European-American Relations: The Enduring Crisis

More than a year after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the West is still laboring under a vexing paradox. By comparison with earlier police actions in East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the vaunted military machine of the Soviet Union has not fared well in the attempt to "pacify" all of Afghanistan. Yet while unable to impose control over a ragtag army of underequipped, quarreling mountain tribesmen, the Soviet Union has scored two staggering diplomatic victories: it has succeeded in splitting the Islamic world and in accelerating the continental drift between Europe and America. Instead of infusing the West with a new unity of purpose, as might have been expected, the crisis over Afghanistan has left a legacy of confusion, distrust and resentment which, in retrospect, turns the many disputes of the past into minor family squabbles.