Home › Features › Essays › 1989 and All That

1989 and All That

Robert W. Tucker
Fall 1990
Summary -- 

The USSR is finished as a great power, and NATO will break up in consequence. Future tensions between world powers are likely to take the form of disputes over trading relations. The USA's foreign policy posture as 'defender of the free world' pre-1989 in no way implies a continued posture as 'world policeman' -- a role likely to prove harmful to US interests. Lead article in a FA feature under the rubric 'A world transformed'. See next four items.

Robert W. Tucker is Emeritus Professor of American Foreign Policy, The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University. This article is adapted from the author's essay in Sea-Changes: American Foreign Policy in a World Transformed, published by the Council on Foreign Relations.

We're sorry, but Foreign Affairs does not have the copyright to display this article online.

Related

Essay, Fall 1989
The Coming of the Second World War
John Lukacs

The two world wars are the mountain ranges that dominate the historical landscape of the twentieth century. We still live in their shadows, in America as well as in Europe. Only with these wars did European and American history begin to coincide. The revolutions of 1820, 1830, 1848 and the wars leading to the unification of Italy and Germany marked the nineteenth century in European history, while the major events in American history were the westward movement, the Civil War and mass immigration. These events had certain transatlantic connections, yet not decisive ones. But in the twentieth century the two world wars have been the main events in the history of Europe and America as well.

Read
Essay, Jan 1963
Strains on the Alliance
Henry A. Kissinger

In a major address on July 4, 1962, the President called for a partnership between the United States and Europe. With the passage of the Trade Bill this "great design" seems to have come a step closer. To many, the Atlantic Community beckons as the great hope of the 1960s. The possibility of establishing a vital Atlantic system is indeed one of the great opportunities of our time. It may well be that to future historians it will appear the distinctive feature of our decade, far transcending in importance the crises which form the headlines of the day.

Read
Essay, Jan/Feb 2008
Europe's Eastern Promise
Ronald D. Asmus

After the Cold War, NATO and the EU opened their doors to central and eastern Europe, making the continent safer and freer than ever before. Today, NATO and the EU must articulate a new rationale for enlarging still further, once again extending democracy and prosperity to the East, this time in the face of a more powerful and defiant Russia.

Read
Cover image

In the Magazine

November/December 2009 / 6, 88
Essay
The Dollar and the Deficits
C. Fred Bergsten

The global economic crisis has revealed the folly of large U.S. budget and trade deficits, as well as of the strong dollar that makes them possible. If it is serious about recovery, the United States must balance the budget, stimulate private saving, and embrace a declining dollar.
Read