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Securing Europe

Richard H. Ullman
Reviewed by By Gregory F. Treverton
Fall 1991
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Richard H. Ullman
Princeton University Press
1991
183 pp.
$19.95

A Europe of "divisible peace," not free of conflict but free of major war: this is Ullman's vision, one he offers in explicit rebuttal to those "realist" analysts who conjure a future of anarchy replacing the grim stability of bipolarity. His argument is less the integrating power of the European Community, though that plays a role, than the absence of Soviet power in central Europe and the presence of a satisfied Germany, along with Europe's experience that war does not pay. His recommendation is a European Security Organization, which would eventually subsume NATO. There is plenty with which to argue-for example, will Soviet (or Russian), not to say German, interests in eastern Europe be limited to the negative one of forestalling any serious threat? But that is a tribute to the clarity of this masterful essay; it sets the standard for the debate.

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