Building Peace in the Europe of the 1990s

Abstract

The ‘Autumn Revolutions’ in Eastern Europe in 1989 brought a dramatic political change for the post-war period: the East-West conflict which determined developments in Europe since the end of World War II came to an end. This conflict sprang from a world-political antagonism and an ideological conflict between the democratic and constitutional states of the Western societies on the one hand, and the societies of existing socialism with their typical ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ on the other hand. This difference in position constituted the systemic core of the conflict. Once the Eastern European countries and even the Soviet Union develop along the lines of democratic and constitutional states — and, in all likelihood towards market economies — this positional difference disappears and with it the central cause for the East-West conflict. The conflict dissolves: a world-political constellation, expressed by a bipolarity between the two world powers and by the division of Europe, will then have expired. What will then begin is a phase of transition into a new structure. During this transition, the inheritance of the old structure will have to be gradually overcome while new political activities based on a sound peace policy will have to be developed. In this sense, Europe is at a crossroads today: either this Europe will be overpowered by a vast number of problems that have accumulated and will thus sink into the quagmire of non-perspective or else it will make use of this chance to establish — within only one decade — the foundation for a structure of durable peace and coexistence in Europe. The latter would exceed all that could have been achieved under the previous conditions of a continuing world-political conflict and clash of systems.