Abstract
Much as generals are often accused of fighting or preparing to fight the ‘last war’, so too did the United States engage in the Polish crisis of 1980/81. The lessons of the Czechoslovak crisis of 1968, in which the Prague Spring was crushed largely as a result of Western acquiescence to Moscow’s manipulation, had been burned into the collective memory of the United States. It therefore moved to apply these lessons to the more recent Polish situation as it unfolded, by striving to deter a Soviet invasion of Poland. This it did through methods of indirect deterrence, involving the threat of punitive measures to be applied after the fact. Thus, rather than repeat the mistakes of the past, which had in effect given a green light to Soviet military intervention, the United States concentrated its efforts during the crisis on mustering Allied support to threaten broad-ranging retribution in the case of escalation by the USSR to the conventional level.
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7 Conclusion: Lessons for the West
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© 1988 Thomas M. Cynkin
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Cynkin, T.M. (1988). Conclusion: Lessons for the West. In: Soviet and American Signalling in the Polish Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09694-7_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09694-7_7
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