Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

The Race to Destruction
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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concerns are felt today. The cover of the London Economist (which
generally supports Reagan’s programs) shows the President clad in
military garb speaking to armed troops, with the caption: “Right, men,
are we ready for their peace offensive?”; caricaturists are granted
latitude beyond the norm, not only in the West. 45 Stalin’s 1952 proposal
for a unified demilitarized Germany under internationally supervised
elections (which the Communists were sure to lose) was rebuffed in
favor of the rearmament of Germany within a Western military alliance, 46
a guarantee that the Soviet grip over its European satellites would not
relax, whatever internal changes take place in the USSR; given recent
history and security considerations, no Russian government would
permit erosion of its control over this region in the face of a rearmed
Germany allied to the United States. The possibility of reducing tension
and conflict was dismissed in favor of the imperatives of confrontation
and military build-up. The security of the United States was again a
secondary concern.
4.2 The Defense of Western Europe
Perhaps, then, it was the fear of a Soviet attack on Western Europe that
motivated US militarism. This thesis is also not easy to defend, quite
apart from the fact that opportunities for relaxation of European tensions
have hardly been vigorously pursued by US planners. The US never
seriously anticipated a Soviet attack on Western Europe, despite the
familiar public stance concerning the Russian hordes poised to take this
defenseless prize. In his very important study of this question, already
cited in connection with US plans for Latin America, Melvyn Leffler
argues persuasively that “while civilian officials and military strategists
feared the loss of Eurasia, they did not expect the Soviet Union to