The Turn to the East

Abstract

The many turmoils resulting from the end of the Cold War will continue throughout the 1990s and to try to predict the eventual outcome would be pointless. But three obvious general developments are already making themselves apparent. The first of these has been the turn eastwards by the West whose interest is to salvage as much as possible from the break-up of the Soviet empire and to support the countries of Eastern Europe in their search for a new market-oriented economic model. This interest will extend — though how much is far from clear — to providing assistance to the successor states of the USSR including Russia itself. The second development, which in any case depends upon the first, is a loss of interest in what used to be seen as the Third World, and a growing indifference to its problems unless these impinge directly upon western interests. The third development, whose consequences may well be devastating, is the collapse of certainty.