviet strengths and weaknesses.
(article accompanied by photograph of Lord
Carrington, captioned:
(text of November 13, 1987 Vancouver Sun article)
DON'T THINK THE WISDOM OF THOMAS JEFFERSON IS PASSÉ YET IN WHAT YOU ARE ENTITLED TO FROM YOUR GOVERNMENT? LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD: TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE TO SIGN MY GUESTBOOK.
*-ON THE SUBJECT OF THE MEANING OF (THE WORD...AND PRINCIPLE OF) "GLASNOST," TAKE YOUR NEXT FOOTSTEP HERE.