East-West, North-South:
Hehir, J Bryan
J. Bryan Hehir EAST-WEST, NORTH-SOUTH BREAKING 'THE LOGIC OF BLOCS' The autumn of 1989 has been a time for memories and for hope in international relations. The fiftieth anniversary of the...
...While there is an avalanche of writing today on recasting the U.S.-Soviet relationship, neither the motivation for change nor the consequences of change are usually analyzed in terms of the welfare of the small nations...
...The letter also draws international attention to Lebanon-a move which seems at first out of context...
...One could envision a world of ordered change on the East-West front, and a world of chaotic violence and desperation in "the South...
...In his apostolic letter on the anniversary of the beginning of World War II, John Paul II took note of the momentous events of this year: "While Europe prepares to put on a new face, while positive developments are happening in certain places in its central and eastern parts, and the leaders of nations collaborate to an even greater degree in solving the great problems of humanity, God is calling his church to make its own contribution to the coming of a more fraternal world...
...The future world would be different from the past-not superpower manipulation of small states, but an implicit choice of the East-West powers (including Europe and Japan) to focus on the momentous but manageable change open on the East-West front and to let the South drift and decline...
...The first task of foreign policy for the superpowers is to move from the possibilities of change to the reality of change on these questions...
...The focus of the critique was the impact of the East-West rivalry on other states and peoples, especially in the developing world...
...The point here is not to see superpower politics as a tennis match, but to illustrate a sense of conviction that change from "the logic of the blocs" is possible and the potential of the moment should neither be squandered nor left entirely to others to define...
...The United States needs to match initiative with initiative on a range of issues: strategic arms reductions, conventional forces in Europe, its view of international organizations, and its proposal for addressing regional conflicts...
...The policy of the 1990s, the pope would remind us, must overcome the cold war, but it also must attend to its consequences in the South...
...Bialer's prediction has been validated by the scope and speed of change in Soviet foreign policy: the December 1988 UN address by Gorbachev announcing unilateral reductions of Soviet forces in Europe, the new tone to Soviet diplomacy regarding regional conflicts from Central America to the Middle East, the shifts in Soviet negotiating posture on both strategic and conventional arms, all are signs if not guarantees that the Soviets are prepared to address old issues in new ways...
...Even as he grapples with failure at home in economic terms, Gorbachev has projected his "new thinking" in global terms as a creative diplomatic agenda...
...The second level of foreign policy questions in the 1990s is represented by the pope's reference to Lebanon...
...But this shift of subject matter in fact illustrates a theme which the pope is using his unique pulpit to stress...
...The critique, in turn, was a call for reshaping the East-West competition precisely in the name of its consequences for others...
...The apostolic letter reflects this theme but does not explain it...
...Here lies the hope of the moment as events occur monthly that most would have thought hardly possible three years ago...
...It holds the promise of further evolution and long-term change in Soviet international behavior...
...It is not a perspective with many supporters so it is useful to consider its meaning...
...The papal letter is one of a series of actions of the pope responding to this "call of God" to keep the church at the center of the historical changes marking "the end of the cold war," as it is called today, and the beginning of a new period of international relations...
...Indeed the sense of hope which runs through East-West discussions today is seldom reflected in North-South questions of debt, development, and persistent internal or regional conflict...
...In the apostolic letter he clearly manifests a consciousness that his personal history-a participant in both World War II and a pastor at the very core of the cold war struggle in Poland-as well as the Catholic church's pervasive presence in areas of major political and social change (Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Philippines) provide him with a pulpit and a perspective that command an attentive audience in the international community...
...The theme is the need to connect the top of the international system-the level of superpower politics-with the events at the bottom...
...Essentially, his call is to link the East-West dimension of world politics with the North-South issues...
...This process of sober historical review set a useful context for evaluating the changes which are daily transforming the international order produced by the Second World War...
...and the Soviet Union...
...Professor Seweryn Bialer commented a year ago on the possibilities latent in "new thinking": "'new thinking,' as a process of profound reassessment of the Soviet approach to international relations, has only started...
...in the South...
...Such an outcome would be no more acceptable morally than "the logic of the blocs...
...The first task is overcoming the legacy of World War II, namely, the cold war between the U.S...
...The papal perspective on appropriate memories and hopes for 1989 directs us, I think, toward a double agenda for foreign policy in the 1990s...
...Precisely because there is hope, intellectual excitement, and historic possibilities present at the top level of international politics, the danger can be that the Lebanons of the world are simply shut out of the diplomatic agenda...
...Those domestic needs have, in part, spawned Mr...
...There are multiple causes for these profound changes, but the need for internal political and economic change in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe holds a primary place...
...The encyclical focused on the history of the problem as John Paul II elaborated a critique of "the logic of the blocs," his description of the cold war struggle...
...His initiative in commemorating the secular event of the outbreak of World War II is another example of John Paul II 's conviction that the church is prepared by its history and called by its vocation to help shape the future direction of the world...
...The Gorbachev challenge to the United States tests our skills more than our strength...
...Gorbachev's "new thinking" in foreign policy...
...The peaceful transition to a non-Communist government in Poland, the evolution of Hungary into a republic based on the values of "bourgeois democracy and democratic socialism," and the exodus of East Germans which precipitated a change of leadership in their country-these events constitute an astonishing pattern of peaceful change in one of the world's most rigidly controlled and dangerous regions...
...The fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of World War II provided an opportunity for many to reflect upon the causes and consequences of history's most destructive conflict...
...The apostolic letter concentrates on the history of Europe, but it inevitably moves beyond history to a reflection on East-West relations today...
...But in his last encyclical, On Social Concerns (1987), the pope developed the idea at length...
Vol. 116 • November 1989 • No. 20
