The United States, Western Europe and the Polish Crisis: International Relations in the Second Cold War

The United States, Western Europe and the Polish Crisis International Relations in the Second Cold War

Helene Sjursen

0333_740661_01_pre.qxd

10/31/2002

9:58 AM

Page i

Cold War History Series General Editor: Saki Dockrill, Senior Lecturer in War Studies, King’s College, London The new Cold War History Series aims to make available to scholars and students the results of advanced research on the origins and the development of the Cold War and its impact on nations, alliances and regions at various levels of statecraft, and in areas such as diplomacy, security, economy, military and society. Volumes in the series range from detailed and original specialised studies, proceedings of conferences, to broader and more comprehensive accounts. Each work deals with individual themes and periods of the Cold War and each author or editor approaches the Cold War with a variety of narrative, analysis, explanation, interpretation and reassessment of recent scholarship. These studies are designed to encourage investigation and debate on important themes and events in the Cold War, as seen from both East and West, in an effort to deepen our understanding of this phenomenon and place it in its context in world history. Titles include: Günter Bischof AUSTRIA IN THE FIRST COLD WAR, 1945–55 The Leverage of the Weak Dale Carter and Robin Clifton (editors) WAR AND COLD WAR IN AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY, 1942–62 Saki Dockrill BRITAIN’S RETREAT FROM EAST OF SUEZ The Choice between Europe and the World, 1945–1968 Martin H. Folly CHURCHILL, WHITEHALL AND THE SOVIET UNION, 1940–45 Ian Jackson THE ECONOMIC COLD WAR America, Britain and East–West Trade, 1948–63 Saul Kelly COLD WAR IN THE DESERT Britain, the United States and the Italian Colonies, 1945–52 Dianne Kirby (editor) RELIGION AND THE COLD WAR Wilfred Loth OVERCOMING THE COLD WAR A History of Détente, 1950–1991 Donette Murray KENNEDY, MACMILLAN AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS

0333_740661_01_pre.qxd

10/31/2002

9:58 AM

Page ii

Andrew Roadnight UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARDS INDONESIA IN THE TRUMAN AND EISENHOWER YEARS Kevin Ruane THE RISE AND FALL OF THE EUROPEAN DEFENCE COMMUNITY Anglo-American Relations and the Crisis of European Defence, 1950–55 Helene Sjursen THE UNITED STATES, WESTERN EUROPE AND THE POLISH CRISIS International Relations in the Second Cold War Antonio Varsori and Elena Calandri (editors) THE FAILURE OF PEACE IN EUROPE, 1943–48

Cold War History Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–79482–6 (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

0333_740661_01_pre.qxd

10/31/2002

9:58 AM

Page iii

The United States, Western Europe and the Polish Crisis International Relations in the Second Cold War Helene Sjursen

0333_740661_01_pre.qxd

10/31/2002

9:58 AM

Page iv

© Helene Sjursen 2003 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2003 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 0–333–74066–1 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sjursen, Helene. The United States, Western Europe and the Polish Crisis: international relations in the second cold war / Helene Sjursen. p. cm. – (Cold War history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–333–74066–1 1. Poland–Foreign relations–1945–1989. 2. Cold War. 3. World politics–1975–1985. I. Title. II. Cold War history series (Palgrave (Firm)) DK4442.S55 2002 337.438¢009¢04–dc21 2002072328 10 12

9 8 7 6 11 10 09 08

5 4 3 2 1 07 06 05 04 03

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

0333_740661_01_pre.qxd

10/31/2002

9:58 AM

Page vi

0333_740661_01_pre.qxd

10/31/2002

9:58 AM

Page v

To my parents, Nina and Ørnulf Sjursen

0333_740661_01_pre.qxd

10/31/2002

9:58 AM

Page vii

Contents Acknowledgements

ix

1 Introduction Poland, Europe and the Second Cold War Reinterpreting the Cold War The United States and Western Europe Understanding Western policies Scope and structure of the book Focus, methodology and sources

1 3 4 6 9 13 15

Part I

The Crisis

2 The Double-Edged Sword of the Polish Crisis Introduction Origins of the crisis ‘Only’ a security problem? Poland in the Second Cold War Promoting the status quo Conclusion

21 21 21 25 32 36 39

3 Balancing Democracy and Security Introduction Countering the Soviet threat Muddled perceptions, muddled objectives Doing what is feasible A reluctant economic response Conclusion

41 41 42 47 51 56 60

4 After Martial Law: Disarray in the Western Camp Introduction Confusion in the Western camp A crisis in the alliance A worsening of the Western crisis Muddling together Conclusion

63 63 64 69 76 82 87

vii

0333_740661_01_pre.qxd

10/31/2002

9:58 AM

Page viii

viii Contents

Part II

National Responses

5 The United States: Human Rights as Power Politics Regenerating American power Looking back: a policy free of moral ambiguity Human rights through power politics Domestic tensions Conclusion

93 94 97 102 104 106

6 The Europeans Germany: for the sake of peace in Europe France and Britain: a matter of appropriate conduct in the alliance France Britain

107 107

7 Conclusion: The Cold War Between Human Rights and Security The Polish crisis and transatlantic relations during the Second Cold War Diverging views of détente and human rights Could more have been done? A community of values East–West relations after 1989

119 119 126 133 134 135 139 141 145

Notes

147

Bibliography

186

Index

198

0333_740661_01_pre.qxd

10/31/2002

9:58 AM

Page ix

Acknowledgements This book is a revised version of my PhD thesis, written at the Department of International Relations, London School of Economics. My first thanks therefore go to my supervisor, Christopher Hill. I remain extremely grateful for his advice and encouragement. I would also like to thank Margot Light and Christopher Coker of the LSE. During the process of turning the thesis into a book, the comments of my two examiners, Philip Windsor (who has since sadly passed away) and Adam Roberts, were very important and I thank them both. I have also benefited greatly from the stimulating research environment of the ARENA programme at the University of Oslo. Most of all, the comments, criticisms and suggestions made by Erik Oddvar Eriksen were crucial to the completion of this project. Warm thanks also to my good friends Leticia Pinheiro, Monica Herz and Tracy Dilks. The assistance of Ann Elizabeth Stie is gratefully acknowledged. As a small token of my appreciation, this book is dedicated to my parents, Nina and Ørnulf Sjursen. It goes only a short way towards thanking them for all they have given me throughout my life. HELENE SJURSEN

ix

0333_740661_01_pre.qxd

10/31/2002

9:58 AM

Page x

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 1

1 Introduction

During the night of 13 December 1981, an unprecedented process of liberalisation inside the Soviet bloc came to an abrupt halt when the Polish authorities imposed martial law in their country. Dissidents and members of Solidarity – the first independent trade union in communist Poland – were arrested, and the rights and freedoms they had fought so hard to extract from the authorities were revoked. These dramatic events did not pass without notice in Western Europe and the United States. Western governments had anxiously followed the uprising in Poland that had led to the process of liberalisation, starting with the Gdansk Agreement in August 1980, which had given workers the right to organise freely. When martial law was imposed 16 months later, Western governments expressed their dissatisfaction by imposing a number of sanctions against the Soviet Union and Poland. The Polish crisis was a divisive issue for the Western allies and, in fact, it triggered one of the most serious transatlantic crises of the Cold War period. Contrary to tradition, the principal conflict was between the United States and West Germany rather than between the United States and France, but ultimately France and Britain also expressed deep dissatisfaction with the United States. That domestic political events in a member state of the Warsaw Pact should attract so much attention by the Western alliance is puzzling. The Cold War is usually described as a Hobbesian struggle between two military blocs where the best one could hope for was the maintenance of a balance of power. Why, then, were the Western allies so bothered about a struggle in the enemy camp? And why should this issue have disturbed the alliance to such an extent that observers started to predict the collapse of the Western alliance? The central argument of this book is that the difficulties that arose in Western cooperation in the face of 1

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

2

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 2

Introduction

the Polish events can be understood in terms of a collision between different conceptions of appropriate action. In other words, it suggests that there was more to Cold War politics than two superpowers confronting one another in the face of potential war. Not only did other state and non-state actors play an important part in Cold War politics, but the logics of action and processes of interaction between these actors were more complicated than studies of the Cold War often suggest. This, in turn, raises questions about the nature of alliance relations and the assumption that the Western allies were held together only by a sense of a common security threat. Another way of outlining the basic theme of this book is to consider the tension between security concerns and concern about democracy and human rights. It is a common assumption that in the world of bipolarity, considerations of human rights and democracy were of minor importance compared with the security of national territories. However, it is important to question this assumption in concrete empirical terms, and in this respect the Polish crisis and the Western responses to it provide an interesting case, not least because in its domestic dimension the Polish crisis was a struggle over norms – over by which principles and values Polish society should be governed. Hence, this case allows us to investigate not only the underlying values that might have served to guide Western policies, but also whether and how the particular characteristics of the Polish crisis influenced their considerations. Consequently, this book seeks both to discuss the substantive issues of what happened and why in relations between the United States and Western Europe during the crisis, and to address a general theme in the history of the Cold War that goes beyond the particularities of the Polish crisis: the role and importance of norms in the international politics of the Cold War. Traditionally, limited attention has been paid to such issues, but in recent years increasing attention in various guises has been given to the role of ‘ideas’, ‘norms’ and ‘institutional patterns’ in the literature on the Cold War.1 The principal issue here, however, is not only whether norms matter – these are difficult to escape, given that we live in a world ‘constructed’ by social beings and where ‘facts’ come in various forms and shapes that are not all physical in nature.2 Rather, the question in this book is which types of norm are important in the international politics of the Cold War? Furthermore, is it possible to detect changes in the normative underpinnings of foreign policy in the Cold War period? The question of the role of norms is important with regard both to understanding the particular content of Western policy towards the

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 3

Introduction 3

Eastern bloc and to understanding relations within the alliance. If we relax the emphasis on the security threat as the only factor in East–West relations during the Cold War, what is the glue, then, that held the Western allies together? We must ask not only why cooperation fails but also why it sometimes works. Under what conditions should we expect cooperation to be achievable and on what terms can this take place in international politics? The classic assumption is that cooperation is most likely to succeed if its utility is higher than its cost to all participants. Should this be modified or challenged when looking at cooperation amongst democratic states in particular? Conversely, can cooperation break down as a result of factors other than the absence of calculated utility for the actors involved?

Poland, Europe and the Second Cold War The Polish crisis took place in the context of the so-called ‘Second Cold War’. After a period of détente in the late 1960s and early 1970s, tension in East–West relations rose again in the late 1970s, and by the time martial law was imposed in Poland, relations were approaching freezing point. According to the US government, the correlation of forces had shifted in favour of Moscow during the last years of détente. Moscow had supported the victorious faction in the civil war in Angola, a Marxist regime had taken over in Mozambique, and Angola was being used as a base for rebel attacks on South Africa’s protectorate Namibia.3 Then a coup brought Ethiopia into the communist camp in 1977, followed by South Yemen the following year. On top of this came the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, which plunged Soviet– American relations to their lowest level since the Cuban missile crisis. US President Jimmy Carter responded by ordering economic sanctions against the Soviet Union, withdrawing the United States from the 1980 Olympic Games and providing covert assistance to the Afghan Islamist rebels. Carter also withdrew the SALT II Treaty (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) from consideration in the US Senate and announced that defence spending would rise by 5 per cent in real terms.4 Thus, the political confidence building between the superpowers that had characterised détente came to an end. Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, reinforced this more aggressive strategy towards the Soviet Union. He declared war on the ‘evil empire’, and proceeded by planning the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and the deployment of new mediumrange nuclear missiles in Western Europe. Perhaps the most illustrative example of the US position in this period is contained in Constantine

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

4

2/11/02

07:28 PM

Page 4

Introduction

Menges’s The Twilight Struggle,5 in which the foreign policy adviser to Ronald Reagan outlines what he refers to as ‘the Soviet strategy of indirect aggression’ and urges, ‘based on a moral and strategic imperative’, a more systematic global strategy by the US to counter this aggression. If bloc to bloc competition had been reinforced, we would intuitively expect internal cohesion inside each bloc to have been reinforced as well. The puzzle is that the opposite seems to have happened. This requires an explanation. In empirical terms, we must ask if the degree of importance that is usually attributed to the Cold War conflict should be reduced despite the increased tension implied by the references to a ‘Second Cold War’. The apparent asymmetry in the early 1980s between the sense that the global Cold War struggle was intensifying on the one hand, and continued détente in Europe on the other, is rarely addressed directly in the literature on the Cold War. In theoretical terms, the question is whether we need to modify our understanding of the underlying forces in the Cold War, and consequently of what was at stake for the Western states.

Reinterpreting the Cold War In the literature on the Cold War two questions are central: how to account for the start of the Cold War, and how to account for its end. However, these questions are often debated according to the terms set by the realist perspective – alternative assumptions about the underlying forces in political processes are not identified. Thus, only limited variations on the interpretation of empirical data emerge. In fact, the discussions on the origins and end of the Cold War tend to focus on who was responsible for the development of the conflict and who should receive the credit for ending it. The reasons why the various actors took particular policy paths receive much less attention. Furthermore, the choice of which actors to study is predetermined by the realist assumption of great-power dominance. Hence, the principal focus is on the two superpowers and their roles in the Cold War. With regard to who ended the Cold War, there is a dividing line between those who argue that the United States won and those who point to the exceptional role played by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.6 With regard to how the Cold War started, the debate centres on the traditionalist, revisionist and post-revisionist perspectives. 7 The focus on the superpowers was to some extent modified in the 1980s with the declassification of documents in some European states, which amongst other things highlighted the role of the West

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 5

Introduction 5

Europeans in encouraging the United States to commit itself to European security. Since the end of the Cold War, the debate on its origins has been reinvigorated, due partly to the availability of new and more varied sources of information, most importantly from the former Soviet bloc, but also due to the assumption that, with the end of the Cold War, it would be easier to develop a more neutral analysis of the phenomenon than was the case during that period.8 The various academic participants in the debate have changed position to some extent, but the central divisions have remained more or less the same.9 To the extent that attention has been paid to the Polish crisis in this literature, it is presented as an example of how and why the United States won the Cold War. Solidarity remained a vital, albeit illicit, political force in Poland, and after the imposition of martial law in 1981 it was supported clandestinely by the United States throughout the 1980s. When the round table negotiations on the transition to democracy opened in Poland in 1987, representatives of Solidarity were present. Incidentally, it has been argued that the part played by the United States during the 1980s explains why Poland is more strongly Atlanticist – as opposed to Europeanist – than some other Central and East European states. Rather than pursue the debate on who was responsible for the beginning and end of the Cold War, this book examines the political processes that took place during a particular period of the Cold War. The aim is to investigate the processes of interaction and their underlying characteristics, and to highlight the existence and independent role of actors other than those traditionally studied, with a particular focus on Europe. Ultimately, this should also enable us to draw out elements of continuity and change in the post-Cold War world. With the benefit of hindsight, the events in Poland in the early 1980s have been described as signalling the imminent collapse of Soviet control in Central and Eastern Europe. From this perspective, today’s story of the Second Cold War differs from the way in which it was most often told at the time. Western policies during the crisis were characterised by great uncertainty about the course of events in Poland, and by an overestimation of the power of the Soviet Union. The members of the Western alliance do not seem to have perceived the changes that were taking place in Soviet thinking.10 The symbolism of the events in Poland in 1980–81 could not be missed: the protest was driven by the very same workers who were supposed to be the backbone of the ruling Communist Party. The consequent imposition of military rule indicated that the legitimacy of the party and the Soviet Union’s influence on

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

6

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 6

Introduction

Polish politics was crumbling. However, for the most part this event was viewed as following a familiar pattern in Eastern Europe, where in previous years repression and a return to the status quo had followed popular protest and liberalisation. The uncertainty and disagreement over how to interpret the Polish crisis, as well as how to fit it into the global context, was not only the result of inadequate information on the situation in Poland and the intentions of the Polish and Soviet authorities. It also had a normative dimension in that the rights and wrongs of martial law were contested. Since the opening of archives in the former Soviet bloc, more has been learnt about the substance of this issue, about what actually happened. However, disagreement over the appropriateness of imposing martial law has not altogether disappeared: the significance of martial law remains contested. This book does not seek to assess the legitimacy of martial law, rather it intends to show that the Western policies developed in response to the events in Poland, both before and after martial law, were guided by value judgements and not only by material interests. The book further seeks to identify which values helped to shape these policies, and thereby to achieve a better understanding of why they took the particular forms they did. Although this book does not intend to examine the credibility of the US claim of victory over communism in 1989–91, it is hoped that it will contribute to a more nuanced picture of the role of that superpower. Indeed, the fact that the United States clandestinely supported the opposition in Poland and the fact that Solidarity survived after martial law do not necessarily mean that there was a causal link between the two. Similarly, a causal link between US policies and the end of the Cold War is not proven by pointing out that a particular US policy coincided with the end of the Cold War. Even if such a causal link existed, this does not tell us anything about the intentions of US policy-makers, or about the basic premises upon which this policy was built.

The United States and Western Europe In this book the Western alliance is taken as the entire configuration of economic, trade, political and security relationships. Although the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was the dominant institution in coordinating Western policies in the Cold War, any study of the structures and processes of Western foreign policy coordination that looked at this organisation alone would be of limited interest. As Sir Clive Rose, former British Ambassador to NATO, has pointed out:

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 7

Introduction 7

Consultation ‘in the Alliance’ is of course by no means confined to this [the NATO] machinery. Consultation between members takes place, not only in many other multilateral fora, but also continuously on a bilateral basis, as part of the normal diplomatic exchanges outside the formal network of the Alliance.11 Consequently, in addition to NATO, the European Community (EC), European political cooperation (EPC) and to some extent CoCom are also brought into this analysis. It follows from this that the Western alliance was at one and the same time both more and less than is often assumed. First, broadly defined, the alliance was more than was often assumed in the sense that it survived for so long not only because the members shared a common enemy but also because they shared a common set of norms, values and beliefs, and conformed to agreed rules of behaviour in their dealings with each other. It is suggested in this book that over time ties were produced that bound the member states together, despite the intergovernmental character of the alliance. When entering into an alliance, states accept, and come to expect, adherence to certain rules and norms, the most important of these being consultation with the other allies on issues of common concern. This includes the implicit expectation that the allies will take each other’s perspectives into consideration.12 Consequently the individual states’ policies and views cannot be seen as completely immune to the influence of the other states.13 Thus, the liberal argument that democracies rarely go to war against each other is taken as a given or a starting point.14 It is suggested that democratic states are particularly prone to establishing ‘security communities’. Because of the principles underlying their domestic regimes – rule of law, non-violent conflict resolution and respect for human rights – one might expect a security community of democratic states to adopt the same norms. However, this does not mean that there will be an absence of conflict between them. An important aim of this book is to identify the sources of such conflicts and their importance, as well as the extent to which – and how – they were overcome in the context of the Polish crisis. Such questions are often raised in studies of what is now called the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the European Union,15 with the end of the Cold War they were increasingly raised in the context of the broader Western alliance.16 Most of the literature on NATO during the Cold War focused on strategic military issues and hardly touched the political aspects of the alliance. Karl Deutsch’s

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

8

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 8

Introduction

concept of a ‘pluralistic security community’ and Richard Neustadt’s study of alliance politics were exceptions in this respect.17 With the end of the Cold War the question of what would keep the alliance together came to the fore. If the Soviet threat was the only thing that had kept the NATO allies together, then surely, with its disappearance, NATO would also disintegrate? Second, the Western alliance was less than was often assumed in the sense that the principal power in the alliance, the United States, was challenged by developments in Europe. The Polish crisis coincided with efforts to strengthen European political cooperation. The London Report of 1981 was particularly important in clearing new ground for this by reinforcing the consultation mechanisms of EPC and setting up a crisis consultation mechanism.18 The early 1980s also saw moves to end the separation between EC external relations and EPC. Finally, there were calls for a security dimension to EPC in the early 1980s, as laid down in the Genscher–Colombo Plan.19 This push to strengthen both EPC and the EC’s economic power was a sign of Europe’s frustration with transatlantic relations and it sowed the seed of further difficulties inside NATO. This book will consider which Western institutions were most effective in coordinating Western policies towards Poland, and whether there were clashes between the various institutional networks. In addition, the strength of the desire for increased European independence from the United States will be assessed. In the same way as events in Poland indicated that something was changing in the Soviet bloc in the 1980s, developments in the Atlantic alliance in the early 1980s signalled that the Western bloc was becoming less tightly knit. Several new initiatives were taken to strengthen the integration of Western Europe, and this book will examine the extent to which, and how, these developments influenced Western policies during the Polish crisis. Was there, for example, a distinctly West European view of the crisis in Poland that led to independent European initiatives? The potential for tension between a European and an Atlantic entity becomes particularly clear if one bears in mind that NATO had ambitions to progress from a military alliance to an actual Atlantic Community.20 This was strongly emphasised in the ‘Report of the Committee of Three on Non-Military Cooperation in NATO’ in 1956, which argued that, as well as meeting its overall objective of security, NATO should aim to create an ‘Atlantic Community whose roots are deeper even than the necessity for common defence’. The report insisted that politics and security were interdependent and that the challenge to NATO

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 9

Introduction 9

was not exclusively military. Consequently, it concluded, the success of the military alliance depended on the political cohesion that would be afforded by an Atlantic Community. During his time as Secretary of State in the Nixon administration, Henry Kissinger sought to revive this idea by reactivating the Atlantic Treaty. According to Kissinger, this would lead to agreement on the broader issues of defence and détente, as well as commercial and monetary issues. In the same context, in a speech in April 1973, Kissinger declared 1973 the ‘Year of Europe’.21 The European partners were not, however, overly enthusiastic. Kissinger’s initiative was generally, and probably rightly, interpreted as reflecting his concern about the potentially disruptive effects that EPC would have on Atlantic cohesion, leading to a weakening of the United States’ influence in Europe. The Europeans also disliked Kissinger’s description of US responsibilities as global and European interests as chiefly regional. Particularly sceptical was French Foreign Minister Michel Jobert, who denounced the ‘condominium’ between the United States and the Soviet Union, and suggested that what the United States really wanted was a partnership of unequals.22 As 1973 dragged on, Kissinger’s ‘Year of Europe’ turned out to be an abject failure – Kissinger himself referred to it as ‘the year that never was’.23 In response to (or defiance of ) the US proposal, on 23 July in Copenhagen, the European Council decided to adopt a ‘Document on the European Identity’, which confirmed the importance of the US nuclear umbrella to European security but also stressed the importance of equality between the United States and Europe. The Copenhagen declaration also underlined that relations with the United States should not affect the EC’s determination to establish itself as a distinct and original entity.24 In practice this amounted to a rejection of Kissinger’s proposal. Hence, this book suggests that the status and role of the Atlantic alliance – broadly defined – during the Cold War and the relations between the members of the alliance were more complex than has often been assumed. Accordingly, its principal tasks are to investigate why this group of states, in the particular context of the Second Cold War, became so preoccupied with events in Poland, and why these events disturbed the alliance states to such an extent that they failed to maintain a common policy despite having agreed that this was important for them.

Understanding Western policies A classic response to the question of why the Western states were so concerned about events in Poland would be that they were apprehen-

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 10

10 Introduction

sive about their own security. This would also fit in with the broader interpretation of the Cold War as a struggle between national interests, defined in terms of national security. From such a viewpoint, most of the economic and political actions and interactions in the Cold War period can be understood as strategic moves aimed at ensuring the maintenance of a balance of power that was occasionally tipped by attempts at superiority by one or other of the superpowers. Hence, Western concern about the developments in Poland can be seen simply as an expression of their concern for their own security. In the particular context of the Second Cold War, such concern would be consistent with the general argument about the dangers of a shift in the correlation of forces between the two blocs in favour of the Soviet Union. However, is this explanation sufficient? After all, Warsaw Pact troops had marched into Berlin in 1953, Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968 without causing major instability in Europe or provoking a response by the West. Why, then, the sudden concern for national security in the case of Poland? What most characterised Western policies during the previous crises in Central and Eastern Europe was their passivity. Particularly in the aftermath of the Hungarian crisis, Western governments were criticised for encouraging protests and revolts and then washing their hands of the consequences. The United States was especially criticised for raising Hungarian expectations that action would be taken in the event of Soviet intervention. The following words from Istvan Bibo, a minister in the last Nagy government, testify to this expectation: The Western world did not promise to start an atomic war in their [the Hungarian people’s] interest, nor did it call on them foolishly to take up arms. Their encouragements, however, did say that if ever the international political situation and the attitude of these peoples justify it, the Western world would use all its economic, political and moral weight to bring these issues up for consideration and satisfactory solution. The Hungarian Revolution brought about all the requisite conditions and legal claims. The gravest consequences the Western world must face as a result of the defeat of the Hungarian Revolution are that a ten year long policy and propaganda referring to principles and morals can now be contested not only in terms of its effectiveness and true meaning, but in terms of its honesty as well.25 Is the heightening of tension during the Second Cold War enough to explain why concern about the events in Poland was stronger than it

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 11

Introduction 11

had been in the case of Hungary and Czechoslovakia? Was there something particular about Poland? For example, was it strategically more important? Alternatively, is the ‘state of nature’ analogy sufficient to analyse international politics in the Cold War period? Recent works on the Cold War discuss the importance of beliefs and ideas in general and the role of ideology in particular.26 From this perspective, security goals would not have been the only or most important element of the Cold War struggle, rather conflicting ideologies would have played a major part. One might add that if this is correct, no reconciliation would have been possible between the two blocs. Is, then, the concept of ideology able to capture the dynamic of the West’s responses to the Polish crisis? The emphasis on ideological competition would suggest a concern to impose a particular Western ideology on the East European countries, and the Polish crisis might have provided a particularly promising opportunity to do so. Such an interpretation would suggest a normative dimension to the West’s policies, in that policy making would not only have been about calculating the cost and benefits of alternative modes of interaction in light of the interests of the Western states, but also about seeking to promote certain ideals for their own sake. However, the concept of ideology is difficult to use as an analytical tool in an analysis of the normative underpinnings of policy because it can easily be utilised as a cover for particular interests. In such a case, an emphasis on ideology would only be an instrument in the search, for example, for supremacy by a particular state or group of states. Hence, it is not that useful for investigating a normative concern in foreign policy. An additional criterion is required that would allow us to assess whether the normative standards of the particular ideology that motivates action are acceptable.27 In order to examine the puzzle of the West’s involvement in and concern about the events in Poland, a distinction will be made between three approaches to understanding international politics: the interestbased, value-based and rights-based approaches.28 Each of these can be considered to embody a different set of normative expectations on the part of the actor. While they are analytically distinct, they can coexist empirically and they are singled out primarily in order to achieve a better understanding of the basis on which the Western alliance defined its policies. In other words, they should help us to identify the values and interests underpinning the alliance’s policies, both collectively and separately, in order better to appreciate why there was so much concern about the developments in Poland and why that concern led to particular policy choices, and ultimately to the breakdown of cohesion in the

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 12

12 Introduction

alliance. Most importantly, they will allow us to pursue the focus that is predominant in mainstream analyses of the Cold War – on foreign policy as interest-based and pragmatic – while at the same time identifying alternative reasons for action. As already noted, it does not seem that a focus on national security would be sufficient to understand the policies of the alliance states, so consideration of other reasons for action is important. The interest-based approach considers policy making primarily as a process where actors calculate how different means might best satisfy a given set of ends. In this pragmatic approach, a policy is justified with reference to the output it is expected to produce. The approach is therefore based on a means–ends type of rationality. A policy of this kind would be identified with reference to utility. Utility refers to an effort to find efficient solutions to concrete problems or dilemmas. Policy makers seek legitimisation by achieving an output that is seen as beneficial to given interests and preferences. One would expect this to be the primary mode of action if the Cold War is defined as a security dilemma from the outset. Actors on both sides will assess their moves primarily with an eye to ensuring security for themselves and their allies. It will not be necessary to problematise the preferences and goals of the actors. In the value-based approach, actors seek to find the most appropriate course of action for a given situation. In this ethical–political approach, justification relies on a particular conception of the collective ‘us’ and a particular idea of the values held by a specific community. Here, a policy is defined by reference to the duties and responsibilities inherent in belonging to a particular community with a particular identity. Such a policy is characterised by its reference to values, which refer to a particular idea of the ‘good life’ that is grounded in the identity of a specific community. Policy is legitimised by reference to what is considered appropriate given a particular group’s conception of itself and what it represents. Hence, such an approach would depict the Cold War as an identity-based system. However, it would not consider actions to be the result of instrumental calculations, as might be the case with a focus on the concept of ideology. Rather, actions would be aimed at ensuring consistency between a particular belief that is enshrined in norms and rules of behaviour on the one hand and policy on the other. Such an approach may be important when calculations of cost and benefit are impossible to make, either because of insufficient information or because of the nature of the issue at stake, or in situations where the objectives or preferences are not self-evident. Hence, this approach is

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 13

Introduction 13

useful if it is not taken as a given that states are only concerned about security or if they do not know exactly what they want to achieve with their foreign policy. In the rights-based approach policy is based on the evaluation of different forms of appropriate behaviour rather than selfish interests and preferences. With this approach, which could be referred to as a moral approach, the aim is to design a policy that can be justified according to universal standards of justice. These standards pay no attention to the utility of the policy to the actors involved in the decision, nor to the specific values or perceptions of the ‘good life’ embedded in the community in question. Such policies are grounded in rights, in a set of principles that are mutually recognised. In other words a policy is legitimised with reference to principles that are recognised as fair and just by all parties, irrespective of their particular interests, perceptions of the good life or cultural identity. The emphasis on norms suggests that conflict can arise from the collision of values, that conflict can be due to things other than competing interests such as different norms, different identities or different evaluations or understandings of a particular situation. Thus the analysis relies on a different conception of rationality than does the rational choice approach. Actors are seen as rational when they are able to justify and explain their actions and not only when they seek to maximise their own interests. This also means that actors are reasonable rather than merely self-serving. Indeed this is a precondition for the proper functioning of liberal democracy, where citizens are expected to distinguish between different justifications for policy choices and to assess which are acceptable and which are not.29

Scope and structure of the book Focusing on the question of why the Western alliance states showed such concern for the events in Poland, the development of a collective response to the crisis is examined in Chapters 2–4 of this book. In these chapters the discussion concentrates on the degree of coherence between the allies as well as the role of alliance institutions. We ask to what extent the allies’ response was essentially pragmatic in that it focused on security, or whether other dimensions must be introduced. As an alternative to the interpretation of Western policies as pragmatic it is suggested that they might have been based on a moral concern for the respect of democracy and human rights. An emphasis on one of these would not necessarily lead to the same kinds of policy as an emphasis on the other.

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 14

14 Introduction

The chapters are organised chronologically. Chapter 2 focuses on the first few months of the crisis (from July to December 1980) and outlines the various questions that the Western states might be confronted with as a result of the events in Poland. In the early 1980s, relations between Western Europe and Poland were much closer than the image of bipolarity might suggest, so the range of issues faced by Western policy makers would have gone beyond those involving security. Chapter 3 deals with the period between the end of 1980 and the imposition of martial law on 13 December 1981. During that time, it became clear that the crisis had spilled over into East–West relations in general. Security was clearly an important consideration for Western policy-makers. However, it went hand in hand with concern about democracy and the degree of importance of one over the other is difficult to establish with certainty. The Western alliance states consistently warned the Soviet Union that intervention in Poland would mean the end of détente and contingency plans for this possibility were drawn up. What emerges most clearly is that the alliance’s policies were based on uncertain and contradictory information, and that the underlying logic of their policies had more to do with appropriate action than with calculations of utility. This seems to have been due at least in part to inadequate information, which often causes actors to fall back on established norms and procedures. Chapter 4 examines the events that followed the imposition of martial law in Poland and the alliance states’ responses to it. After 13 December 1981, the situation in Poland began to affect West–West relations and provoked one of the most serious crises in the history of the Western alliance. The disagreement between them stemmed not only from their different views of what should be done but also from their different assessments of the significance of martial law. Chapters 5 and 6 revisit the crisis in the Western camp and the reasons for it by looking at the position of each of the four major Western states in turn. It is suggested that the disagreement can be understood in terms of a tension between different conceptions of foreign policy, where the appropriate action sought to balance the realities of politics with a normative vision of how it should be conducted. In other words, the Europeans focused only on what was right from a normative perspective without losing sight of the need for coherence between means and ends. The policy of the United States was strongly influenced by the moral approach, whereas the policies. In the concluding chapter, Chapter 7, the strengths and weaknesses of the approach chosen are discussed, as well as what it allows us to

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 15

Introduction 15

conclude about inter- and intra-bloc relations during the Second Cold War. History did not however stop in 1983, so the last section of the chapter sets the Polish crisis and the Western responses to it into the context of the end of the Cold War. It is suggested that the commitments made by the Western powers during the Cold War, and which were clearly underlined in the Polish crisis, shaped the expectations of the Central and East European states after 1989, which in turn helped to shape Western policies in post-Cold War Europe.

Focus, methodology and sources Many studies of the Polish crisis examine only the period up to the imposition of martial law in December 1981.30 While this marked the turning point of the crisis, the period after martial law was imposed was particularly important from the Western perspective. It was then that Western cohesion broke down and the differences between the Western positions came to the surface.31 This book concentrates on the position of the four major states in the alliance: France, Britain, West Germany and the United States.32 By virtue of their status as major powers, these states were all influential actors in the alliance and played an important part in shaping the West’s response to Poland (in this book ‘the West’ is used to distinguish the members of the Atlantic alliance from those of the Warsaw Pact).33 They also, by virtue of their differing responses to the events in Poland, provide sufficient material to enable the book to address the problem of coordination and the tension between common and conflicting values and interests within an alliance. The decision to focus on these four states does not mean that other states had no policy towards Poland or had no input into the coordination process,34 although the larger states often attributed more importance to consultation with each other than with the other allies. Indeed, they met regularly in a forum frequently referred to as the ‘Quad’ or ‘Berlin’ group, whereby major NATO states used the special status of Berlin as an excuse for meeting without their smaller partners.35 The methodology employed in this book is ‘explanation through interpretation’ in the Weberian sense: social science ‘is a science concerning itself with the interpretative understanding of social action and thereby the causal explanation of its course and consequences’.36 In other words, the book seeks to analyse the probable reasons for the policies developed by the Western allies and thereby to explain the outcome. This approach is chosen in order to avoid the monocausal explanations that often seem to dominate studies of international

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 16

16 Introduction

relations. The aim is to highlight the different types of premise upon which policies are built and the radically different reasons for them. If an analysis is to be plausible, it must draw on reliable sources. The analysis in this book is based on both primary and secondary sources. According to Andrew Moravscik, a distinction should be made between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ primary sources: ‘A “soft” primary source is one in which there is a relatively strong incentive to distortion or speculation.’37 In this category he includes newspaper reports, public statements by government spokesmen and national leaders, and the memoirs of or interviews with participants. A ‘hard’ primary source is one in which it has been difficult to manipulate or conceal what really took place.38 This includes internal government reports, contemporary records, confidential deliberations in key decision makers’ verbatim diary entries and interviews with policy makers. This book relies on both hard and soft primary sources. Particularly important amongst the soft sources are US Congress documents, records on French parliamentary debates, official documents and declarations from the European Community (now the EU), European political cooperation (EPC) and NATO. Substantial use has also been made of press reports (particularly in Britain, France and the United States) of events in Poland and the West’s responses to them. The memoirs of various participants in the crisis have also been useful for comparative purposes. The analysis has also greatly benefited from the recent declassification of numerous documents on the Polish crisis. Since the end of the Cold War, the release of archival material and memoirs in Russia, Poland, Germany and Czechoslovakia has enabled a reassessment of the events in Poland and the part played by the Soviet Union in those events. A number of these sources has also been made available to the English reading public thanks to the efforts of the National Security Archives in Washington DC and the Cold War International History Project.39 In addition to the above, a number of official US documents have been released, including CIA reports on and assessments of the situation in Poland and its significance for the Warsaw Pact, international policy memos from the US government, references to debates in NATO and reports from US embassies in Eastern and Western Europe. Given that the focus in this book is on the West’s policies towards Poland, the latter documents have been particularly useful here, while the documents from the Warsaw Pact countries have been useful in assessing whether the West’s policies were developed on a well-informed basis. However, even hard primary sources such as these do not speak entirely for themselves and are as open to interpretation as soft primary

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 17

Introduction 17

sources. For example, the precise meaning of what is said in a political meeting is rarely self-evident and is clearly open to misinterpretation both by the recorder of the minutes and by the researcher. Just as the meaning of what is being done can only be understood by taking into consideration the explanations produced, the meaning of what is contained in such documents must be interpreted in light of subsidiary information. An example of the difficulty with hard primary sources is the dispute between West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and two German researchers over the interpretation of verbatim records of Schmidt’s discussions with East German party chairman Erich Honecker about the state of affairs in Poland in 1980–81 (see Chapter 6 of this book). Hence, the opening of archives may allow one to answer some questions, but it often raises new ones, and in any case does not provide absolute answers. This, to some extent, weakens the argument of those who stress the absolute supremacy of hard primary sources, and in turn strengthens the need to develop concepts that enable us to capture, make sense of and compare different understandings of reality. Thus, both hard and soft sources must be carefully scrutinised and compared with each other. If they are consistent they are more likely to be reliable. In addition, what was said must be compared with what was actually done in order to ensure consistency. Finally, what was said must be checked against more objective data such as the chronology of events.40 It must be added that many relevant documents regarding the Polish crisis have yet to be released, particularly West European documents subject to the 30-year rule. The analysis in this book is based primarily on documents in the National Security Archives or documents made available through the Cold War International History Project. To the extent that the ‘truth’ is hidden in historical archives, much has yet to emerge.

0333_740661_02_cha01.qxd

10/31/2002

10:01 AM

Page 18

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

Part I The Crisis

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 19

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 20

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 21

2 The Double-Edged Sword of the Polish Crisis

Introduction This chapter focuses on the domestic origins of the crisis in Poland and the various issues with which the Western states were confronted as a consequence. For example, there was a risk of instability on the European continent as the uprising could spread to other East European states, destabilise the Soviet bloc and provoke a Warsaw Pact military intervention. The process of détente had led to a considerable degree of political and economic interaction between the NATO and Warsaw Pact states, which made Western Europe even more vulnerable to instability in the Eastern bloc. At the same time, this increased interdependence had probably made Western states more sensitive to political conditions in the other half of Europe, making it difficult for them to stand idly by as events unfolded in Poland.

Origins of the crisis The Polish crisis was triggered in July 1980 by a government decision to increase the price of meat. This decision led to spontaneous strikes at individual factories throughout Poland. In the beginning the strikes were not reported by the Polish press, thus officially the political and economic life of Poland was following its normal course. However, as the strikes spread and the workers became more organised, the authorities were forced to admit to the situation. On 16 July, railway workers on the line from Lublin to the Soviet border stopped work and two days later a Lublin strike committee was formed.1 Local agreements were pursued in an attempt to calm the workers, but this merely encouraged workers in other areas to follow suit. On 6 August, the BBC’s 21

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 22

22 The Crisis

East European correspondent, Tim Sebastian, reported that irreversible changes had taken place in Polish politics as a result of the strikers’ actions: There’s every indication that the current series of strikes in Poland has brought about a minor industrial revolution. Even Polish sources admit that the new unofficial wage-bargaining, the open discussion of stoppages in the censored press, the tacit admission that strikes are acceptable – all this is bound to cause irreversible changes in Polish life. As one official here put it: ‘After the last few weeks, there is just no way things could ever be the same again.’ For a country firmly anchored in the Soviet bloc, that is a remarkable admission, but it reflects both the extent of the changes that have taken place and the realisation that a new economic structure can no longer be ordered by ideological requirements, but by the genuine requirements of the people themselves.2 It was not the first time that workers had taken strike action to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the political and economic situation in their country. Strikes had last occurred in 1976 and had led to the Secretary General of the Polish Communist Party, Edward Gierek, immediately withdrawing his decision to increase prices. Gierek had become Secretary General in 1970 after his predecessor, Wladyslaw Gomulka, had been ousted from power as a result of popular unrest over the country’s economic situation. Prior to that, in 1956 Gomulka had been brought back to power and presented to the country as a ‘national saviour’ by the same party that had dismissed him in 1948. According to Timothy Garton Ash and George Schopflin, the outbreak of strikes in the summer of 1980 should be understood in the context of Polish politics in the 1970s.3 Two factors are considered particularly important: the visit of the Polish pope to Poland in 1979, and the failure of Gierek’s reform policy. When Gierek came to power in 1971, he promised to build a ‘new Poland’. This new Poland would not only have a new regime based on political consultation and communication, it would also be prosperous and have a modern economy. The modernisation would take place with the help of Western credit, which would enable Poland to buy Western technology. By abolishing price increases introduced by Gomulka and presenting a project for reform, Gierek temporarily succeeded in bringing things back under control. By making the workers go back to their jobs in return for the promise of a brighter future, particularly a brighter economic future, Gierek was

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 23

The Double-Edged Sword of the Polish Crisis 23

considered to have made a contract with Polish society. Social peace was bought with the promise of economic progress: Basically he proposed to win the support of the majority of the population by bringing them a steadily rising material standard of living, visible in the shops as consumer goods, on top of the traditional socialist advantages of full employment, social security and stable prices.4 Western credit, however, was either consumed or disappeared into the corrupt economic system. In addition, Western markets for Polish goods disappeared after the oil shock of 1973. By 1980, Poland was facing severe economic difficulties and it became necessary to raise prices again. Consequently, Gierek was viewed as having breached his contract with society. In the meantime, since Gierek had come to power, workers’ attitudes had changed as a result of two experiences. First, in 1970 they had learned that they were capable of achieving concrete goals through strike action, as demonstrated by the reversal of the price increase and the removal of the party leader. Second, the visit by the Pope in 1979 had boosted people’s self-confidence and they now trusted in their ability to act responsibly and in an organised fashion, independently of the party: John Paul II left thousands of human beings with a new self-respect and renewed faith, a nation with a rekindled pride, and a society with a new consciousness of its own essential unity. . . . The Pope’s visit probably marks the point at which the subjective reality of social/national unity overtook the objective reality of social division . . . the form the explosion took in 1980 . . . follows from the mass experience of that fantastic pilgrimage in June 1979. It is hard to conceive of Solidarity without the Polish Pope.5 In other words, the nature of Polish politics and the behaviour of the people had changed during the 1970s. This helps to explain both the extent of popular support for the workers and the confidence and responsibility with which the latter acted during the events that took place in the summer of 1980. On 14 August 1980, workers in Gdansk set up an Inter-Factory Strike Committee (the MKS) to coordinate the actions and demands of workers in striking enterprises. Three days later, the MKS presented 21 demands

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 24

24 The Crisis

to the government, including the right to establish free trade unions, independent of the party and employers; the right to strike; freedom of speech in word and print; the release of all political prisoners; and restoration of the former rights of people dismissed from work after the strikes of 1970 and 1976 and of students expelled from universities because of their convictions.6 For its part, the government seemed to be committed to resolving the problem peacefully. Step by step it gave in to the workers’ demands, its retreat ending spectacularly with the negotiations between the MKS and the government’s representative, Mieczyslaw Jagielski, in the strikers’ headquarters at the Lenin Shipyard. After two weeks of intense bargaining, the ambiguously worded Gdansk agreement was signed on 31 August 1980.7 It was on the basis of the interpretation of this document that the Polish crisis was to develop, with both sides claiming that their interpretation was the correct one. Throughout the crisis, the strikers were supported by the dissident organisation KOR (Committee for the Defence of Workers), which had been set up after the workers’ protest in 1976 to help strikers who had been arrested. Since then, it had provided legal and financial assistance and advice to victims of government repression. In the summer of 1980, KOR helped the striking workers to draft and present their demands, but although this support from the KOR’s intellectuals was vital, the Polish ‘revolution’ remained in essence a grassroots movement. In this respect it was different from the other East European crises with which it is often compared: the Hungarian crisis of 1956 and the Czechoslovak crisis of 1968. On both those occasions the protest movement was started by and to a large extent remained with intellectuals. For this reason, the Polish revolution was likely to be even more explosive and even more damaging to the communist regime – it was the workers, the supposed backbone of the Communist Party, who were protesting. This hit at the very heart of the party’s ideology and legitimacy, and threatened to cause irreparable damage both to its position in Poland and to Soviet–Polish relations.8 It was difficult, even impossible, at the time of the signing of the Gdansk agreement to come to an accurate understanding of the events in Poland, and thus of their significance for the outside world. There were certainly more questions than answers. The main difficulty was knowing whether the process of reform initiated by the Gdansk agreement would succeed, and whether a workable compromise, acceptable to protesters and the authorities alike, could be reached. The uncertainty was heightened by the fact that it was not clear how far the workers

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 25

The Double-Edged Sword of the Polish Crisis 25

would go with their demands, what was happening inside the black box of the Polish government, and whether both parties were willing to search for a compromise. The creation of Solidarity represented a severe blow to the Polish regime and its ideology. By association, even if Poland’s place in the Warsaw Pact had not been questioned thus far, there was a risk of contagion to other East European states and the Soviet Union. This raised the question of whether Poland’s allies would accept the outcome of a domestic compromise: would the existence of a trade union, independent of the Communist Party, be acceptable to the Soviet Union? If the reforms succeeded, how would this affect the Warsaw Pact? Conversely, if a compromise was not reached, what effects would this have on Poland and the Warsaw Pact, and thus on the security balance in Europe?

‘Only’ a security problem? The Polish strikers’ achievements were universally acclaimed in the West, from the left to the right of the political spectrum, and the Gdansk agreement was hailed as a victory for human rights and the principles of liberal democracy.9 In France, President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing talked of ‘l’attention avec laquelle les événements en Pologne sont suivis en France, et la sympathie qui acceuille toute initiative répondant aux aspirations du peuple polonais’10 [‘the great attention with which events in Poland were followed in France, and the sympathy with which all initiatives that responded to the aspirations of the Polish people were received’]. In the United States, President Jimmy Carter declared: The working men and women of Poland have set an example for all of those who cherish freedom and human dignity. They have shown the world not just how to win a victory for labour, but that the hunger for human rights is everywhere.11 The creation of Solidarity corresponded to the aspirations the West claimed to have for Eastern Europe. It was a compromise that the Western states saw as both realistic and suitable in terms of political change in Eastern Europe as it opened up the possibility of gradual movement towards greater freedom for its citizens. At the same time it indicated, if it were to succeed, a certain independence for the East European states, along the lines of the Sonnenfeldt doctrine or the US policy of differentiation.

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 26

26 The Crisis

But if Western leaders were enthusiastic about the turn of events in Poland, they were also very cautious. In late October, André Fontaine, editor of Le Monde, wrote: L’enjeu est immense: les Polonais que l’on peut rencontrer ces jours-ci parlent ouvertement de dernière chance. Ils veulent dire dernière chance pour leur pays, qui serait voué, en cas d’échec, à redevenir un simple objet de la politique internationale. Mais ils pourraient aussi bien parler de dernière chance de la détente, et du dernière chance du socialisme, au moins au sens que les léninistes donnent à ce mot.12 [‘Much is at stake: the Poles speak these days openly of the last chance. What they mean is that this is the last chance for their country, which – if it fails – will again become simply an object of international politics. But they could equally well talk of the last chance for détente, and for socialism, at least in the sense that Leninists give to this word’.] This comment, although not from a governmental source, gives an indication of the prevailing mood in the West at the time.13 The events in Poland represented a threat to the legitimacy of the Polish regime, and failure to keep the situation under control could undermine the stability of the Soviet system, which in turn might affect stability in Europe. In this sense, the Polish crisis was a double-edged sword for the Western allies. It could be dealt with as a security risk, in which the task of Western policy makers would primarily be to ensure stability. Or it could be exploited to encourage democratic reforms. The Western allies formally discussed the strikes in Poland for the first time in mid-September when US Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher arrived in Europe to attend a prearranged meeting on the Euromissiles.14 The Polish issue was also considered by the EC. For example, it was discussed at meetings on European political cooperation and after the return of Lord Carrington from a visit to Poland on 4 November.15 In late November Lord Carrington confirmed that ‘We [members of the EC] have discussed Poland on a number of occasions.16 In addition, from the onset of the strikes Western embassies in Warsaw arranged special meetings to exchange information and assess the situation as it developed.17 Although the details of the consultations between the allies were largely withheld from the public, the mere fact

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 27

The Double-Edged Sword of the Polish Crisis 27

that they took place indicates that the Western states were concerned about the situation and its possible impact on the West. The events in Poland raised a complex set of problems for the Western states: they prompted concern about the risk of a military intervention in Poland, they had economic implications, they presented Western governments with ethical and moral dilemmas, and they raised expectations of concerted action by the Western allies. If the Western states had only been concerned about their own security, they would have taken less heed of such issues and concentrated on ensuring continuation of the status quo. Pragmatism would, in other words, have been the order of the day. Economic implications of the strikes in Poland An important element of Gierek’s economic policy in the 1970s was financing the recovery of the Polish economy with credit from the West.18 At the time, there was a new climate of détente and a political willingness on the part of Western states to engage in economic relations with East European countries. There was also a surplus of capital on the world market, and on the basis of the ‘umbrella theory’, Poland was considered a trustworthy creditor because the Soviet Union and Comecon would ultimately guarantee its debt: East European borrowers have an impeccable record for punctual payment of debt obligations. Even if temporary cash-flow problems do arise, it is assumed that the Comecon ‘umbrella’ would be raised to shield Poland from a rain of writs. . . . Belief in the Comecon umbrella is an act of faith for Western bankers.19 However, by 1979 it was clear that Gierek’s economic policy had failed dramatically. The Polish economy had not been modernised, foreign credit had been used almost exclusively for consumption and the market for Polish goods in the West had collapsed after the oil crisis of 1973. In August 1980, it was reported that Poland would need an additional credit of $7.1 billion to service its hard currency debt for 1980.20 Part of this debt was to private creditors and part to governments or government-backed creditors, but the distribution between the two was unclear. Poland’s debt crisis was not a new issue as piecemeal refinancing of the debt had already started in 1979,21 but the country’s economic situation and its in ability to repay its debt were seriously aggravated by the social unrest.22 Poland’s major creditors in 1977 were France, Britain,

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 28

28 The Crisis

Austria, West Germany, Japan and the United States. The latter’s share increased after 1977 but West European banks were still more heavily exposed than their US counterparts.23 It was not only the Western financial sector that risked being affected by the crisis. According to Richard Portes, the crisis would also have an impact on East–West trade more generally: ‘Simple miscalculations in managing an extremely tight convertible-currency debt and payments position could lead to default. . . . The creditworthiness of other CMEA [Comecon] states would be affected, and East–West trade could suffer greatly.’24 Hence, the economic issue might pull the alliance in the same direction as the security issue: towards a search for stability in Poland rather than radical political change. The West Europeans had a much larger share of East–West trade than the United States. In fact, the US share of OECD exports to Eastern Europe was only 9 per cent, compared with West Germany’s share of 25 per cent, including intra-German trade. The US share of imports from Eastern Europe was even lower, at just 3 per cent. In 1980, 1.7 per cent of US exports went to the Comecon states and 0.6 per cent of its imports came from these states. This led Woolcock to conclude that ‘It would . . . be more accurate to see East–West trade as an essentially European affair, rather than to refer to Western Europe having a greater stake in it.’25 The issue was particularly important for West Germany as trade with Eastern Europe had become an important instrument of Ostpolitik.26 Indeed, between 1971 and 1981 both its intra-German trade and its trade with Eastern Europe grew by approximately a factor of four.27 Its share of Poland’s trade with the West climbed to over 30 per cent in the short period from 1970 to 1974.28 By 1984, its balance of trade with Eastern Europe was DM34 billion. Although its exports to Eastern Europe were less than 5 per cent of its total exports, specific economic sectors relied quite heavily on trade with that region,29 thus making the West German economy particularly sensitive to fluctuations in East–West trade.30 France’s share of East–West trade was approximately the same as its share of world trade.31 In 1978, 4.5 per cent of French exports went to Eastern Europe and 3 per cent of its imports came from that region. However, as in the case of West Germany, if one looks at specific economic sectors the picture changes somewhat. In 1976–77, 13 per cent of French exports of non-electric machinery, 10 per cent of steel and iron exports, 6 per cent of exports of chemical products and 14 per cent of paper exports went to Eastern Europe. Also, from the mid-1970s the increase in exports to Eastern Europe compensated for the stagnation of French exports to the Western world. Without exports to Eastern

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 29

The Double-Edged Sword of the Polish Crisis 29

Europe, the French trade deficit would have been twice as high. Poland was France’s second largest trading partner in Comecon after the Soviet Union.32 British trade with the Soviet bloc was less extensive: ‘the economic links between Great Britain and the Eastern bloc . . . are [not] important enough to have significant consequences, still less are they capable of changing East–West political structures’.33 For example, the British share of Soviet trade with the OECD countries fell from 14 per cent in 1970 to just over 3.5 per cent in 1982, while West Germany’s and France’s share during the same period increased by a factor of five.34 Because of the increase in trade and financial relations between Eastern and Western Europe in the 1970s, the strikes in Poland naturally had economic consequences for Western states. These consequences were not, however, evenly distributed, and France and West Germany were affected more than most. This unequal distribution also had the potential to cause difficulties for Western coordination. Western moral and ethical dilemmas The events in Poland presented Western governments with broader dilemmas than merely financial ones. The conflict was over the fundamental principles of democracy and human rights. What was the right thing to do in this situation? Did the Western states have a responsibility towards the striking workers in Poland? Or did the tradition of sovereignty and non-intervention free them from responsibility, other than protecting their own security? The so-called ‘myth of Yalta’, symbolising the failure of the West to prevent the division of Europe, had since the end of the Second World War been an important theme in discussions of Western policies towards Eastern Europe. With the onset of the Cold War, the Western states continued, in principle, to support political change in Eastern Europe, although they could not be seen to interfere directly in the domestic affairs of the states in question: although political change in Eastern Europe was desirable, it was perceived to entail risks for Western security, thus further limiting the West’s willingness to become involved in the political affairs of Eastern Europe.35 At the time of the strikes in Poland, these dilemmas had been reinforced by a decade of East–West détente, which had driven some practical wedges into East–West divisions and encouraged the notion that although Eastern Europe remained a part of the Soviet sphere of influence, it was no longer entirely out of reach politically. The signing of the Helsinki accords, for example, had brought political issues and

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 30

30 The Crisis

human rights onto the East–West agenda. Détente had increased not only economic interaction, but also personal and cultural exchanges between East and West as freedom of movement had been relaxed between the two blocs. The changes brought about by détente did not amount to a military commitment by the West to Poland. Nor did they guarantee an ability by the West to prevent a crackdown in Poland, but it is possible that they would make it more difficult for Western governments to stand idly by and do nothing about events in Poland. However, the various economic, political and security dimensions of Western relations with Poland did not necessarily point policy in the same direction. Arguably, Western governments (some perhaps more than others) had a strong vested interest in the maintenance of stability in Poland, not only in security terms but also for economic and political reasons. The Polish leader, Edward Gierek, was generally considered by the West to be a liberal and trustworthy leader. Giscard, for example, often spoke of his close relations with Gierek: Nous nous connaissions suffisamment pour situer nos convictions et nos cultures respectives, sans avoir l’illusion de les influencer l’un chez l’autre, mais nous avions la possibilité de parler de système à système, de puissance à puissance, sans procès d’intention et sans aggression verbale, ce qui nous permettait d’acquérir une meilleure connaissance du point de vue adverse et de l’aperçevoir, en quelque sorte, de l’intérieur.36 [We knew each other well enough to contextualize our beliefs and our respective cultures, without suffering from the illusion that we could influence the other’s beliefs, but it was possible for us to talk each from our [political] system, from [the perspective of] one power to the other, without accusations and verbal aggression. This allowed us to achieve a better understanding of the other’s point of view and to see him, in a way, from the inside.] Poland had also been one of the main targets of the US policy of differentiation. For West Germany, détente had enabled the return of ethnic Germans from Poland, as well as improved freedom of movement between East and West Germany. Nonetheless, the Western states remained committed to political change in Poland, although the nature of the crisis there raised a moral dilemma. What should they do in a situation that did not justify intervention under the terms of the clause in the UN Charter on self-defence, but by its very nature called for a

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 31

The Double-Edged Sword of the Polish Crisis 31

reaction? The dilemma was perhaps particularly strong, given that events in Poland also presented Western governments with the possibility of a strong reaction from their own domestic population in case they where not seen as supportive enough of reforms in Poland. This was recognised by Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Carter: Ambassador Hermes of [West] Germany . . . maintains that the Germans would adopt economic sanctions against the Soviets if the Soviets invade Poland. He says public opinion pressures would push them that way. I hope he is right because the official position is much more reticent.37 France and the United States were home to a large number of Polish immigrants, thus reinforcing public interest in the events in Poland.38 Western trade unions were also taking an active interest in the Polish crisis and had called for government action. First out had been the American AFL-CIO, which had set up a special assistance fund to help Polish workers financially.39 It was more open in its support for the Polish workers than the US government, and less concerned about being accused of interfering in Poland’s domestic affairs. The US government did not approve of the provision of financial aid, and after receiving a complaint from the Polish government on the matter, it was reported to have advised the trade union not to go through with it.40 European trade unions were also largely supportive of the Polish workers at both the national and the European level. The British TUC was the exception in this and provoked widespread public anger in Britain when it refused to cancel a visit to the official Polish trade union after the creation of Solidarity. After a month of heated debate in the British press, the visit was finally cancelled at the initiative of the Poles.41 Jon Ivar Nalsund, Deputy Secretary General of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) in Brussels, wrote to the European Council and the European Commission to call for a coordinated European economic policy to assist Poland. The trade unions saw a direct link between the economic situation in Poland and promotion of the right to free expression and organisation. By contributing to economic stability in Poland, they argued, the West would help to secure the rights of the workers.42 There was a difference between the approaches of the European and American trade unions. The former had greater trust in the Polish regime’s willingness to initiate reforms, whereas the latter were giving their support directly to the workers.43 This distinction also became

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 32

32 The Crisis

evident later in the crisis at the governmental level, particularly if one compares the attitudes of the West German and US governments. The target of West German policy was primarily the Polish government, which was still considered trustworthy and able, and not Polish society. The US government, on the other hand, shifted its emphasis away from support of the Polish government and towards supporting society as a separate entity. During the early stages, however, these differences were not so obvious. This section has suggested that the strikes in Poland were not considered by the Western states exclusively in terms of security, but raised a more complex set of economic and political questions. Nonetheless, the Western states could still give security considerations priority in their policy decisions. The next section looks at the particular international context in which the crisis in Poland developed.

Poland in the Second Cold War The strikes in Poland started at a time of general deterioration in East–West relations, as well as intra-alliance relations. There was a strong feeling, particularly in the United States, that the Soviet Union had not played according to the rules of détente, that in fact détente had been a one-way street that had only benefited the Soviet Union. The United States’ disillusionment with the achievements of détente was mainly the result of Soviet activities in the Third World,44 and détente had received a final blow when the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan in December 1979.45 The effect of this on Carter’s perception of the Soviet Union was underlined in his interview with ABC news on 31 December 1979, when he stated that ‘this action of the Soviets has made a more dramatic change in my own opinion of what the Soviets’ ultimate goals are than anything they have done in the previous time I have been in office.’46 The US government duly turned its back on détente and called for a more confrontational approach to the Soviet Union,47 but the Europeans were reluctant to follow its lead.48 According to Sloan, this was because Europe has gained far more in tangible benefits, some of utmost importance, than has the United States from the period of détente. This fact makes Europeans more inclined to regard détente as ‘divisible’, and want to protect the gains of détente for Europe. The United States, carrying the majority of Western global military

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 33

The Double-Edged Sword of the Polish Crisis 33

burdens, has much greater interest in treating détente as ‘indivisible’, with Soviet actions outside Europe seen as providing cause for Western responses within the European framework.49 The West Europeans saw their security as based chiefly on the political and military balance in Europe, so for them the global balance was not as important as it was to the United States and Soviet activities in the Third World did not in their eyes constitute a security threat to Europe. The West Europeans also disagreed with the US administration’s analysis of the wider implications of Afghanistan for the East–West balance: In the American view, Afghanistan could be a starting point for Soviet domination of the Persian Gulf. . . . Most European governments . . . refused to share this analysis. They were less concerned with the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan than fearing that the American reaction to Afghanistan could affect détente on the main East–West front, i.e. in Europe.50 It was argued in Europe that a return to Cold War rhetoric might result in increased tension in Europe, thus threatening Western Europe’s security.51 It follows from this that the West Europeans were more interested in maintaining a policy of détente with Eastern Europe than their American counterparts. However, it is possible that this was due not only to different assessments of the security risks but also to divergent perspectives on how best to encourage respect for human rights and democracy. It could be argued that Poland was proof that détente had been successful in that agreements such as the CSCE Treaty, which was a product of détente, had given dissidents in Eastern Europe a concrete document to refer to when protesting about their governments’ violations of human rights.52 It had also, by means of increased (although still of course restricted) economic and cultural exchanges, enabled Polish citizens to gain a glimpse of how the other half of Europe lived and to compare this with conditions in Poland. Hence, the West Europeans continued to call for East–West cooperation and underlined the importance of dealing with the Soviet Union in a business-like manner, as opposed to the more ideological approach of the American leadership. The West Europeans emphasised issues such as confidence building, economic cooperation and respect for the renunciation of force: ‘Notwithstanding the setbacks which the efforts for a constructive East–West relationship have unquestionably suffered,

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 34

34 The Crisis

the possibility for a new businesslike and sober start has not been destroyed.’53 Transatlantic disagreements were further reinforced by personal conflicts, particularly between Carter and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. According to Gabriel Robin it was after the election of Jimmy Carter that things started to deteriorate, and from the French perspective, for several different reasons. Maybe without being conscious of it, Carter’s ideology was extremely destabilising for the European governments. To profess that détente with the East was a ‘jeu des dupes’, in which the ‘dupes’ were the West European governments, there was nothing more efficient to discredit the political leaders who would have continued this policy indefinitely.54 Giscard states in his memoirs that both Schmidt and himself had wished Gerald Ford to be re-elected in 1976. This was hardly likely to have facilitated amicable Euro-American relations under Carter.55 Both Carter himself and Brzezinski also confirmed the often difficult nature of these relations.56 The Europeans questioned Carter’s ability to act as leader of the West and criticised his foreign policy for being both naive and dogmatic.57 A typical example of the problems experienced in the alliance under Carter was the controversy over the neutron bomb.58 Yet the divergence in Western views did not stem just from a clash of personalities or differing perspectives on the implications of Afghanistan. It is likely that deeper disagreements on East–West relations and conflicting attitudes towards the Soviet system were behind it. This might also have a bearing on responses to the events in Poland. The principal effect of Afghanistan was to highlight ‘the differences, which had increased since the early seventies, in the way Europe and the US viewed détente’.59 After the failure to coordinate action over Afghanistan, there was a determination to close ranks at the next crossroads.60 During the spring and summer of 1980, a number of meetings was held under the auspices of NATO and other Western institutional frameworks to resolve the differences between the Western allies and improve cooperation on foreign policy issues. After a meeting of the Eurogroup countries in Brussels on 12 May and a subsequent meeting of the NATO ministers of foreign affairs on 14 May, a declaration on political consultation was issued, confirming the determination of the member states jointly to confront the international situation ‘post-Afghanistan’.61 During June,

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 35

The Double-Edged Sword of the Polish Crisis 35

the question of cooperation was discussed at three meetings of Western leaders: the European Council meeting in Venice on 12–13 June, the G7 summit in Venice on 22–23 June and the Atlantic Council meeting in Ankara on 25–26 June.62 Against this backdrop, the strikes in Poland could offer yet another setback for coordination and threatened to reopen the divisions caused by Afghanistan. Arguably, because of the nature of the issues raised by the Polish crisis, it was likely to be more important but more difficult to ensure a coordinated response than had been the case with Afghanistan. A further problem existed in the sense that the Western institutional structures were based on the idea of cooperation in the area of security, and there were few institutional structures to facilitate transatlantic cooperation in foreign policy, foreign trade and finance. NATO was not designed to deal with the types of problem raised by the strikes in Poland – it did not have specific structures to deal with political coordination in the event of crises in Eastern Europe unless these constituted a threat to Western security. Moreover, there was no other structure to compensate for the inadequacies of NATO. The basis of political cooperation between Europe and the United States was the Gymnich Agreement of June 1974, which provided for political consultations between the presidency of the EEC and the US government, and the Atlantic Council’s Ottawa Declaration, in which the allies declared their commitment to keep each other informed and to strengthen the practice of political consultation.63 However, both these texts were mainly declarations of intent and did not constitute an adequate or reliable structure for political coordination or joint action. The EC, CoCom and the G7 were not only unable to fill the gaps in NATO’s provisions, they also suffered from their own inadequacies. According to Rummel: The West had no uniform framework within which to formulate and safeguard overall Western interest in peripheral crises, i.e. in cases where NATO does not ‘grip’. Above all, co-ordination between West European and American crisis responses can by no means be regarded as ensured. But there are also a great number of specific shortcomings: lack of background sharing, great differences in the degree of crisis consciousness and national willingness to take risks, virtually no common attempts at crisis definition, fragmentation in the form of individual assessments according to specific events, no overview of the various management frameworks, lacking co-ordination of existing instruments, insecurity concerning actually available crisis capacities etc.64

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 36

36 The Crisis

A number of issues was raised in the West as a result of the strikes in Poland, and a variety of interests and values, sometimes cutting across national borders, were at stake. If the strikes continued and a compromise between the regime and the workers proved impossible, Poland’s Western creditors might find themselves in financial difficulties and East–West trade might be threatened. Furthermore, public pressure on Western governments to do something was likely to increase if the situation deteriorated. Hence, more than security concerns was at stake. Economically, the main interest of the West was the survival of the regime.65 With regard to public opinion, it was important for the West to be seen as an active and positive force for reform in Poland. Strategically, stability in Poland was a clear priority.66 Finally, alliance cohesion had to be preserved. As a result of the strikes, the Western states were once again running the risk of exposing to the rest of the world, and the Soviet Union in particular, their inability to agree a common policy. If forced to act, their differences over détente and their problem dealing with the changing power structure in the alliance risked being exposed.

Promoting the status quo In their comments on the events in Poland, Western leaders emphasised that this was essentially a domestic crisis that should be solved by Poland itself. This was obviously intended as a signal to the Soviet Union to stay out of Poland’s affairs. However, at the same time it was probably the most convenient option for the Western alliance. French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing asserted that ‘La France a pour principe constant de ne pas intervenir dans les affaires intérieures des autres Etats. Elle souhaite que la Pologne puisse trouver en elle-même les moyens de surmonter ses difficultés et de répondre aux aspirations de son peuple.’67 [‘As a matter of principle France does not interfere in the domestic politics of other states. France hopes Poland will be able to overcome its difficulties and respond to the aspirations of its people on its own.’] Similarly, the British foreign secretary, Lord Carrington, declared that ‘what is happening in Poland is a matter for the Poles. I hope that all other countries agree with that policy.’68 In the first months the US administration also remained cautious, emphasising its concern that nothing should be done that might lead to a Soviet accusation of interference. In a letter to the British prime minister, the French president and the West German chancellor, Carter wrote that ‘My administration has been very careful not to say or do

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 37

The Double-Edged Sword of the Polish Crisis 37

anything that could be seized upon by the Soviets as a pretext for intervention, and I know that this has been your position as well.’69 The importance of allied consultation on the question of Poland was also underlined. The issue that the West dealt with most efficiently was that of Poland’s debt, which threatened the financial survival of a number of Western banks. It is difficult to gain a clear picture of the size and distribution of Poland’s debt to Western creditors in early 1980 – for obvious reasons the Polish government wished to avoid publicity on the matter, and Western bankers and governments seem to have largely complied with this wish.70 What is clear is that the strikes forced the Polish government to seek increased economic support from the West. It approached, amongst others, West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Britain and the United States for credit and for help with rescheduling its existing loans. It was also reported to have warned its Western creditors that if rescheduling was not forthcoming, it might be forced to default on its loans.71 In early autumn, the Western leaders were reported to be in favour of providing financial aid to Poland. In a message to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, President Carter proposed that they consider ways of helping Poland out of its economic difficulties. The US allies supported this policy,72 and throughout the autumn new credit was extended to Poland by private and public sources. For example, on 6 September the United States granted Poland credit of $675 million to support agriculture in 1981 ($125 million more than in 1980),73 a German banking consortium gave Poland $675 million in credit after pressure from the German government,74 and in late November France opened a new credit line to Poland.75 Similar reports of increased credit came from British banks in late October.76 Finally, various groups of Poland’s creditors held a series of meetings to coordinate their activities.77 But apart from these fragmented attempts to avert Poland’s liquidity crisis (and to save the European banks that had invested in Poland), not much was done to help the country with its economic difficulties. According to Richard Portes, ‘the policies of Western governments are not very well defined, even behind the scenes. . . . Everyone is more or less sympathetic to Polish needs, but no one has been willing to make long-run commitments.’78 In general, the Western leaders seemed to be sitting on the fence. No concrete initiatives were taken as a direct result of the situation in Poland, although some modifications were made to the East–West agenda. Perhaps anxious to preserve relations with his East German

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 38

38 The Crisis

counterpart, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt cancelled a visit to East Germany in order to prevent Poland from becoming an issue of contention between the two Germanies.79 But if the West Germans were discreet on the matter, the East Germans were not. The leader of East Germany was one of the strongest opponents of reform in Poland, letting his voice be heard early in the crisis. In mid-October his fervent speech condemning the events in Poland seemed to be a barely disguised warning to West Germany to remain neutral.80 President Giscard d’Estaing’s planned visit to Poland was also postponed, and later cancelled, at the initiative of Polish Secretary General Stanislaw Kania.81 This visit would have been his second that year and was part of his effort to act as a bridge between East and West in this period of tension.82 The declared purpose of the visit had been to ‘keep the dialogue between [the] various parts of Europe going’.83 However, these independent initiatives were not appreciated by France’s allies, and furthermore, they signalled disunity in the Western alliance over East–West relations. Unlike Giscard, British Foreign Secretary Carrington did not cancel his visit to Poland and was the first Western official to travel to Poland after the signing of the Gdansk agreement.84 It is known that Poland asked Britain for help with its large foreign debt, but apart from this very little information emerged about the nature of Carrington’s talks with Prime Minister Jozef Pinkowski and Secretary General Stanislaw Kania.85 The Poles clearly wanted to give the impression that business was continuing as usual in its relations with the West. Nonetheless, on the second day of Carrington’s visit Kania had to fly to Moscow for an emergency meeting with the Soviet authorities.86 Britain was particularly active in European political cooperation at that time, and Carrington was reported to be pressing hard for the EC to adopt a common policy on Poland.87 While no concrete policy action was taken at either the European or the Atlantic level, there was common monitoring of events and continuous consultation amongst the allies. At the national level, in September 1980 the US administration convened a Special Coordination Committee meeting to review intelligence on Soviet troop movements and the state of their contingency planning.88 During the meeting, Brzezinski emphasised that a strong West European reaction, strong Polish resistance to invasion and an adverse Chinese reaction were the three things that could deter the Soviets from intervening militarily in Poland. It was agreed that a presidential letter should be sent to Giscard and Schmidt to encourage them to make clear

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 39

The Double-Edged Sword of the Polish Crisis 39

to the Soviet Union that military intervention would be unacceptable.89 The next month, according to Brzezinski, We went through the checklist of possible responses [to a Soviet intervention in Poland] and agreed that a number of them should be raised in the course of the following week when consultations were held in Europe with our principal allies. I did not press for any recommendations because that would not only be premature but probably divisive.90 This indication that the United States was reluctant to go very far towards coordinated action suggests concern that there were divergent views amongst the Western allies, and that for the time being it was more convenient for the alliance to keep a low profile. Indeed, at that point it was still possible to do so. Brzezinski also refers to concerns about disagreement inside the alliance: The Germans have told us at the Quad meeting [between Britain, France, West Germany and the United States] that détente should not be the victim of such intervention [by the Soviet Union]; in other words, the Germans are saying that in the event of a Soviet intervention the Germans would be prepared to continue with their East–West relationship.91 This emphasis on business as usual and limiting the impact of the events in Poland on East–West relations and intra-alliance relations could be interpreted as being inspired by a concern for the security of Western states. A condition for this interpretation, however, would be that the signals to the Soviet Union about not interfering in Poland’s affairs had little to do with concern for democratic rights in Poland and everything to do with avoiding instability in Eastern Europe, which would be costly in both economic and security terms for the Western states.

Conclusion The outbreak of strikes in Poland and the establishment of an independent trade union, Solidarity, delivered a severe blow to the Polish regime. As a workers’ movement, Solidarity challenged the core of Polish official ideology. Indeed, according to Norman Davies ‘the ramifications of the Polish crisis reach[ed] into all the current problems of the USSR’.92

0333_740661_03_cha02.qxd

10/31/2002

10:03 AM

Page 40

40 The Crisis

These events produced a complex set of issues for the Western alliance. There was a risk that the crisis would spread to the rest of the Warsaw Pact countries, destabilise the Soviet bloc and ultimately threaten the security of the Western alliance. The risk of instability was reinforced by the fact that Poland was highly indebted to Western governments and private banks, creating a situation of economic interdependence. However, the crisis challenged more than Western material interests: the 1970s détente had strengthened the political links between Poland and Western Europe and committed both sides to the respect of human rights. This gave Western states a moral responsibility for the citizens of Poland that was more clearly expressed than during previous crises in Central and Eastern Europe. What is more, public opinion in the West had become far more sensitive to events such as these in Poland as a result of the increased interaction between Eastern and Western Europe. Indeed, the crisis in Poland was a doubleedged sword for the Western alliance. The West did not feel that it should stand idly by as the events unfolded in Poland, but nor did it wish to provoke a deepening of the crisis, to interfere in what was essentially part of the security zone of the Soviet Union, or to damage the fragile intra-Western consensus on East–West relations.

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 41

3 Balancing Democracy and Security

Introduction As the political struggle in Poland continued into 1981, the Western alliance pursued a two-pronged strategy of warning the Soviet Union against intervention and supporting reform in Poland through economic and diplomatic means. However, there was considerable uncertainty in the Western camp about the likely direction of future changes and whether reforms would succeed. Intelligence reports on the risk of Soviet intervention during this period varied greatly from week to week. News also filtered through that a domestic ‘solution’ to the Polish crisis might be imposed as an alternative to intervention. In such a context the process of defining objectives was obviously haphazard, and it would seem that the Western allies settled on satisficing rather than optimising. In situations of uncertainty and imperfect information, policy makers tend to fall back on established norms and rules – that is, initiatives rely as much on established practices as on calculations of the utility of alternative courses of action. This seems to describe the West’s policies during this phase in the Polish crisis. However, it is possible that the problem for the Western allies was not just one of information but also one of values and principles, and it would seem that there was latent disagreement on how they should be pursued. This chapter starts by outlining the principal Western policies in late 1980. It then discusses the rationale behind these policies and the interconnections between the state of transatlantic relations and the West’s responses to the events in Poland. The final section compares the West European and US perspectives on economic responses to the crisis. 41

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 42

42 The Crisis

Countering the Soviet threat From December 1980, the West focused increasingly on the risk of Soviet military intervention in Poland.1 On 3 December, Carter issued the first of a number of increasingly explicit warnings to the Soviet Union to stay out of Poland’s affairs: The United States is watching with growing concern the unprecedented build-up of Soviet forces along the Polish border and the closing of certain frontier regions along the border . . . foreign military intervention in Poland would have most negative consequences for East–West relations in general and US–Soviet relations in particular. . . . I want all countries to know that the attitude and future policies of the United States towards the Soviet Union would be directly and very adversely affected by any Soviet use of force in Poland.2 Carter also sent a letter to Thatcher, Giscard and Schmidt informing them of his statement and encouraging them to issue similar declarations.3 The increasing tension in Poland and around its borders coincided with the European Council meeting in Luxembourg on 2–3 December, as well as with the twice yearly meeting of the North Atlantic Council. In both meetings Poland was one of the main issues on the agenda, and resulted in stern warnings being issued to the Soviet Union to let Poland solve its own problems. In the final statement of the European Council, the West European heads of state and government declared that: The European Council expressed its sympathy for Poland and outlined the position of the nine as follows: 1. In their relations with Poland, the nine conform and will conform strictly to the United Nations Charter and to the principles of the Helsinki Final Act. 2. In this context, they would point out that in subscribing to these principles, the states signatory to the Final Act have undertaken in particular to: – respect the right of every country to choose and freely develop its own political, social, economic and cultural system as well as to determine its own laws and regulations

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 43

Balancing Democracy and Security 43

– refrain from any direct or indirect, individual or collective intervention in internal or external affairs which fall within the national competence of another signatory state regardless of their mutual relations – recognise the right of all people to pursue their own political, economic, social and cultural development as they see fit and without external interference 3. The nine accordingly call upon all the signatory states to abide by these principles with regard to Poland and the Polish people. They emphasise that any other attitude would have very serious consequences for the future of international relations in Europe and throughout the world.4 Lord Carrington, in an interview with BBC TV and ITN on 2 December, made clear that the warning by the nine was directed at the Soviet Union. He also stated that the declaration was meant to be a ‘very serious warning’. As for the consequences that Soviet intervention would have for East–West relations, he declared: The consequences for East–West relations would be incalculable in terms of arms talks, in terms of détente, in terms of the security conference in Madrid. . . . You would not I think see any more discussion about arms limitation, I don’t see how you could possibly go on with the Madrid conference. . . . You would probably see other consequences, but those naturally would depend on what and how it happened.5 Likewise, the final communiqué of the meeting of the foreign ministers of NATO contained a clear warning to the Soviet Union. The foreign ministers also pledged allegiance to what they called ‘genuine détente’ and blamed the Soviet Union for the increased tension in East–West relations: Détente has brought appreciable benefits in the field of East–West co-operation and exchange. But it has been seriously damaged by Soviet actions. It could not survive if the Soviet Union were again to violate the basic rights of any state to territorial integrity and independence. Poland should be free to decide its own future. The Allies will respect the principle of non-intervention and strongly urge

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 44

44 The Crisis

others to do likewise. Any intervention would fundamentally alter the entire international situation. The Allies would be compelled to react in the manner which the gravity of this development would require.6 Parallel with the public clarification of the West’s common position on Poland, concrete steps were taken to ensure a unified response if the Soviet Union did intervene. NATO was the central organising institution in the West’s contingency planning. The decision to map out a common response to a potential Soviet intervention in Poland was taken during the meetings of the Defence Planning Committee of the North Atlantic Council on 10 December and of the foreign ministers on 11 and 12 December. US Secretary of State Edmund Muskie arrived at the meeting with a list of political, economic and diplomatic sanctions that might be implemented in the event of intervention. A committee of permanent representatives was established to study the list and draw up a contingency plan for NATO as a whole. The committee would also meet every fortnight to monitor the situation in Poland.7 The list of measures was deliberately not made public in the belief that this could lead to a loss of leverage with the Soviet Union. There are, however, certain indications of what was included on it. For example, a general point often made was that intervention would mean the end of détente. Lord Carrington stated in an interview that the measures would be stronger than those taken after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.8 Cynkin refers to the following items having been discussed at the first NATO meeting in December 1980: The Allies considered a range of contingency steps to be taken in the event of an invasion: 1) increased defense expenditures; 2) cessation of credits to Poland and the USSR; 3) cancellation of high technology exchanges, such as the gas pipeline deal; 4) closure of Western ports to Soviet vessels; 5) cancellation of the Mutual Balanced Force Reduction Talks; 6) walkout on the ongoing conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) deliberations; 7) cessation of cultural exchanges; 8) recall of ambassadors and 9) reduction of Western missions in Moscow.9 The NATO defence ministers also asked the United States to despatch four AWAC planes to Europe to observe the situation on Poland’s borders. The planes – unarmed surveillance aircraft – were expected to operate from West Germany.10 Finally, the NATO Defence Planning

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 45

Balancing Democracy and Security 45

Committee concluded that NATO’s standard naval force should not be dispersed as usual at Christmas time. The NATO communiqué announcing this decision underlined that the force was ‘a symbol of Allied solidarity particularly in times of tension’.11 Although the situation in Poland was not officially quoted as the reason for this decision, it must be assumed that it was the direct cause. Hence, by December 1980, the West had started to implement its principal measures in response to the events in Poland. There was a clear effort to signal that the West was not indifferent to the situation and that Soviet interference would not be taken lightly. The change of president in the United States in January 1981 had no immediate effect on this policy. As Gordon has observed: Secretary of State Haig quickly secured President Reagan’s agreement to a policy of discouraging Soviet military intervention, using public and diplomatic channels and allied consultations in the same pattern as the previous administration.12 Throughout 1981, Western leaders continued to monitor the situation in Poland and stressed at regular intervals their concern that Poland be left to sort out its own problems.13 Margaret Thatcher’s statement in April is characteristic: An external intervention in Poland would be a disaster for Poland, for Europe, for East–West relations, and for all peoples. I hope that the Soviet leaders realise that intervention would be a disaster for the Soviet Union as well.14 At the NATO summit in Rome in May 1981, Poland was again one of the main topics on the agenda, and Soviet pressure on Poland was condemned as damaging international security and stability: In Europe, efforts to restore East–West co-operation and exchanges on the basis of the Helsinki Final Act cannot but be severely undermined by the use or threat of force for intervention in the affairs of other countries. Poland must be left free to resolve its own problems. Any outside intervention would have the gravest consequences for international relations as a whole and would fundamentally change the entire international situation. The Allies, for their part, will continue to adhere strictly to their policy of non-intervention and they call on all other states to do the same.15

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 46

46 The Crisis

The process of consultation between the allies appeared to work satisfactorily in this phase. Carter, Brzezinski and Haig all underlined the efforts they made to keep the Europeans informed, both of their knowledge of the situation in Poland and of American diplomatic initiatives to warn the Soviet Union. West European leaders also pointed out the importance of consultation.16 In the spring of 1981, most of the West European foreign ministers or heads of governments went separately to Washington to meet the new US president. On these occasions, the general consensus between the West Europeans and the Americans on the right of the Poles to sort out their own problems without outside interference was constantly reiterated, and appeared relatively convincing. Foreign Minister Colombo of Italy was the first to report back to his European colleagues after such a visit. He described the American attitude towards Poland as ‘slightly less alarmist than a few months ago’ and thus more in line with the European position.17 Likewise, during the French Foreign Minister Jean Francois-Ponçet’s visit, as well as that of Helmut Schmidt to the United States at the end of March, Poland was an important topic of discussion and ‘complete coherence’ between the policies of the West Europeans and President Reagan was underlined.18 Poland was also an important issue in West European relations and EPC. It was discussed at the 37th Franco-German summit in Paris in February 1981 and was made the subject of a foreign policy statement, despite the fact that the two leaders were supposed to make a statement only on cultural relations. Schmidt and Giscard stated: La modération s’impose, en premier lieu, dans les rapports entre les signataires de l’Acte final d’Helsinki qui a défini les règles. Elle signifie qu’il est essentiel que la Pologne puisse résoudre ses graves problèmes elle-même d’une manière pacifique et sans, hors d’Europe, comme en Europe, ingérence extérieure.19 [According to the Helsinki Act moderation is required of its signatory states. The rules of the Helsinki Act indicate that it is essential that Poland is left to resolve its serious difficulties on its own, in a peaceful manner, and without interference from inside or outside Europe.] This confirms both a European wish to influence East–West relations and the importance that the West Europeans attached to the political situation in Poland.20 Britain also emphasised the importance of

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 47

Balancing Democracy and Security 47

cooperation within the framework of European political cooperation. Margaret Thatcher stated that the Polish crisis was having a direct effect on the Community and that it demanded the immediate coordination of EC foreign policy.21 This section has shown that the Western states appeared to succeed in presenting a common front and pursuing a coherent and well-defined policy, corresponding with clear objectives. However, several questions remain unanswered, the most important one being, why was the emphasis in Western policies put almost exclusively on the role of the Soviet Union?

Muddled perceptions, muddled objectives In early December 1980, Western policy initiatives were most likely triggered by reports of Soviet troop movements on Poland’s borders. Intelligence reports from the CIA, NATO and some neutral countries, particularly Sweden, on these movements started to come in late November and early December.22 According to Ascherson, State Department officials told journalists on 25 November that Soviet troops were on a state of high alert,23 and the Western press duly turned its attention to the risk of a Soviet military intervention.24 Brzezinski also refers to CIA reports from late November.25 The West’s concern grew when it became known that an emergency meeting of the Warsaw Pact had been held in Moscow on 5 December, to discuss the situation in Poland.26 These intelligence reports came at a time of relative calm in Poland. Throughout October and early November, Solidarity had successfully fought for the registration of the trade union. The tension arising from the so-called ‘Narozniak affair’, in which a Solidarity activist had been arrested for stealing a confidential document issued by the Prosecutor’s office, had been resolved by the release of the man in question and the threat of a general strike had been averted.27 The Central Committee of the PZPR was holding its seventh plenum and this was the focus of attention inside Poland. In 1981, concern about the risk of invasion rose and fell in waves.28 It reached a second peak in early April, when the Soviet ‘Soyuz 81’ military manoeuvres continued beyond the planned date. However, it was not easy to gain a clear picture of what was actually taking place in Poland, much less judge how things might evolve. Possession of adequate information is always central to foreign policy but it was particularly difficult to acquire during the Polish crisis. The situation

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 48

48 The Crisis

was complex and rather unpredictable. Not only was it difficult to predict which one of the three main actors – the Polish Communist Party, Solidarity and the Soviet Union – would eventually force through its viewpoint, but these actors were also influenced by several different factions and therefore were not in total control of their own policy. The Soviet Union had to deal with pressure from the other East European states, Solidarity was finding it increasingly difficult to control its grassroots members and the PZPR was absorbed in an internal struggle over which stance to adopt. Indeed, these actors did not always have clear and coherent aims. Brzezinski and Carter are unclear about whether they were convinced of the inevitability of a Soviet move. Brzezinski writes that he had some doubts about the accuracy of the CIA reports in November and December 1980.29 Carter, on the other hand, appears to have been more certain about the Soviet threat. According to his memoirs, ‘Early in December [1980] . . . we became convinced that their [the Soviets] military forces were preparing to move into Poland.’30 Elsewhere he stressed that ‘we did not know whether the Soviets would go in. Our first goal was to keep them out. Secondly, we didn’t know how they would go in, whether under the guise of manoeuvres or by means of a full-scale invasion. Thirdly, the Poles would probably resist.’31 Similar uncertainty seemed to rule in the case of West European policy makers.32 Not only were there differences of opinion between them, but there was also general uncertainty about the situation in Poland, regardless of each Western state’s interests or idiosyncrasies. Even today, it is not clear whether there was a real threat of Soviet intervention, although it is known that Warsaw Pact plans were drawn up.33 Thus, observers at the time were correct in arguing that the Soviet Union was ‘in a state of near readiness for intervention’.34 However, the intelligence reports received at the time, which formed part of the information upon which the West based its decisions, were not accurate. According to recent research, the question of military intervention was discussed at the Warsaw Pact meeting on 5 December but was rejected when Poland insisted that it could control the situation.35 Classified documents from the archives of East Germany’s Communist Party confirm this, as well as the fact that the Soviet Union was under pressure from East Germans to resort to military intervention.36 Yet intelligence reports quoted by Brzezinski state that a decision to intervene was taken at the same meeting. On 6 December, it was concluded that ‘the Soviets will be ready to go within 48 hours. Moreover, it is the Agency conclusion that they will go into Poland on Monday or Tuesday

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 49

Balancing Democracy and Security 49

[8 or 9 December].’37 The likely date of the invasion was subsequently amended: ‘A joint decision to invade was made on December 5 and . . . [it may take place] as early as the morning or night of the 7th.’38 There was also uncertainty about the number of Soviet troops in the area. The International Herald Tribune, quoting sources in Brussels, stated that between 30 and 35 Soviet divisions were ready to move into Poland,39 which corresponded to an intelligence report from Bucharest.40 However, in their memoirs Carter and Brzezinski quote rather lower numbers,41 while Valenta states that 300 000 to 400 000 Soviet troops were ready to be deployed, although more divisions might be drawn from other districts.42 Most importantly, information was received by the West that an alternative to Soviet intervention was being considered. Via Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski of Poland, the United States had received information on a Polish plan to impose martial law.43 (Kuklinski served in the central Polish government apparatus charged with organising the reimposition of communist authority in Poland in 1980–81. He fled to the West just before imposition of martial law in December 1981.) Kuklinski claims that the idea of imposing martial law had already been considered in August 1980 and that the United States had been informed about this. According to him, the final plan was completed in early November 1980, but was temporarily shelved: To cozen the mutinous society, the Leadership Staff adopted the tactic of agreeing to sign a rather imprecisely worded social agreement in order to extinguish the conflagration of strikes . . . and in the resulting more favourable conditions to switch to a counteroffensive by means of administrative measures, including as a final resort the imposition of martial law.44 The possibility of martial law is also mentioned in other documents from the US administration.45 Finally, it should be added that historical precedents rendered the martial law alternative more likely than military intervention. Indeed, during previous crises in Poland, the Soviet Union had never chosen to intervene militarily. Recently published documents indicate that the decision not to use military force in 1956 was chiefly because of the Soviets’ fear of Polish military resistance.46 There was not only uncertainty in the West about the situation in Poland, there was also uncertainty about policy objectives. According to Brzezinski, the United States had four objectives at that time:

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 50

50 The Crisis

one is to deprive the Soviets of surprise. . . . Two, perhaps encourage the Poles to resist if they are not taken by surprise, for this might somewhat deter the Soviets. The publicity is already doing that. Thirdly and paradoxically, to calm the situation in Poland by making the Poles more aware that the Soviets may, in fact, enter. The Poles have til now discounted this possibility and this may have emboldened them excessively. Here, in effect, we have a common interest with the Soviets, for they too may prefer to intimidate the Poles to a degree. And fourth, to deter the Soviets from coming in by intensifying international pressure and condemnation of the Soviet Union.47 This was more or less followed up by the Reagan administration: ‘American aims were simple: to keep Soviet troops out of Poland, and to preserve the reforms achieved by Solidarity.’48 However, both administrations at times claimed to have considered Soviet intervention as inevitable. According to Haig: ‘There was never any question that the popular movement in Poland would be crushed by the U.S.S.R. The only questions were: when will this happen, and with what degree of brutality?’49 There was the same element of uncertainty in Western Europe, swinging between pessimism about the prospect of Soviet respect for reforms and the need to formulate a policy aimed at deterring the Soviet Union. The difficulty in formulating policy objectives was further exacerbated by the contradictory or even incompatible aims of the economic, political and security aspects of the crisis.50 At a certain level, the continuing debate on whether the Soviet Union would have intervened and whether the West thought it was going to do so seems pointless as the fact is, it did not intervene. Still, the question always arises in any discussion on the situation in Poland in the early 1980s. From the perspective of Western coordination it is important because, as already noted, until the imposition of martial law, the West’s policies were based almost exclusively on the possibility of Soviet military intervention in Poland, despite the receipt of intelligence on Poland’s plan to impose martial law. The reasons for this focus are crucial to understanding the West’s policies. It was suggested above that several points remain unclear in this respect: was Soviet intervention considered inevitable, or was reform seen as possible? If Soviet intervention was seen as inevitable, then why try to discourage it? If it was not seen as inevitable, then why continue to focus only on this particular possibility at the expense of other possibilities? Or, to put it another

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 51

Balancing Democracy and Security 51

way, why in the general confusion about the evolution of events in Poland did the West choose to focus its attention and contingency planning on Soviet military intervention and ignore other possible developments, particularly martial law?

Doing what is feasible Given the impossibility of providing certain answers to the above questions, a policy of satisficing rather than optimising was adopted. The tension between the Western allies also helps to explain why they chose to focus on the threat of invasion, despite their uncertainty about whether this was the only possible course of events, and despite the fact that it did not appear to have much to do with clearly defined Western objectives vis-à-vis Poland. As outlined in Chapter 2, the Polish crisis erupted at a time when there was considerable strain in Euro-American relations. This section suggests that by concentrating on the risk of Soviet intervention the Western states managed to retain their cohesion. The Europeans had questioned Carter’s ability to serve as leader of the Western alliance and criticised his foreign policy for being both naive and dogmatic.51 However, the election of Reagan in 1981 temporarily improved transatlantic relations. The European Council in Luxembourg expressed satisfaction with Reagan’s declared intention of creating ‘a strong America’.52 Likewise the French President, in a televised interview on French foreign policy, acclaimed the US President’s desire to create a powerful America that would fully address its international responsibilities, and he underlined the importance of consultation between the United States and Western Europe.53 The improvement in Euro-American relations was reinforced by Reagan’s emphasis, in his first official statement as President, on the importance of cooperation within the alliance. In an interview on 20 February, he stated that ‘Western Europe will be called to play a key and vital role in the organisation of our security over the next decade’.54 He further declared that bilateral and multilateral cooperation was vital to the security of the Western alliance, and stressed the importance of presenting a united front to the West’s adversaries. However, the positive note in Euro-American relations was not to last. As suggested in Chapter 2, the West European dissatisfaction with Carter was not just a question of leadership style or a clash of personalities, but was also the result of a disagreement on policy. In this respect, Reagan’s presidency did not bring an improvement in alliance relations as he was as critical of détente as his predecessor had been. The

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 52

52 The Crisis

virulently anticommunist tone of his foreign policy speeches was not matched in Western Europe, despite the fact that West European politics were also shifting further to the right of the political spectrum. In other words, the ideology of the Reagan administration was as far, or even further, from the West European position as Carter’s had been, thus promising a renewal of tension within the alliance.55 With regard to the Polish crisis, the differences between the West Europeans and the Reagan administration first manifested themselves on the question of economic relations. The US administration was critical of the idea of providing economic aid to Eastern Europe as this would serve to ease the Soviet Union’s financial burden of looking after its East European satellites. Hence, from this perspective, economic aid to Poland was seen as subsidising Soviet control.56 Taken to its logical extreme, this meant that the Western states should stand by and let the Polish economy collapse in order to create a heavy financial burden for the Soviet Union. As one member of the Reagan administration said: If the Soviet Union were on the verge of bankruptcy, would the United States offer it financial aid? Of course not; the collapse of the Soviet economy would be proof that Communism does not work, a realization devoutly to be wished. If Communist-run Poland were on the verge of bankruptcy, would the United States offer that nation financial aid? The obvious answer is again, of course not – let the Russians, who imposed the unworkable system on Poland, bail it out.57 The US aversion to economic aid for Poland was not matched in Western Europe58 and, in fact, the EC started a programme of food aid in December 1980. The West Europeans saw food aid to Poland as the logical extension of détente, in which trade and economic relations played an important part. Food aid was given without political conditions, but it presupposed a willingness on the part of the Polish regime to negotiate with the workers and introduce reforms. In a televised interview on 27 January, the French President summarised France’s attitude towards the events in Poland with the following three words: ‘sympathy, non-interference, aid’.59 Although France was more in favour of providing economic aid than some of the other West European countries, in general his words were indicative of the differences between the United States and Western Europe. France, Giscard pointed out, had been a friend of Poland and the Polish people for a long time. However, he also underlined that ‘dans la solution de ses problèmes, la Pologne doit tenir compte de sa situation géographique et stratégique’. [‘Poland

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 53

Balancing Democracy and Security 53

should take into account its geographic and strategic location when seeking to resolve its current difficulties’.]. Finally, he underlined that Poland needed and should be able to rely on Western aid to help solve its domestic problems.60 The new US administration, on the other hand, only started its aid programme in April 1981 as the outgoing Carter administration had decided in November 1980 to delay action on Poland’s request for assistance until the Reagan administration took over.61 The latter’s position on the matter had remained uncertain for several months, chiefly because of ongoing discussions inside the administration on the role of East–West trade. When aid was restarted, the United States took a different approach from the West Europeans: it made an effort to extract guarantees from Poland and stressed that the aid was conditional on the continuation of political reforms. The discussions on aid to Poland took place in the context of a wider debate within the alliance on the risks and advantages of East–West economic relations. Since the Ottawa summit of the G7 in 1981, the United States had sought to introduce curbs on high technology exports to the Soviet Union and restrict Western credit to the Soviet Union.62 This was part of an overall change of US policy towards the Soviet bloc. The Reagan administration was highly suspicious of West European economic relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and rejected one of the central tenets of détente policy: that trade with the Soviet bloc might lead to greater openness and less tension.63 It emphasised the risk of West European dependency on the Soviet Union and stressed that the West, through trade with the Soviet bloc, was actually helping to strengthen the Soviet military apparatus, partly by providing the Soviet economy with hard currency and partly by making Western technology available to the Soviet Union.64 The US policy of the early 1980s marked a major shift in the logic which had underpinned American policy towards the Soviet Union for the past twenty years, and especially a sharp break with the period of détente. . . . The Reagan administration’s emerging focus [was] on changing the Soviet domestic situation – whether as a means to alter the Soviet external behaviour or as a way to accelerate the disintegration of the Soviet system and empire.65 The US concern about the Soviet Union gaining military advantages from trade with the West was echoed in some West European countries, particularly Britain and France. However, the US proposals resembled a

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 54

54 The Crisis

policy of economic warfare, of which the West Europeans were highly suspicious. In addition, there was still a strong belief in Western Europe about the beneficial effects of East–West trade on East–West stability. In the words of Stephen Woolcock, ‘West European governments, . . . despite having modified some of the views that they held at the height of the détente period, see trade as a means of stabilizing East–West relations.’66 Hence, the West Europeans remained reluctant, for both economic and political reasons, to abandon their trade relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.67 In particular, economic leverage was an important part of West Germany’s Ostpolitik. Indeed by 1981: ‘Bonn’s aversion to utilising negative economic leverage against the Soviet Union clearly demonstrated that . . . the Federal Republic had developed its own trade policy towards Eastern Europe and no longer accepted US definitions of what was permissible in the area.’68 Furthermore, the West Europeans argued that they would bear the cost of the proposed policy because of the types of product the US administration was seeking to exclude from East–West trade. By excluding agricultural products from his policy, Reagan ‘shifted the burden of responsibility and costs of supporting the US embargo policy to the Europeans’.69 These fundamental differences between the US and (broadly speaking) West European approaches to East–West relations help to explain their difficulties to formulate a coherent joint response to the events in Poland. The differences between the allies and their problem with agreeing on how to respond in the event of the Soviet Union intervening in Poland is shown very clearly in telegrams reporting the discussions that took place among France, Britain, West Germany and the United States in the so-called Quad group. For example, the United States considered that ‘at a minimum [we] face a serious difference of approach with the FRG, and possibly face a serious substantive disagreement as well, over the scope and nature of measures to adopt’.70 One issue on which all the allies could agree, however, was the need to warn the Soviet Union not to intervene in Poland. This enabled the United States to show that it was taking a firm stand against the Soviet Union, and the West Europeans to signal their continued commitment to détente by showing their concern about the risk of its destruction. This agreement did not, however, extend to preparing for the possibility of martial law in Poland. Consequently talks on this issue, and how to respond to it, were set aside.71 Western governments were criticised for presenting an oversimplified picture of the situation in Poland, for exaggerating the part played by

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 55

Balancing Democracy and Security 55

the Soviet Union and for using the Polish crisis to further their ideological and political struggle with the Soviet Union. It was from this perspective that the Party Chairman of the ruling SPD in West Germany, Willy Brandt, argued that ‘Poland has a great deal more to do with Poland than with the relationship between East and West.’72 In the same vein, Kevin Ruane has argued that the West ignored the complexity of events in Poland, and did not appreciate the new Polish government’s genuine attempts at reform.73 It is often argued that more should have been done to support the reform process in Poland, particularly economically,74 but others consider the West to have been too complacent with the Polish regime and the Soviet Union, and that the appropriate response would have been an economic embargo.75 (The next section will look more closely at the economic initiatives taken by Western states.) What may be concluded at this point is that the policy developed by the Western allies may not have been the best one for Poland, but it did enable them to present a united front. Thus, while the emphasis on the risk of Soviet intervention may well have been simplistic, it was a feasible option in terms of alliance cohesion.76 All were able to agree, albeit for different reasons, on warning against a Soviet intervention.77 This approach also allowed the Polish crisis to be defined as a Cold War issue, in which the roles of the Western allies were the most clearly set out and where cohesion was strongest. The economic and political issues raised by the events in Poland, where the cement of the Soviet threat was less strong, became secondary to the question of military intervention in Poland. The fact that the Western states could not agree on what to do in the event of martial law in Poland, and consequently made no preparations for it, is confirmed in Haig’s memoirs: We had expected that the suppression would come at the hands of internal Polish forces, but discussions with allied governments failed to develop a consensus on the actions that might be taken by the West in this contingency. We had known for many months what we would do in case of direct Soviet intervention; but there was no certain plan of action in the more ambiguous case of internal crackdown.78 We shall now look more closely at the West’s economic response to the events in Poland. Partly as a result of the divergence of views on East–West relations and partly because of a certain lack of commitment, this response was slow to develop and limited in its impact.

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 56

56 The Crisis

A reluctant economic response It was clear by autumn 1980 that Poland would have great difficulty servicing its debt. In 1981, the country’s lack of foreign currency to buy essential imports, together with the continuing strikes, put an additional strain on the already weak economy. By the end of 1981, several basic goods were being rationed, many key industries were estimated to be running at half capacity or less, and Poland’s debt had reached $27 billion.79 This debt was not only preventing the restoration of economic prosperity in Poland, it had also become a serious problem for the Western banking system, particularly in Western Europe, notwithstanding the umbrella theory. Nonetheless, the West was slow to respond, due chiefly to the transatlantic disagreements on East–West economic relations discussed above. An outright crisis was avoided partly due to the measures developed within various institutional frameworks. Although the discussions on rescheduling Poland’s debt were for the most part kept secret, it is clear that the Western states’ efforts to coordinate their response to Poland’s demand for additional credit started in December 1980.80 In late February, a press communiqué officially confirmed that such talks were taking place.81 As there was no obvious institution to deal with the coordination of Poland’s debt rescheduling, an ad hoc group was organised at the initiative of the French government and negotiations with Poland were chaired by the French Treasury director, Jean-Yves Haberer.82 The negotiations involved 15 countries, as well as Poland. Agreement on the rescheduling of Poland’s debt did not happen overnight (due mainly to hesitation by the Reagan administration),83 so short-term bilateral refinancing measures were taken until a long-term solution could be found. West Germany, France and Britain all provided short-term credit to permit Poland’s normal commercial transactions to continue. On 10 April, a body of French, British, American and West German government officials provided a detailed assessment of Poland’s financial situation, and on 27 April an agreement was made to reschedule about $2.5 billion worth of official government-backed debts that were due for payment in 1981. The main points of the agreement were as follows: (1) 90 per cent of all official Western credits to Poland falling due between 1 May and the end of 1981 would be rescheduled or refinanced (including both interest and principal payment); and (2) there would be a four-year grace period in which Poland would not

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 57

Balancing Democracy and Security 57

be required to repay those debts – repayment would start in 1986 and continue for the next four years.84 However, this agreement was only a first step. It was clear that Poland would also need to renegotiate its debt for 1982. Furthermore, there was the problem of new credit to bridge Poland’s balance of payments gap and pay for essential imports, as well as a question mark over the attitude of those creditors who had not been present at the discussions (Brazil, Spain and the OPEC countries – the agreement was considered to be a basic formula that should also be applied by Poland’s other creditors). Most importantly, the agreement only covered half of Poland’s hard currency debt. Agreement on rescheduling the other half, which was owed to private banks, still had to be negotiated.85 These banks had been sitting on the fence, waiting to see the outcome of the negotiations of the official debt before engaging themselves. Assessing the situation from a purely economic perspective, they were much more sceptical about Poland’s economic prospects and more reluctant to give additional credit than their governments. On behalf of all the country’s commercial creditors, a task force of Western bank representatives dealt with the negotiations on Poland’s commercial debt, the number varying from 15 to 21. There were characteristics of the Polish debt that made it particularly difficult to find a solution.86 Firstly, there was more money at stake than was usual in rescheduling negotiations. Poland was requesting a rescheduling of $3.1 billion, much more than in the previous rescheduling agreements with Turkey and Bolivia. Secondly, the loans were spread amongst a very large number of creditors – about 460 banks were said to be involved and any agreement had to be approved by all of them. Finally, negotiations of this kind were usually led by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which had the necessary expertise to negotiate with governments and was also able to acquire the necessary information on countries’ economic situation from the governments in question. Yet Poland was not a member of the IMF, and a major stumbling block throughout the negotiations was its reluctance to provide information on its financial situation. In addition to these technical difficulties, the considerable difference between the European and American approaches to rescheduling slowed down deliberations. The American position was that more time was needed to assess Poland’s prospects for economic recovery before an agreement could be made.87 The European banks, which were more heavily exposed than their American counterparts, needed a rapid

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 58

58 The Crisis

agreement to protect themselves from potential default. It was assumed that if one of the banks declared default, the whole block would stumble. The Europeans further argued that a quick agreement was the only way to get the Polish economy back in working order. There was pressure on both European and American banks to find a quick solution to the debt problem as Poland’s economic situation, and hence its ability to repay its debt, was worsening. The West European governments were also putting pressure on their banks to do something.88 In early April, Poland was given a moratorium until 1 July so that a longer-term solution to its commercial debt problem could be found.89 On 25 June, the commercial banks were at last reported to have reached agreement on a rescheduling programme.90 However, the programme still had to be approved by Poland and a number of the attached conditions were difficult to accept. Essentially, it was proposed that Poland’s debt for 1981 ($3 billion) would be deferred until 1988, provided that Poland supplied the banks with a detailed economic recovery programme. Poland had never before supplied Western commercial institutions with this kind of economic information, which included details of its financial relationship with the Soviet Union.91 An agreement in principle was reached on 30 September,92 but in early December, Poland was still threatening to default on some of its loans to the West.93 Furthermore, there were still doubts in the West about the ability and willingness of the Polish authorities to honour the agreement.94 In addition to debt rescheduling, Poland was asking the West for additional credit, especially credit to import food. This matter was dealt with in different fora from those dealing with the rescheduling of the existing debt. Poland had approached individual West European states rather than the EC on the question of food and general economic credit,95 but at the European Council meeting in Luxembourg in late 1980, the member states decided that food aid should be provided through the EC rather than individually.96 On 8 December, Poland gave the Commission specific details of the food aid it wished to receive.97 This was the first time that the EC had offered food aid to a European country, and the proposal drawn up by the Commission involved complicated interactions between EC institutions, national governments and Poland itself. As the food was to be taken from existing EC stocks, the Commission and the agricultural directorate were made responsible for working out the details of the programme and negotiating its contents with the Polish authorities.98 This was done according to guidelines provided by the European Council. It was thus the Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr. Villain, who

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 59

Balancing Democracy and Security 59

negotiated with Polish officials on the conditions for the aid package. The food was to be delivered to Poland at prices 10 per cent below the world rate for sugar and 15 per cent below for other goods. The difference between the EC prices and the prices at which the food was sold to Poland was to be covered by the EC budget. The cost to the EAGGF (European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund) was estimated at approximately 30 million ecus.99 The individual member states were made responsible for providing credit to Poland to enable it to pay for food originating in their country. The Council of Ministers approved the Commission’s proposal on 17 December. At the end of February 1981, it was reported that the Polish government was preparing a request for a second batch of food aid from the EC.100 This request was eventually submitted on 23 March, thus coinciding with the European Council meeting in Maastricht.101 The European Council again acknowledged Poland’s need for economic support and instructed the Commission, ‘in agreement with the partner countries which were already taking part in the Paris discussion, to examine these wishes as soon as possible’.102 The plan for the second batch of food supplies was ready by early April. The estimated cost was 33 million ecus and the conditions were the same as for the first batch. In early September, Poland asked for a third batch, to be delivered in the last part of 1981. The first consignment of this package was agreed upon by the EC 10 in early October and was to be sent under the same conditions as the aid sent throughout 1981. Altogether, the third aid package was estimated to cost the EAGGF 52 million ecus.103 The delivery of supplies from the EC stocks was easy enough to organise, but providing national credits to Poland to enable it to buy this food proved more complicated and there were delays in the negotiations between Poland and some of the member states. The first batch of food aid was delayed because agreement on credit had not been reached by the time planned,104 and it was not until the beginning of March that the negotiations came to an end.105 When the second and third batches were negotiated, doubt began to be expressed about certain aspects of the project and member states were reported to be having difficulty organising enough credit to cover the Polish purchases. The German government was said to have reservations about the project, but France was positively disposed towards it.106 The latter even proposed that the second batch be increased, and elected to sell additional wheat on an autonomous basis.107 France also played an important part in ensuring the continuation of the EC programme as well as in the discussions on the rescheduling of Poland’s debt.

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 60

60 The Crisis

As already noted, the new US administration took longer to decide on a programme of food aid to Poland.108 However, in late October, it finally declared that it was ready to supply Poland with additional basic foodstuff worth $29 million.109 Two main conclusions can be drawn about the economic aspects of the West’s response to the events in Poland. Firstly, the Western states did not have a coordinated approach to food aid: there was no single forum to coordinate all aspects of this, and no one country or institution took the lead to ensure a dynamic response. Instead, the Europeans coordinated their food aid through the EC and the United States dealt directly with Poland. In this area the EC emerged as an important actor, but the EC’s food aid programme was far from efficient. For a start, the aid was only delivered to Poland after considerable delay, reflecting a reluctant attitude of some West European governments. Furthermore, what was called food aid in effect served to increase Poland’s long-term debt because, at some point in the future, it would have to repay the credit it had received to buy the food. In early December, the EC decided to send 8000 tonnes of beef to Poland as a ‘Christmas gift’ – this was the first free food aid to be given to Poland since the beginning of the crisis.110 Secondly, the debt issue, was also dealt with through separate channels and reaching an agreement on debt rescheduling proved a lengthy process. The decision to reschedule Poland’s commercial debt for 1981 was not reached until early December 1981, and the rescheduling of its commercial and public debt for the subsequent years was left unresolved. The delay was not only the result of a lack of interest in the West and genuine disagreement over the legitimacy of the process, but also reflected the difficulties the West had with coordinating policies outside established structures.

Conclusion Assessments of the West’s policies towards Poland in this period vary greatly. On the one hand, some view the policies as successful in the sense that they helped to deter the Soviet Union from intervening militarily in Poland. The Western states managed, in a way that they had not in 1956 and 1968, to signal to the Soviet Union that military intervention would not be taken lightly. On the other hand, many argue that more could have been done, particularly in the economic sphere, to support the reform process in Poland. The West’s approach has also been accused of being blinkered because it tended to focus only on the conflict with the Soviet Union.

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 61

Balancing Democracy and Security 61

Rather than assessing if the Western allies did the right thing, this chapter has discussed the basis on which they did what they did do. Their policies were formulated under conditions of considerable uncertainty. Yet the problem for the Western allies was not only one of lack of information, they also faced normative dilemmas. They were unsure about the extent to which it was desirable for the workers’ protest to go, given the risk of destabilisation. There was concern about how to achieve the right balance between stability and democracy, and about the acceptability of searching for such a balance. Hence, the West’s policies were not only formulated with an eye to Western material interests. If the Western states had only been concerned about the destabilising effects that the Polish uprising could have on their own national security, they would not have gone to such lengths to support the democratic opposition. Indeed, it would have been sufficient to sit tight, or even to urge the protestors not to push the authorities too far. The fact that this option was not chosen by the Western states suggests that the protection of human rights and democracy was also an important consideration in the formulation of their policies. However, it was not their only concern. The allies were united in their desire to prevent the Soviet Union from intervening in the Polish crisis. However, their solidarity on the matter was built on fragile foundations and important policy options were excluded. Most importantly, despite the fact that they knew that the imposition of martial law in Poland was a distinct possibility, no common contingency plans were drawn up because they could not agree on the most appropriate way to respond. Indeed, from a normative perspective, martial law would be less clear cut than a Soviet or Warsaw Pact military intervention. In this context of transatlantic differences the EC, emerged as an active coordinator of West European economic policies. Although one might say that the decision to use EC instruments to support Poland economically followed logically from the setting up of a common trade policy towards Eastern Europe, it was surprising because the establishment of this policy had been difficult as the EC member states had long sought to maintain control of this policy themselves. The EC also strengthened its external policy by explicitly linking the aims of EPC to the economic instruments of the EC. The idea that the large number of Western institutions involved might have made coordination more difficult has not been confirmed here. If there were no direct clashes on economic policy, this was partly because the economic responses were not dealt with within a transatlantic framework. The West Europeans used the instruments of the EC to coordinate their food aid to Poland,

0333_740661_04_cha03.qxd

10/31/2002

10:05 AM

Page 62

62 The Crisis

whereas the United States engaged in bilateral negotiations with Poland on the issue. The existence of the EC also enabled the West European states to go ahead with economic aid to Poland without waiting for the United States. Hence, no single state or institution took overall charge of the West’s response to Poland. The leadership role traditionally played by the United States may have work well when exercised in the traditional alliance sphere, in other words in the making of contingency plans to deal with Soviet intervention within the context of NATO, but the United States failed to provide direction for the Western states in the economic sphere. One could argue that the EC’s efforts at that time were only partially successful. Its policy on food aid suffered from divisions and disagreements amongst the member states, as well as from delays in the implementation process. Thus, the EC failed to emerge as an entirely efficient economic actor. Furthermore, the West European states put considerable effort into avoiding unnecessary strains on the alliance. Therefore, European political cooperation remained in the background as long as NATO dealt with the political aspects of the crisis. Nonetheless, the EC broke new ground in terms of taking its place as an independent actor in East–West relations, and the part it played in the Polish crisis signalled the strengthening of its international role in the early 1980s. Furthermore, its activities in Poland helped to lay the foundations for its involvement in Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War.

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 63

4 After Martial Law: Disarray in the Western Camp

Introduction During the night of 13 December 1981, the process of democratisation in Poland came to an abrupt halt. In a speech to the Polish nation, General Jaruzelski announced the imposition of martial law and the creation of a Military Council of National Salvation. The proclaimed objectives of martial law were to restore the rule of law, order and discipline and to create guarantees for the normal working of the state administration.1 Poland’s borders were closed, internal and external lines of communication were shut down, basic civil rights were suspended and Solidarity members and dissidents were interned. Although the authorities claimed that martial law was only a temporary measure aimed at restoring order, and not the end of the reform process altogether, all the independent unions established since August 1980 were gradually banned. On 8 October 1982, the Sejm banned Solidarity itself. By the time martial law was lifted in July 1983, all its measures had been incorporated into the legal system.2 If the Western states’ concern about the events in Poland had only been inspired by a desire to ensure that the instability did not spread beyond Poland’s borders, one would expect them to have been relieved that order had been restored and there would have been little reason to continue their involvement with Poland. Relief was not, however, universal amongst the Western states. Martial law was a divisive issue: there was no common understanding of the events or of the significance of martial law. Furthermore, there was no agreement on how to respond to it. This chapter is organised chronologically. It starts by looking at the immediate Western reactions to the imposition of martial law and 63

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 64

64 The Crisis

the main issues it raised for the Western allies. Next, it outlines the responses formulated by individual states, and examines the attempts to coordinate these responses. Following on from this, the links between Western disagreements over martial law and pre-existing disputes inside the alliance are explored. Finally, the last section discusses the efforts made to patch up the transatlantic differences after the G7 summit in June 1982.

Confusion in the Western camp The immediate reaction in the West to the imposition of martial law in Poland can best be characterised as surprise, confusion and a certain embarrassment. Surprise, because there had been no Soviet military intervention; confusion, because it was difficult to know what was really happening or what the West could do about it; embarrassment, because of the lack of Western preparedness and the fragility of the Western consensus. With the imposition of martial law, the West risked being exposed as divided and indecisive. Jaruzelski’s ‘domestic solution’ highlighted the contradictions and confusions of Western interests and objectives, not only with regard to the Polish crisis but also in Eastern Europe in general. As Chapter 3 suggested, the West had prepared itself for a Soviet or Warsaw Pact military intervention in Poland; it had not been prepared for a domestic crackdown.3 Martial law did not fit in with the West’s contingency planning and it created chaos in the Western alliance. Hence, there was an urgent need to reassess the West’s policies and to re-evaluate the situation in Poland. This would not, however, be a simple task. It would, for several reasons, be hazardous both for the alliance and for the individual governments. A Soviet military intervention would have been easier to deal with: it would have produced a clear-cut situation in which the Soviet Union could have been singled out as the responsible party. With the imposition of martial law in Poland the West was obliged to enter a grey area, created largely by the policy of détente, where it was less easy to attribute responsibility, and where there was room for various interpretations of the situation and various options on how to react. As Hill has argued: This development [the imposition of martial law] was the worst possible from the Western viewpoint of seeking to make an effective response to the suppression of Solidarity. It neatly divided the United States from the Europeans by playing on the latter’s hopes for a

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 65

After Martial Law 65

reconstructed Poland, rather than the ‘liberation’ which President Reagan’s rhetoric increasingly yearned for.4 Further complicating matters was the fact that, as a result of a total news blackout in the first ten days of martial law, it was almost impossible to obtain an accurate picture of the situation in Poland. It was not clear whether or not martial law had succeeded, how widespread resistance was to the military takeover, or how widespread the political repression was. It was also unclear whether martial law was only intended as a short-term measure, as the Polish authorities claimed, and whether there was still a risk of Soviet military action.5 One issue in particular divided the West: the part played by the Soviet Union and the degree to which it was responsible for the imposition of martial law. Western policy makers also diverged on the question of whether or not martial law had been unavoidable, although they did not dwell on this in public. The way in which Western policy makers at the time assessed the responsibility of the Soviet Union for martial law had more to do with their established position on East–West relations than with the political situation in Poland. Pierre Hassner has emphasised these paradoxes in the Western debate: Ceux qui proclament le plus fort que la crise polonaise marque la fin de la détente et réclament des sanctions, la suspensions ou la réduction radicale des rapports économiques Est-Ouest, un réarmement intensif face à la menace militaire soviétique, – sont ceux pour qui les événements de Pologne n’ont en réalité rien changé. . . . Ceux pour qui le 13 décembre devrait poser un problème, ceux qui devraient s’interroger sur leur interpretation de l’Est et sur les paris qui servaient de fondement à leur politique, ce sont précisément les autres, ceux qui croyaient à la détente, . . . aux ‘armes de la paix’. . . Or, . . . [ils] maintiennent que le rapprochement est plus nécessaire que jamais.6 [It is those who think that events in Poland have not really changed anything who claim most strongly that the Polish crisis marks the end of détente and call for sanctions, the suspension or radical reduction of East-West economic relations, intensive rearmament in response to the Soviet military threat . . . Those for whom 13 December ought to pose a problem, those who ought to reconsider their interpretation of the East and the wager on which their policy was based, it is exactly those others, those who believed in détente,

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 66

66 The Crisis

. . . in the ‘weapons of peace’ . . . yet [they] maintain that close relations are more important than ever before.] It must be stressed, though, that this tendency had much to do with the fact that information on events in Poland was limited. The fundamental disagreement about the significance of martial law and the role of the Soviet Union was reflected in the literature on the Polish crisis both before and after the opening of archives in Poland, the Soviet Union and East Germany. Some have argued that the decision to impose martial law had been taken by Moscow, and that Jaruzelski was merely a Soviet puppet. Hence, Thomas Cynkin, assuming perfect rationality in the Soviet approach to Poland, argues: The final phase of the Polish crisis of 1980/81 saw the fruition of Moscow’s strategy: the reaffirmation, beyond any doubt, of Soviet domination of the state of Poland. Pressure by Moscow . . . galvanised the PUWP leadership and led to the ascendance of General Wojiech Jaruzelski, the man chosen to serve as the Pétain of Poland.7 Jaruzelski’s own account of events is carefully balanced between emphasising the independence of the Polish government in preparing and deciding on martial law, and stressing the threats that emerged from the Soviet Union. He argues that the plans for martial law were made by Poland itself, and not by the Soviet Union.8 He also states that continuing reform was impossible in Poland because by December 1981 Solidarity had gone too far. After hearing news of a planned mass demonstration by Solidarity supporters on 17 December, he had feared a situation similar to that which had occurred in Budapest in 1956, that Poland would find itself on the brink of anarchy, with Solidarity members barricading the streets and seeking to overthrow the party. At the same time he confirms the crucial part played by the Soviet Union. He consistently presents himself as a Polish patriot, under constant pressure from the Soviet authorities and imposing martial law in order to save Poland from Soviet military intervention. He points out that the final decision to impose martial law came after a straight ultimatum from the Soviet Union. He declares his scepticism about research based on recently released documents by emphasising the importance of the particular context of the Cold War: ‘I do not deny the necessity and importance of this research. But to make the picture objective, one needs to look also at evident facts, phenomena, and symptoms from the time in question.’9

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 67

After Martial Law 67

Jaruzelski’s assertions have been contradicted by documents translated and analysed by Kramer amongst others. Kramer suggests that rather than imposing martial law in order to keep the Soviet Union out of Poland, Jaruzelski expected the Soviets to support him if martial law failed.10 Also based on new documentary evidence, Mastny considers that Jaruzelski’s decision was his own, not the result of an ultimatum by the Soviet Union, and that if martial law had not been imposed, a Solidarity government would probably have been installed in Poland.11 The independence of the Polish regime in imposing martial law has also been underlined by Kevin Ruane.12 Taking a different perspective, Garton Ash argues that the Polish authorities at no point intended to reach a compromise with the workers; on the contrary they stalled the reforms, thus ultimately provoking a crisis in Poland. Furthermore he asserts that Solidarity’s demands would have been reasonable and realistic if the Polish authorities had been willing to cooperate.13 As noted in Chapter 3, we now know that plans had been made for a Warsaw Pact military intervention in Poland if martial law failed. What remains unclear is under what circumstances a Soviet intervention would have taken place. On this basis, to exclude the Soviet Union from responsibility for and involvement in martial law seems unrealistic. Furthermore, new information on the planning of the exercise lends credence to the idea that the Polish government did not really intend to reach a compromise with the workers, and that the negotiations after August 1980 were mostly about stalling the protesters. Ultimately, however, the released documents have not made it possible to make a final judgement on the role of Jaruzelski and the process that led to the imposition of martial law. The first official Western reactions confirm the discomfort of Western governments and the idea that reassessing their policies was difficult both for them and for the alliance as a whole. Characteristic are the contradictory statements by French government ministers after the imposition of martial law. French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson, when asked what France intended do about martial law, said ‘Of course we will do nothing.’14 A few days later, on 16 December, President Mitterrand declared that irrespective of whether the Poles’ loss of freedom was the result of internal oppression or external pressure, it should be ‘clearly, vigorously and constantly denounced’.15 Mitterrand’s statement came after strong pressure by his own party and the noncommunist trade unions, who had found Cheysson’s initial reaction to martial law inadequate.16 Overall, the West Europeans avoided a hard-line position. Speaking

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 68

68 The Crisis

to the European Parliament in his capacity as President of the Council of Ministers, British Foreign Secretary Carrington condemned the imposition of martial law, but indicated that the West was unsure about what was actually happening in Poland: We are familiar with natural disasters, but here in the heart of our continent is a manmade disaster on a colossal scale. Although news is censored, communications cut and diplomatic facilities suspended, we read of arrest, detention and evictions. There has almost certainly been some loss of life. There is an ominous silence about the fate of Lech Walesa.17 Margaret Thatcher also initially avoided a hard-line position. The British government’s statement to the House of Commons on the issue stressed that the immediate priority of the British government was to ensure food supplies for the Polish people.18 As for West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, he was in East Germany when martial law was imposed. Not wanting to jeopardise his visit and the positive effect it was expected to have on intra-German relations, he declared that West Germany was ‘holding strictly to the basic principles of not interfering’.19 At the end of the first week of martial law, when news emerged of widespread repression in Poland, the West German government clarified its position but still insisted that martial law was an internal Polish affair.20 In other words, it appeared to accept the Polish argument that martial law was a temporary measure. It also stressed that it was a lesser evil than Soviet military intervention and that the Western response should take this into consideration.21 The US Secretary of State who by coincidence was in Brussels on 13 December, attended a NATO meeting on 15 December, at which the developments in Poland were discussed.22 Likewise, the EC foreign ministers were able to discuss Poland at a scheduled meeting in London on 15 December.23 However, a meeting designed explicitly to discuss Poland was called by neither NATO nor the EC until after Christmas. Ostensibly the reason for the West’s discretion was that Western governments did not wish to dramatise the situation.24 In all likelihood, and as later events confirmed, the Western governments preferred to define their national objectives before engaging in policy coordination with the allied countries. Apart from the American decision on 15 December to suspend further government food assistance to Poland until the situation was properly assessed, private shipments of food were allowed to continue.25 The EC and individual West European states also continued their shipments of food.

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 69

After Martial Law 69

Towards the end of December, the US Undersecretary of State for European affairs, Lawrence Eagleburger, went on a mission to European capitals to discuss how to respond to martial law. His visit took him first to Rome, then Bonn, Brussels, London and Paris.26 He took with him a list of proposed sanctions against Poland and the Soviet Union, including suspending economic and financial aid to Poland, imposing strict conditions for the provision of food, suspending the negotiations on Poland’s membership of the IMF, freezing trade relations, cutting exports to Poland and reducing diplomatic relations.27 Full trade sanctions against the Soviet Union and suspension of the negotiations on the reduction of intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe were also discussed.28 However, from the perspective of cohesion the outcome of these discussions was far from satisfactory.29 The imposition of martial law in Poland took the Western alliance by surprise, not so much because it was totally unexpected, but more because the alliance states had not managed to agree on how to respond if such an event took place. There was an urgent need to reassess the individual national positions on Poland and the overall Western stand.30 Yet, in the immediate aftermath of the announcement of martial law, the Western states sent confusing and contradictory signals about their position, due partly to their uncertainty about the significance of martial law, but mostly to the fact that it played no part in the alliance’s existing strategy.

A crisis in the alliance By the second week of martial law, the divergence between the Western governments on the interpretation of events in Poland and their preferred policy responses was becoming clear. The United States called for a strong reaction but West Germany preferred the opposite. Britain’s position was closer to that of the United States, while France’s lay in between those of Britain and West Germany. Although there were attempts at reconciliation amongst the allies when the United States sought to rally support for sanctions,31 an internal crisis was rapidly approaching. The United States was first to define its position on martial law and to outline a policy response. On 23 December, while Eagleburger was still in Europe, Reagan announced without consulting with the West Europeans that the United States was imposing sanctions against Poland.32 These included the suspension of export credit insurance by the US Export–Import Bank, a prohibition on Polish planes landing

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 70

70 The Crisis

in the United States, the suspension of fishing allocations for Polish fishermen in US waters, the introduction of a ‘no exceptions’ policy restricting export licenses for high technology goods to Poland, and a request to the US allies to restrict their sale of high technology goods to Poland. Sanctions against the Soviet Union were not mentioned at that point, although the responsibility for martial law was not attributed to Poland alone.33 However, on 29 December Reagan announced that sanctions would also be imposed against the Soviet Union. He stated: The Soviet Union bears a heavy and direct responsibility for the repression in Poland. For many months the Soviets publicly and privately demanded such a crackdown. They brought major pressures to bear through now public letters to the Polish leadership, military manoeuvres and other forms of intimidation. They now openly endorse the suppression which has ensued.34 These sanctions included the following: • The suspension of US landing rights for the Soviet airline Aeroflot • Closure of the Soviet Purchasing Commission (a New York offshoot of the Soviet Foreign Trade Ministry, which arranged purchases of non-agricultural goods in the United States) • Suspension of the issue or renewal of licences for the exportation of electronic equipment, computers and other high technology goods to the Soviet Union. This also included the suspension of export licences for US equipment used in the construction of a pipeline that would carry Soviet natural gas to Western Europe. • Postponement of the negotiations on a long-term grain agreement. These negotiations had been expected to start in mid February, although no specific date had been announced. • Suspension of the negotiations on a new US–Soviet maritime agreement. A new regime of port access controls was to be put into effect for all Soviet ships when the current agreement expired the next day. • Non-renewal of US–Soviet exchange agreements expiring in the near future, including agreements on energy and science and technology • Suspension of the issuing of licences for an expanded list of oil and gas equipment, including pipelayers, for use in the Soviet Union.35 The West European governments’ positions took a different direction from that of the United States. By the time Eagleburger returned from

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 71

After Martial Law 71

Europe, the differences between the United States and its European allies on the part played by the Soviet Union and on policy responses were no longer a secret. In particular, there was little if any support in Western Europe for sanctions against the Soviet Union. Eagleburger had only succeeded in achieving European support in three limited areas: • Halting Western government export credits to Poland • Halting the negotiations on the rescheduling of Poland’s official debt (a planned meeting of Poland’s Western creditors on 14–15 January would go ahead in order to assess the general situation, but not to discuss debt rescheduling for 1982) • The provision of humanitarian or food aid would only continue if this could be monitored to ensure that shipments were not taken by the army or used as a political tool by the Polish government36 The strongest opposition to the American initiatives came from the West German government, which was against any form of sanctions against the Soviet Union. At that point, the West German government was also reluctant to attribute any responsibility for martial law to the Soviet Union, and continued to view it as an independent Polish decision.37 The extent to which West Germany and the United States diverged on the situation in Poland and how to deal with it was illustrated by a visit from the Polish deputy prime minister, Mieczyslaw Rakowski, to West Germany. The West German government had, in a letter to Jaruzelski, asked that his government give a clear signal that the reform process would continue despite martial law. Rakowski was expected to confirm this during his visit,38 which took place at the time when the United States announced its sanctions against the Soviet Union.39 The other West Europeans were also upset by the US sanctions and aggrieved that they had been inadequately forewarned about Reagan’s announcement.40 The French government’s position was outlined to the French National Assembly by Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy on 23 December 1981. Mauroy reiterated France’s commitment to the continuation of food aid to Poland and called for a cautious approach to be taken. On the United States position he said that: ‘il est facile de brandir des sabres de bois quand on n’est pas soi-même exposé’41 [. . . ‘it is easy to advance factitious threats when one does not risk paying for the consequences . . .’]. Interestingly, he claimed that the United States did not intend to take any action beyond the suppression of food aid to Poland, thus confirming the lack of consultation about the US decision to impose sanctions.

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 72

72 The Crisis

When the EC foreign ministers met on 4 January to discuss how to respond to martial law, it was decided not to comply with the US demand for sanctions against the Soviet Union. They merely took note of the US decision and agreed not to take any action to hinder the US sanctions. France and Britain were still closer to the United States in their interpretation of events in Poland and in their choice of rhetoric than was West Germany.42 Neither the French nor the British governments disputed that the Soviet Union had crucially influenced the imposition of martial law. Hence, in the declaration issued after the meeting, the military crackdown in Poland was strongly condemned and the Polish government was called upon to lift martial law, free all those arrested and resume the dialogue with Solidarity. In addition to strong criticism of the Jaruzelski regime, the Ten also attributed a share of the responsibility to the Soviet Union: La signification de ces événements dramatiques dépasse le cadre de la seule Pologne. L’incapacité des systèmes totalitaires, tels ceux de l’Europe de l’Est, à accepter les adaptations nécessaires pour faire face aux aspirations les plus légitimes de la population est de nature à mettre en cause la confiance des opinions publiques dans la possibilité des rapports de coopération avec les pays de l’Est et à porter par là une grave atteinte aux relations internationales. A ce sujet les Dix notent avec préoccupation et réprobation les graves pressions extérieures et la campagne menée par l’URSS et d’autres pays de l’Est contre l’effort de renouveau en Pologne.43 [The significance of these events goes beyond the particular case of Poland. The inability of totalitarian systems, such as the East Europeans, to accept the adaptations necessary to respond to the legitimate demands of their people may jeopardise public opinion’s confidence in the possibility of cooperation with Eastern Europe and thus seriously affect international relations. In this respect, the Ten note with concern and criticism the serious external pressure and the campaign that the Soviet Union and other Eastern countries have conducted against the effort of renewal in Poland.] The EC member states agreed to suspend their economic and financial aid to Poland and to discontinue the sale of EC food at reduced prices for as long as their political demands were not respected by the Polish government. They also agreed to suggest to the OECD that it move the Soviet Union from category II of relatively rich states to category I, thus

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 73

After Martial Law 73

raising the interest rates on export credits to the country. Finally, the foreign ministers decided to raise the issue of martial law at the reopening of the CSCE conference in Madrid on 9 February as well as in the United Nations.44 It is clear, then, that as well as Euro-American differences there were divergences between the West Europeans. The United States’ decision to impose sanctions had put the West Europeans in an embarrassing position, not only because they disagreed with this course of action but also because they had not yet clarified their own national positions. Two weeks later, on 4 January 1982, the European foreign ministers met, specifically to discuss Poland. Britain had tried to arrange an earlier meeting, but France had blocked this initiative.45 During the meeting a proposal to send the Belgian foreign minister, Leo Tindemans (who had taken over the presidency of the Council of Ministers), to Warsaw and Moscow to express the EC’s condemnation of the situation in Poland was rejected. The proposal was backed by Britain and Germany, but rejected by France and Greece. France’s Foreign Minister Cheysson argued that it should be up to each state to take the initiatives and make the contacts that it considered appropriate, and that the political integration of the EC members had not yet reached the stage where one representative could speak for all ten. This demonstrates the limits of France’s willingness to subordinate its foreign policy to that of the rest of the EC, rather than there being a disagreement on the substance of sanctions and the role of the Soviet Union.46 France was also at odds with the other EC members in arguing in favour of continuing the provision of food to Poland through the EC framework.47 Despite the fact that the EPC statement criticised the role of the Soviet Union, West Germany remained reluctant to consider martial law as irreversible or to condemn the Soviet Union. It wanted to give Poland more time to honour its assurance that the reforms would continue and that trade union rights would be re-established. This position led to difficulties for the otherwise traditionally strong Franco-German axis. Both France and West Germany were subject to strong domestic pressures that took them in opposite directions. The imposition of martial law in Poland had provoked a public outcry in France, and Mitterrand’s strong condemnation was, in part, a result of this. West German policy was also heavily criticised in the French press, thus putting a further strain on Franco-German relations. In West Germany, on the other hand, the public had reacted less strongly to martial law. Several attempts were made to narrow the gap between the positions of the Europeans themselves and between the Europeans and the

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 74

74 The Crisis

Americans. However, these attempts were not altogether convincing. The day after the meeting of the European foreign ministers in Brussels, the West German chancellor had a highly publicised meeting with President Reagan in Washington. Despite the US administration’s claim that the meeting was successful, Reagan did not manage to persuade Schmidt to change his analysis of the situation in Poland.48 On the contrary, the United States began to realise that convincing the West Europeans to follow its lead, particularly on the question of sanctions, would be difficult and that it might have to settle for less than it had hoped for.49 By the end of the meeting, Schmidt had moved slightly closer to accepting that the Soviet Union bore a share of the blame for martial law. However, he remained firmly opposed to economic sanctions against Moscow. In another attempt at reconciliation, an emergency meeting of NATO’s foreign ministers was called on 11 January 1982 to discuss the response to Poland. The communiqué issued after the meeting was a carefully drafted document in which each alternate paragraph deliberately referred respectively to Poland’s and the Soviet Union’s responsibility for martial law.50 On the question of sanctions, there was an ‘agreement to disagree’. No commitment was made by the West Europeans to impose sanctions against the Soviet Union, and in the case of Poland they only agreed to freeze further credit and to halt negotiations on debt rescheduling. These were the same measures for which Eagleburger had achieved European support during his visit in December. Beyond this, each member state, in accordance with its own situation, would consider which measures it deemed appropriate to take: 11. Each ally will, in accordance with its own situation and legislation, identify appropriate national possibilities for action in the following fields: (a) further restrictions on the movements of Soviet and Polish diplomats, and other restrictions on Soviet and Polish diplomatic missions and organisations; (b) reduction of scientific and technical activities or nonrenewal of exchange agreements . . . 14. In the current situation in Poland, economic relations with Poland and the Soviet Union are bound to be affected. Soviet actions towards Poland make it necessary for the Allies to examine the course of future economic and commercial relations

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 75

After Martial Law 75

with the Soviet Union. Recognising that each of the Allies will act in accordance with its own situation and laws, they will examine measures which could involve arrangement regarding imports from the Soviet Union, maritime agreements, air services agreements, the size of Soviet commercial representation and the conditions surrounding export credits.51 The 11 January meeting led to follow-up discussions on 23 January and 3 February in NATO’s North Atlantic Council, during which parallel steps the allies could take against Poland and the Soviet Union were considered. Continuing the effort to resolve alliance differences and present a common front to the outside world, a visit by Schmidt to France on 13 January was added to an already busy Franco-German schedule.52 The meeting was arranged at the initiative of the West German government and was a signal of its great concern about the effect the Polish crisis was having on Franco-German relations.53 However, after the meeting doubts still existed, particularly in France, about the extent to which the two countries’ positions had actually drawn closer, despite efforts on both sides to deny any disagreement. After the NATO summit on 11 January, limited sanctions were imposed by the West Europeans against Poland and the Soviet Union. These, however, served mostly to underline the persistence of disagreements among the allies. On 1 February, the West German government banned the Polish state airline, LOT, from landing in West Germany. It also tightened restrictions on the movement of Soviet and Polish diplomats.54 The British government restricted Polish officials to within 25 miles of their consulates in London and Glasgow and increased the number of BBC Polish language broadcasts. Restrictions were also placed on the movement of Soviet diplomats in Britain, and these was a reduction in Anglo-Soviet technical cooperation and the licensing of Soviet factory ships that bought fish caught in British waters.55 As for the EC, in late February it decided to impose restrictions on Soviet imports to signal its criticism of Soviet involvement in the crackdown in Poland.56 The EC underlined that this was to be considered a symbolic measure rather than one that was expected to have a large economic impact.57 The measure was not voted on in the Council until 23 March because of the Danish government’s objection to the Council taking what it considered to be a foreign policy decision. Such a decision should be made by ministers meeting as a conference in EPC. The most important sanctions, and the ones most likely to have an impact on Poland, were suspension of the negotiations on Poland’s

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 76

76 The Crisis

official debt and the freezing of officially guaranteed credit to Poland, as well as the refusal of further credit. These measures were confirmed at a meeting of Poland’s official creditors in Paris on 14 January.58 The sale of cut-price EC food to the Polish government was also ended and the negotiations on Poland’s membership of the IMF were suspended. Finally, a ban was put on all high-level political contacts with Poland. As discussed above, the United States and Western Europe were on a collision course in respect of how to respond to martial law, and particularly on the issue of sanctions; and there was divergence amongst the West Europeans, with West Germany’s preference for defining the Polish crackdown as a domestic Polish matter fuelling the ‘fear in France of German political drift’.59 The NATO emergency meeting on 11 January had confirmed the seriousness with which the Western allies viewed the imposition of martial law and the tension it provoked in the alliance. It has been argued that failure to call such a meeting after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was one of the reasons for the crisis in the alliance.60 For a while, it looked as though the Western allies had succeeded, through the January meeting, in patching up their differences, but the compromise hammered out at the summit provided only a temporary respite.

A worsening of the Western crisis Throughout the spring and into the summer of 1982 a ‘dialogue des sourds’ (muffled dialogue) developed between Western Europe and the United States. The latter continued to press for further sanctions and several US missions were sent to Europe to persuade the Europeans to follow the American line. However, the West Europeans remained sceptical of the utility of further restrictive measures. The crisis came to a head at the G7 summit in Versailles in June 1982, by which time the question of how to deal with the Polish crisis had become intermingled with, and in the end was superseded by, other Western disputes. Poland, the original subject of Western disagreement, was almost ignored. In its attempt to persuade the West Europeans to increase their pressure on the Soviet Union and Poland, the United States focused on two areas in particular: the question of Poland’s debt and the possibility of introducing sanctions on credit relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; and the question of sanctions on the Siberian gas pipeline. Poland, as noted in Chapter 3, had signed an agreement with Western governments in April 1981 to reschedule its official debt for the rest of that year (approximately $2.3 billion).61 Negotiations on the rescheduling of the 1982 public debt had started in November 1981,

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 77

After Martial Law 77

but had been suspended as a result of the decision taken at the NATO summit on 11 January. In the meantime, Poland had not been making the payments required by the 1981 agreement, which in practice meant it was in default, although this had not been officially declared. Then, to the great concern of the West European governments, it became known that US Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was trying to convince Reagan to declare Poland officially in default. Furthermore, he also wanted to disrupt Western credit relations with the Soviet Union and the other East European countries.62 The Europeans considered that a Polish default would have disastrous consequences for the Western banking system and for East–West trade in general. Furthermore, as Chapter 3 showed, the West Europeans had a much greater share of trade with Eastern Europe than did the United States, and they believed they would pay a much higher price for the interruption of East–West trade that would follow the disruption of credit relations.63 Even Britain, which was traditionally close to the United States, sided with the mainland Europeans on this question. Haig refers to a discussion he had with Margaret Thatcher on this subject: she [Thatcher] told me at once that she was uncertain of American intentions with regard to the sanctions and worried over rumours of even stronger action to come. The Prime Minister had heard alarming reports that some in the United States wanted to put Poland in default with consequences for the Germans and the rest of the Western banking system that could not be calculated. The cost . . . would be far greater to the West than to the Soviet Union.64 The second area in which the United States wanted to strengthen sanctions involved the Siberian gas pipeline agreement.65 Negotiations on the pipeline had started in 1980 and contracts had been signed in 1981 and 1982 – in other words, in the middle of the Polish crisis. For example, France, much to the United States’ dismay, had signed its contract on 22 January 1982.66 Adding insult to injury, when criticised for signing the agreement the French prime minister, Pierre Mauroy, replied: ‘Il ne servirait à rien d’ajouter au drame polonais le drame supplémentaire pour les Français de ne pas être approvisionnés en gaz.67 [‘It would not do any good to add to the Polish drama an additional drama for the French who would not be provided with gas.’] As a result of the pipeline agreement, Soviet natural gas exports would increase from 27 billion cubic metres to 60 billion cubic metres by the late 1980s.68 The agreement was extremely important to the West

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 78

78 The Crisis

Europeans as it would add diversity to their energy supply and reduce their dependence on OPEC. It also offered the prospect of job creation, and West European companies were expected to earn from $7–10 billion from the sale of equipment.69 From the start of the negotiations on the agreement, the United States had been highly critical of the project, arguing that relying on the Soviet Union for such a vital resource as energy would create a situation of dependency that might ultimately threaten Western Europe’s independence and security. The agreement was seen by some in the United States as confirmation of their suspicion that the West Europeans were becoming soft on the Russians.70 The imposition of martial law provided the United States with an opportunity to reopen the debate with its allies on the pipeline agreement. It has already been noted that the sanctions package against the Soviet Union announced on 29 December included export controls on equipment used in the transmission of oil and gas, as well as refining equipment and technology. In other words, equipment and technology destined for the pipeline project. At first, this decision appeared largely symbolic because the American firms affected by the embargo had only a minor share in the pipeline. The main suppliers were West German, French, British and Italian companies, and the US measures did not apply to these firms. However, doubts were raised relatively quickly about the scope of the sanctions. Firstly, it was unclear whether they were retroactive – in other words, whether they would apply to contracts already signed, or only to new contracts. According to Haig, Reagan did not intend them to be retroactive, but when implementing the sanctions the Commerce Department interpreted them as being so, thus aggravating their effect on the pipeline project.71 Secondly, it soon emerged that some members of the Reagan administration were seeking to convince the President that the sanctions should also cover sales by American-owned or American-controlled companies in Western Europe, as well as sales by independent European companies using American parts or technologies.72 If this idea were put into practice, it would jeopardise the whole pipeline project. By spring, it had become clear that the US administration had abandoned the idea of declaring Poland in default, despite the fact that some members of the administration continued to argue that it was still on the agenda.73 On two occasions, the US government reimbursed American banks for Polish overdue loans that had a federal guarantee, rather than declare Poland in default. The first time, in early February, the government paid $71 million, and the second time, in the second half of April, $138 million.74 However, uncertainty continued to linger

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 79

After Martial Law 79

over the pipeline sanctions and over the broader question of credit to the Warsaw Pact countries. On 17 March, the Undersecretary of State for security assistance, science and technology, James Buckley, headed a mission to Europe. The purpose of this mission was to seize the opportunity provided by martial law to raise broader issues of East–West trade with the North European allies.75 The principal topic was export credit and credit guarantees to the Soviet Union.76 It was proposed that the allies agree to restrict the supply of officially supported credit to the Soviet Union and to establish a mechanism to monitor the flow of official credit and credit guarantees. A temporary halt in credit extensions and guarantees was also suggested. This proposal would entail a substantial change to the existing practices of export credit. While the gas pipeline was not the main subject of the mission, this issue was also raised during the discussions with all the European governments visited. The mission failed to convince the West Europeans to reduce or eliminate credit and credit guarantees for East–West trade. As for the pipeline sanctions, ‘The Europeans reacted with all the bewilderment and vexation that such an invasion of their sovereignty might have been expected to produce.’77 While Britain was in favour of taking a strong line against Moscow, it sided with the other West Europeans on both issues. In Carrington’s view: I am personally not in favour of taking more measures against the Soviet Union with the aim of bringing about a Soviet change of heart. For one thing one must keep things in reserve in case the situation worsens, and for another, I do not believe this is the right moment for further countermeasures.78 Nonetheless, in a summary of the mission’s activities the US authorities sounded an optimistic note: In sum our initiative is launched. The obstacles ahead are both substantial and substantive. However, there is a growing perception in Europe of the strategic danger and financial risk of the continued flow of credits and credit guarantees to the Soviet Union.79 Another US mission, this time headed by George Shultz, was sent to Europe in May, but had no more success than its predecessor.80 All in all, the West Europeans were critical of what they saw as the slightly hypocritical attitude of the United States. They argued that they would

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 80

80 The Crisis

pay a high price for introducing the sanctions proposed by the United States while the latter would lose very little. As noted above, Western Europe’s stakes in East–West trade were much higher than those of the United States; for example, the former’s trade with the Soviet Union amounted to $41 billion in 1982, whereas US trade only amounted to $2.5 billion.81 Furthermore, much of Western Europe’s export competitiveness relied heavily on the subsidised credit that the Reagan administration wanted to be abolished.82 The United States, on the other hand, had not had any concessionary credit system for US–Soviet trade for eight years. Finally, the Europeans argued that one of the few measures that was likely to hurt the Soviet Union was a US grain embargo.83 However, this was unlikely to happen as it would be financially damaging for American farmers. Hence, the West Europeans argued, the United States was expecting Western Europe to bear the costs of US policy.84 As stated at the start of this section, the crisis in the alliance came to a head at the G7 summit in Versailles on 4–6 June. At the summit an attempt was made to reach a compromise between the US demand for restrictions on East–West trade credit and the West European concern about the collective management of exchange rates. The French in particular, but also the other Europeans, were concerned about the high interest rates and strong dollar that were prevailing at the time, and they wanted the United States to intervene in order to stabilise the international monetary system. The US pipeline sanctions were not explicitly mentioned, but it was implicitly understood that they would be abandoned if an agreement were reached on the other issues. A suitable compromise appeared to be reached, but this fell apart at the last minute. Angry about what he saw as Europe’s reneging on an agreement, President Reagan announced that on 18 June the US sanctions on pipeline equipment would be extended to American-owned and American-controlled companies in Western Europe and to American licences. This announcement provoked a storm of protest in Europe: The German government expressed ‘dismay’ at what it termed ‘a contradiction to what was agreed and discussed at the world economic summit’. Mitterrand said, ‘We wonder what concept the United States has of summit meetings when it becomes a matter of agreements made and not respected.’ Privately, he reportedly told one visitor that after long efforts to establish rapport with Reagan, he had concluded that there was not a single issue on which he could trust the American president. . . . Thatcher . . . told the Commons that ‘it

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 81

After Martial Law 81

is wrong [for] one very powerful nation to try to prevent the fulfilment of existing contracts’.85 The West Europeans declared the US move illegal and instructed the companies in question to ignore the ban.86 The contracted deliveries to the Soviet Union were made despite the United States penalising European firms by forbidding American products or technology to be exported to them in the future. In his statement about the pipeline sanctions, Reagan maintained that they had been introduced in order to ‘advance reconciliation in Poland’.87 However, by that time the issue of martial law in Poland had in reality been marginalised. Martial law had essentially been a useful pretext for the United States to reopen the pipeline issue, and to justify its call for restrictions on East–West trade. As Philip Hanson argues: The relationship of this episode [the discussion on the pipeline] to martial law in Poland, however, was slight. The Polish events served as an occasion for pursuing policies which the US administration favoured on . . . grounds that had nothing to do with the state of affairs in Poland.88 The compromise reached in Versailles fell through partly because of profound disagreement amongst the allies on the issues at hand, and partly because of lack of communication between the political leaders at the summit. Furthermore, as Putnam and Bayne have pointed out, the sort of package deal attempted in Versailles usually works best if the two sides are not equally interested in both subjects. This was not the case in Versailles, where all sides placed considerable importance on both monetary policy and East–West trade policy.89 Finally, there was an important domestic dimension to the US position on the pipeline. In fact, the West Europeans had become party to an internal struggle for control over US foreign policy, which ended with the resignation of Secretary of State Haig a few days after Reagan announced the pipeline sanctions. The ‘Atlanticists’, led by Haig, although critical of the pipeline agreement, had stressed the importance of maintaining good relations with Western Europe. The compromise worked out in Versailles was a product of the Atlanticists.90 Clearly, then, Poland’s domestic crisis had a substantial spillover effect on West–West relations. A policy debate that had started because of the West’s disapproval of events in the Soviet bloc led to a crisis not for the Soviet bloc, or even for East–West relations, but for the West itself.

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 82

82 The Crisis

The irony was that Poland turned out to be the trigger of events rather than the cause of those events, thus strengthening the argument that Poland had not been the reason for the sanctions in the first place. The United States eventually abandoned its extraterritorial sanctions and rescinded its punitive countersanctions in November 1982, five months after they had been imposed. In the meantime, Western diplomats had worked at finding a way for the United States to lift the sanctions without losing face. In the end, an agreement had been reached to conduct a joint study to review East–West trade relations, in return for which the United States had promised to lift the pipeline sanctions. The West Europeans, however, had made no concrete commitment to change their policy on East–West trade.91 The lifting of the sanctions happened to coincide with the death of Leonid Brezhnev and the nomination of Yuri Andropov as his successor. Although this probably had nothing to do with the lifting of the sanctions, it certainly presented the US President with a convenient opportunity to start new relations with the Soviet Union. By the end of 1982, calm had returned to the alliance, if only on the surface.

Muddling together At the end of 1982, the political situation in Poland remained virtually unchanged. The likelihood of the Polish government consenting to the West’s demands to lift martial law, release all political prisoners and reopen negotiations with the Church and Solidarity was rapidly fading. Hence, a debate developed on the continued utility of sanctions, and also on the initial rationale for imposing them.92 It became clear that the West Europeans thought that the sanctions had outlived their purpose and favoured an early lifting.93 The United States, on the other hand, wished to continue the sanctions. Partly in acceptance that not much could be done without the United States, and partly in recognition that other issues were more important, the West Europeans accepted the continued freeze on relations with Poland and maintained a policy of inaction for longer than they actually wanted. On 21 July 1982, the Polish government announced that a number of steps would be taken to ease martial law. Two thirds of the internees would be freed, and General Jaruzelski hinted that martial law might be lifted by the end of the year. This news was not greeted with great enthusiasm in the West, which still considered that the demands put forward in January 1982 had to be fulfilled.94 According to NATO, the steps in Poland ‘fall short of fulfilling the declared intentions of the Polish

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 83

After Martial Law 83

leadership and the three criteria set out by the alliance on January 11, 1982’.95 In response to the dissolution of Solidarity by the Sejm (the Polish parliament) in October 1982, President Reagan imposed a further sanction by removing Poland’s Most Favoured Nation status. (In 1960 Poland had been the first communist country to be awarded Most Favoured Nation status, followed much later by Rumania in 1975 and Hungary in 1979.) The US decision affected manufactured products, which represented approximately two thirds of Poland’s exports to the United States. Polish textiles, for instance, would be subject to tariff increases of 35–50 per cent. Some argued, however, that in the short term the measure would not have a very strong impact because trade between the two countries had already been heavily reduced as a result of the restrictions on credit to Poland.96 Reagan also indicated that further sanctions were a possibility and would be discussed between the Western allies.97 Even though the French and British Foreign Offices also condemned the dissolution of Solidarity, there is no indication that the West Europeans considered tougher sanctions and no further measures were announced.98 In December 1982, martial law was held in suspension but not lifted. The military government retained special powers to deal with any economic or political disruption.99 It was impossible to know what the effect of the latest measures would be or what restrictive measures would be maintained. Hence, the West again adopted a ‘wait and see’ attitude. The US President welcomed the measures and expressed his willingness to restore economic aid to Poland and lift sanctions, but stressed that this would only happen when the West’s conditions were fulfilled.100 The EC also decided in December 1982 to prolong the restrictions on the importation of Soviet goods for another year.101 In July 1983, martial law was finally lifted and a limited amnesty was introduced for political and other offenders. However, most of the measures taken under martial law had been turned into legislation, so the lifting of martial law did not make much difference to conditions in Poland. In November 1983, Jaruzelski was still threatening to put the eleven most prominent Solidarity and KOR prisoners on trial for treason. At the beginning of 1984, about 200 political prisoners were still being held and there was no prospect of restarting talks on independent trade unions.102 Despite the failure of the Polish regime to return to the reform process, it became clear in the first months of 1983 that the West Europeans were beginning to question the continued purpose and

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 84

84 The Crisis

utility of sanctions, and that they wished to normalise relations with Poland.103 Behind closed doors, they tried to bring the United States into line with their way of thinking. Exploratory talks were apparently held on several occasions but without any decision being made. For instance, in May 1983 the new German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, urged Reagan to be more flexible on the question of sanctions against the Soviet Union104 Nonetheless, in June 1983 the United States again declared that it would not lift its sanctions until it was satisfied that its three conditions had been fulfilled.105 At first, the objectives of sanctions had appeared to be clear. According to Philip Hanson: They were intended to demonstrate US displeasure over the crushing of Solidarity, and to create pressure for its reversal: the aims of ending martial law, effecting an amnesty for political prisoners and allowing a resumption of dialogue between government and opposition were specifically stated.106 However, even if the objectives of the sanctions were clearly defined, their effectiveness in achieving these objectives and whether the objectives themselves were realistic, were in doubt.107 In other words, as so often before in Western relations with Poland, there may have been a gap between the stated objectives of the West and the instruments at their disposal to achieve these objectives (or was it just that they were not given sufficiently high priority?) The United States may have overestimated its ability to force the Soviet Union to make disagreeable concessions over Poland when it imposed the sanctions.108 It has also been argued that sanctions are only useful if the target country can be isolated, but in the case of a Warsaw Pact country that was virtually impossible. Finally, bearing in mind that the existence of an independent trade union strongly challenged the Soviet political system, the demand for the re-establishment of Solidarity appeared less and less realistic.109 Western bankers were amongst those who argued that the principal consequence of the sanctions had been to drive Poland still further into the Kremlin’s arms by increasing its economic dependence on the Soviet Union. Most agreed that Western sanctions, particularly the restrictions on credit, were having a damaging effect on the Polish economy,110 and trade between Poland and the West had fallen drastically in the first six months of 1982.111 In a sense, this was also the argument of the Polish government, which was accusing the West of destroying any hope of economic recovery in Poland.

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 85

After Martial Law 85

Finally, there was a feeling, particularly in Western Europe, that politically the West was playing itself out of the Polish game; that by refusing any form of dialogue with the Polish government the West was losing all leverage in Poland. In this context, it was also argued that some of the sanctions, such as the refusal to reschedule, were hurting the West more than Poland because for two years the latter had effectively got away with paying nothing off its debt.112 Before martial law, Western banks had been reluctant to make any rescheduling deals with Poland without their governments taking the lead. However, with the continued blocking of the discussions on the public debt, an agreement to reschedule the private debt for 1982 was reached in early November 1982.113 By March 1983, the private banks were ready for a third round of debt rescheduling discussions.114 Thus, Poland paid nothing off its official debt from the imposition of martial law and all the country’s foreign currency went into the pockets of private banks rather than to Western governments.115 The Vatican, which had also condemned the imposition of martial law and supported the sanctions, also revised its position in 1983 and came to consider that dialogue was more important than confrontation. It also considered that the economic isolation of Poland was doing more harm than good and would not provoke change in Poland.116 Hence, a visit by the Pope to Poland was scheduled for the summer of 1983. The West Europeans hoped that this would also put pressure on the United States to change its position, but neither the Pope’s visit nor the lifting of martial law was considered sufficient by the United States. The discussions on whether and under what conditions to lift the sanctions coincided with crucial negotiations with the Soviet Union in Geneva on the limitation of intermediate nuclear weapons. These negotiations were a priority for both the United States and Western Europe, and there was concern that any public disagreement between the allies over Poland or any other issue would play into the hands of the Soviet Union. Hence, the West Europeans generally accepted the US position in order to avoid open confrontation, and decisions that threatened to be divisive were postponed.117 In practice, however, after the lifting of martial law the sanctions were gradually lifted, although an overall decision at the alliance level to do so, and how it should be done, was not taken. At a meeting in Paris in September 1983 between representatives of the foreign ministries of Poland’s largest Western creditors,118 a decision was taken in principle to reopen negotiations on the rescheduling of Poland’s official debt. In practice, this amounted to a major erosion of NATO’s sanctions. It was expected that it might also ultimately lead

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 86

86 The Crisis

to the lifting of the freeze on new Western export credit. However, there was still uncertainty about the United States’ position. So far the United States had only let it be known that it was not opposed to reestablishing contact with Warsaw on the debt question.119 As a result, the Paris club marked time for several months, waiting for the United States to make up its mind about whether the negotiations should start.120 On 3 November 1983, the United States at last decided to join in the debt rescheduling talks,121 but there was disagreement over how to proceed. The United States proposed that the debt be renegotiated year by year, starting with the broken agreement of 1982, but the West Europeans considered this to be too long a process. At Christmas, the EC’s sanctions against the Soviet Union, which were due to expire on 31 December, were allowed to lapse. This question was not discussed in the Council of Ministers, and no formal announcement was made on the matter.122 In January 1984, the NATO Council was convened to review the Polish situation. On this occasion Western Europe, led by West Germany, and with the support of Britain, argued that the time had come to normalise relations with Poland. However, this required the support of the United States, which did not change its position until the announcement of a political amnesty in Poland in August 1984 and the consequent release of 652 political prisoners. Subsequently the ban on scientific exchanges between Poland and the United States was lifted, as was the ban on scheduled flights to the United States by the Polish airline LOT. (However, new agreements had to be negotiated in these two areas and in October talks had only just started on the question of scientific exchanges.) In addition, the diplomatic quarantine imposed on Poland after the NATO meeting of 11 January 1982 was removed.123 Nonetheless, the United States was quoted as being not very pleased with the European decision to normalise diplomatic relations with Poland.124 In early December 1983, it became clear that the Solidarity leader, Lech Walesa, also favoured an end to the sanctions.125 Solidarity had backed their imposition after the introduction of martial law, but now argued that the time had come to lift them because they no were longer serving their purpose and could not be expected to achieve much more.126 Walesa reiterated this position in his Nobel Peace Prize speech in Oslo later that month,127 and subsequently the United States decided to lift its veto on Polish membership of the IMF.128 However, the strongest US sanctions – the withholding of Most Favoured Nation status from Poland and the ban on new credit –

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 87

After Martial Law 87

remained in place until 19 February 1987.129 Hence, in practice, the sanctions were lifted little by little, without much coordination or overall strategy, but rather with the aim of causing as little tension in the alliance as possible. One could argue that in this last phase the alliance returned to its customary practice of muddling together.

Conclusion The West’s continuing concern about what was taking place in Poland after the imposition of martial law suggests that Western policies during the crisis were not motivated exclusively by material interests, but were also to do with the protection of democratic principles and human rights. However, martial law also proved to be a divisive force in the West. Although it had not been entirely unexpected, it caught the Western alliance on the hop and neatly divided the increasingly hardline US administration from the West Europeans. Until the imposition of martial law, the Western allies had succeeded in maintaining their cohesion and in coordinating their policies towards Poland. Crucially though, they had failed to agree on how to react in the event of martial law, and once it was imposed the differences between them soon came to the surface and led to one of the most serious crises in the history of the alliance. How should this crisis be understood? Did it mean that some of the allied states were unwilling to pay the price of supporting human rights in Poland? In other words, does it suggest that what emerged was a simple clash of interests that Western institutions could not control? This will be discussed further in the second part of the book. The findings of this chapter confirm that the Western institutional structures were not strong enough to guarantee cohesion. Martial law required a quick reaction and it was no longer possible for the Western states to continue to muddle through by ignoring issues they could not agree on. Furthermore, although the Western institutional structures provided extensive opportunities for consultation, their limited ability to ensure rapid coordinated action was amply illustrated after martial law. EC institutions, however, continued to play an important part in coordinating the policies of its own members. European political cooperation was also important in the sense that it facilitated, and to a certain extent legitimised, individual European states’, particularly West Germany’s, opposition to the United States. However, it is not entirely clear that it did much beyond providing a common umbrella for West European opposition to the United States and bringing the

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 88

88 The Crisis

diverging European positions closer. For example, it did not generate an independent European initiative after martial law so, in this sense, the newly invented crisis consultation mechanisms did not make a great deal of difference to political cooperation in Europe. The fragmentation of the political, economic and security elements of the Western response continued in this phase. There is no better illustration of this than the parallel and uncoordinated US delegations that visited Europe in the spring of 1982, all of which dealt with issues related to the Polish crisis yet failed to bring all its aspects together. As for the G7, which had been depicted as a forum that would enable the discussion of economic, political and strategic issues at the highest level, its inadequacies were amply illustrated at the Versailles summit. The advantages of informality were overshadowed by its inconveniences, in that important participants in the summit were left in ignorance of vital decisions. Its inefficiency was further reinforced by the failure to make advance preparations for the discussions held at the summit. Although the breakdown of cohesion was no doubt facilitated by the absence of established common procedures on Western policies towards Eastern Europe, as well as by poor institutional support for the coordination of issues that fell outside the domain of NATO, institutional weaknesses cannot fully explain the breakdown in coordination. Could the disarray in the Western alliance have been the result of a misperception of what was at stake for the other allies? US policy makers were aware of the West Europeans’ reluctance to impose sanctions, both in December 1981 and after the G7 summit in June 1982, but admitted fairly openly that they wished to pursue sanctions despite European opposition. If there was a misperception, then it was in the form of the United States overestimating its influence in the alliance. The institutional structures had, in this sense, created their own problems of coordination. Interactions within NATO had led to certain expectations on both sides of the Atlantic. As the alliance leader, the United States perhaps expected that, under pressure, the West Europeans would follow its lead. The West Europeans, on the other hand, expected to be consulted about proposed US initiatives, and in their view the United States’ failure to do this was an infringement of the rules of the game in the alliance. Ultimately, however, the breakdown of coordination was the result of diverging national perspectives. With the end of the Cold War, many argued that old disputes would return to Europe,130 including those to do with divergent Western aims in Poland. Following the logic of this perspective, the breakdown of Western coordination after martial law

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 89

After Martial Law 89

was the result of the re-emergence of longer-term disagreements over Poland as détente had loosened the grip of bipolarity. This chapter has pointed out that the issue was more complicated. Firstly, from this perspective the principal dividing line should have been between France and West Germany and not between West Germany and the United States. Thus, it would seem that the considerable changes that had taken place in intra-European relations after the Second World War were important, and that the softening of the Cold War did not necessarily mean a return to pre-Cold War conflicts. Secondly, the emphasis given to coordination prior to the imposition of martial law, as well as at the NATO meeting in 11 January 1982, indicate that continued commitment to NATO and intra-West European coordination ran parallel with increasingly independent national approaches to Eastern Europe. In other words, although the grip of bipolarity had loosened, the grip of the Cold War institutions was still quite firm. This would suggest that institutionalised intergovernmental relations are not entirely unproductive: in the long term they do bind states closer together. They may not prevent disputes occurring, but they do promote interstate interaction rather than single-minded pursuit of individual national interests. This is particularly so in an alliance of democratic states. Finally, the question for the Western allies was not simply one of how to intervene in order to bring about a desired state of affairs. The desired state of affairs was unclear and the Western allies had to agree on certain normative priorities. It would seem that this was what was most difficult for the Western allies after martial law. Against this background, Part II examines the perspectives of the individual alliance actors in order to determine the basis upon which their positions were defined after the imposition of martial law in Poland.

0333_740661_05_cha04.qxd

10/31/2002

10:06 AM

Page 90

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 91

Part II National Responses

The continuing concern of the Western alliance about the developments in Poland suggest that even during the Cold War, international politics could not be reduced to a struggle for self-preservation. However, as outlined in the previous chapter, martial law in Poland was a divisive issue for the Western alliance. The mutual recriminations that followed its imposition suggest that each camp considered the other to be driven purely by selfish motives while claiming the moral high ground for itself. In the next two chapters, the position of the four main Western actors will be examined, starting with the United States. It will be argued that the collapse of Western cohesion was not simply due to conflicting (national) economic and security interests.

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 92

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 93

5 The United States: Human Rights as Power Politics

The official story of US policy towards Poland after the imposition of martial law was that the United States’ initiatives were clear and logical, and that they successfully contributed to the subsequent democratisation of Poland. However, there were several inconsistencies and unanswered questions that call this story into question. According to Arthur Rachwald, whose account of the Reagan administration’s policy towards Poland corresponds closely to Reagan’s own account, the President had two clearly defined objectives in mind when he imposed sanctions against Poland and the Soviet Union. The first was to apply economic pressure on the Soviet bloc as a whole in order to force what was considered to be an already economically fragile Soviet Union to ‘assume full economic responsibility for its satellite’. The second was to put pressure on the Jaruzelski government to move ‘towards moderation and dialogue’.1 In fact, these two objectives were mutually contradictory: if the imposition of martial law was a consequence of Poland’s dependence on the Soviet Union, reinforcing this by forcing the Soviet Union to take financial responsibility for Poland could not be expected to lead to moderation by the Polish government. Rather, it would lead to the continuation or even strengthening of the measures taken after the imposition of martial law. Although the US government may have adhered to the two objectives, this does not mean that this policy was clear and logical according to a means–ends form of rationality. This is also the case when one looks at the effect that the US initiatives had on relations in NATO. It could be argued that the US sanctions, particularly those on the pipeline, were directed against the West Europeans in an attempt to force a change in overall alliance policy, rather than being taken in response to martial law. Certainly, this was 93

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 94

94 National Responses

the West European interpretation. This raises the question of why the United States was willing to risk a serious rift with the West Europeans by imposing sanctions. Did it overestimate its ability to impose its position on the Europeans? Or did the consequences for the alliance not really matter? German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt reports in his memoirs that during a visit to Washington in January 1982, he asked Haig why the United States had not consulted the West Europeans before introducing sanctions. Haig’s reply was that the United States had not thought they would agree to the measures.2 This suggests that good relations with Western Europe at that point had low priority. Finally, even assuming that the objectives were consistent, there is little evidence to suggest that the sanctions were in any way sufficient to compel the Polish government, not to mention the Soviet Union, to modify their policies. Indeed, several authors have questioned the likely efficacy of the Reagan administration’s project of economic warfare.3 How, then, can one make sense of US policy after the imposition of martial law in Poland?

Regenerating American power One general interpretation of US policy during the Second Cold War that might also help us understand its position on martial law in Poland is that it simply wished to regenerate American power, not only in relation to the Soviet Union but also in relation to its Western allies. Michael Smith, for example, considers that US policy in this period was primarily motivated by a wish to strengthen US influence in the world: The essential concomitant of this position [the ‘Reagan doctrine’] was the need to regenerate American power, both through the acquisition of new military muscle and through the unleashing of economic growth in the USA itself. Here, as elsewhere, there was a close link between the domestic and the foreign policy programmes of the administration: economic strength and national morale would provide the sinews for international assertiveness.4 This also seems to be Fred Halliday’s interpretation. He argues that ‘If in the First Cold War the USA used conflict with the USSR to establish an overall hegemony in the capitalist world, the Second Cold War is an attempt to strengthen that hegemony at a time when it has been weakened.’5 A similar view seems to underpin Jerry Hough’s doubts about the

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 95

The United States 95

United States’ commitment to democracy in Poland. He argues that it was unclear ‘to what extent [the United States was] seeking to promote a gradual increase in freedom and autonomy in Poland and to what extent it was simply using Poland as a pawn in its policy towards the Soviet Union’.6 In other words, what mattered according to Hough was not democracy and human rights in Poland but supremacy over the Soviet Union. However, this still leaves the question of why the United States was willing to incur the fury of its West European allies. A rationally calculating actor might have thought twice about doing so, given the potential costs (which were confirmed when the United States later withdrew its sanctions). Likewise, the emphasis on power for its own sake does not quite explain why the US President and his closest advisors were so convinced about the feasibility of the economic warfare programme. Some are convinced that they were simply ill-informed. For example, Gill argues that the attempt by the United States to regenerate its power in the late 1970s and 1980s was based upon a two-fold illusion: that of regaining its nuclear supremacy vis-à-vis the USSR, and that the USA could somehow recreate the capacity to impose military solutions in a world characterised by a massive diffusion of military capacities.7 The main weakness of the idea that the United States wished to increase its power for its own sake is that it neglects the fact that US policy makers seemed convinced that their policy would benefit not only the Americans but also the rest of the world, and that they were doing the right thing. In order properly to understand US policy, this has to be taken into consideration. According to those close to Reagan, the US policy towards Poland under martial law was part of the administration’s overall foreign policy project – the so-called Reagan doctrine.8 It was, in the words of one of Reagan’s political advisors, Edwin Meese, part of ‘a comprehensive Cold War strategy’.9 This strategy was based on a view of US relations with the Soviet Union as a ‘struggle between right and wrong, good and evil’. The Soviet Union was an ‘evil empire’ and ‘the focus of evil in the modern world’.10 Constantine Menges’ The Twilight Struggle11 explains much of the intellectual underpinnings of this policy and leaves little doubt about the administration’s conviction that it was the moral duty of the United States, as representative of the ‘free world’, to counter what was referred to as the Soviet Union’s ‘indirect aggression’. Menges

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 96

96 National Responses

also criticises the West European understanding of communism, arguing that it was distorted by a number of delusions.12 The emphasis on moral duty was consistent: to take but one example, ‘Casey felt deeply that the free world once again had a moral obligation to help those resisting Communist regimes’.13 The battle against communism also had to be fought domestically. The division between ‘us and them’ that in more traditional interpretations of international politics follows the borders of nation states was less clear cut in this strategy. ‘They’ could also be found inside the territory. Hence, US policy makers seemed to establish borders according to actors’ adherence to certain ideas rather than affiliation to a specific territorial state. A similar interpretation is presented by Dallek, who argues that Reagan’s foreign policy strategy was closely connected to his battle against trends that he saw as endangering conservative values in American society: For Ronald Reagan the world outside the United States is little more than an extension of the world within: the struggle to defend freedom and morality abroad is a more intense version of the battle to preserve these virtues at home. In the eyes of Reagan and other conservatives, the communism of the Soviet Union represents the end point, the logical culmination of dangerous currents – big government, atheism, and relaxed moral standards – that they see so powerfully in America.14 The point here is that the policy stand taken on martial law in Poland can be seen as part of a wider moral agenda. Under Reagan, the United States saw itself as actively pursuing the goal of freedom and democracy, regardless of territorial borders. This moral imperative overrode adherence to the principles of national sovereignty and noninterference that usually govern international relations. It also led to covert action in Poland from June 1982 onwards. According to journalist Carl Bernstein, the Reagan administration, in close cooperation with the Vatican, engaged in a clandestine campaign ‘to hasten the dissolution of the communist empire’.15 The main focus of the campaign was Poland, and Bernstein argues that Reagan and the Pope were both convinced that Poland could be plucked from the Soviet orbit if they committed the resources needed to destabilise the Polish government and keep Solidarity alive. The principal architect of the campaign on the American side was the head of the CIA, William Casey. Reagan received daily briefings on the related activities by Casey and

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 97

The United States 97

National Security Advisor William Clark. He was also in personal contact with the Pope. The funds aimed at keeping Solidarity alive came from the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, secret accounts in the Vatican and Western trade unions.16 Intelligence on both military and political issues was shared freely between the Vatican and the United States, and the US administration benefited greatly from information from the Vatican’s well-informed sources. Only a handful of members of the Reagan administration were informed about this cooperation with the Vatican, and most of the activities were handled outside normal State Department channels.17 This cooperation also tells us something about the United States’ views on Western Europe. It not only highlights the differences between US and European policies, it also indicates that cooperation between them was less than intensive. The United States chose to share information on Poland with the Vatican that it did not share with London, Bonn or Paris.18 From this perspective, it is easier to understand why the cost of a conflict with the West Europeans did not dissuade the Reagan administration. Succumbing to the West European position must have been considered illegitimate when weighed against the ultimate priority of confronting the Soviet Union. As they had started to slide down the slippery slope towards neutralism, the West Europeans had to be ‘put right’.19 In contrast, the alliance with the Vatican was clearly considered important and legitimate from a moral viewpoint.

Looking back: a policy free of moral ambiguity The importance of moral principles in US relations with Eastern Europe had also been evident in earlier years. At the end of the First World War, President Woodrow Wilson’s actions were fundamental to the creation of the successor states in Central and Eastern Europe. Wilson’s position was made public in his address to the US Congress on 8 January 1918, when he presented the war aims of the United States as a list of fourteen points. These fourteen points achieved status as a basic charter for freedom among the European peoples.20 However, Wilson’s actions are often seen as the result not of concern for the fate of the Central and East European peoples, but rather of what Northedge calls ‘the messianic ideals of Wilson’.21 In fact, the United States did not appear to have a clear design for Eastern Europe or any coherent idea of what should be done there at the end of the First World War. Furthermore, US foreign policy reflected little knowledge or understanding of the geopolitical realities

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 98

98 National Responses

of Eastern Europe. At the peace conference in Versailles, it proved difficult to reconcile Wilson’s principles of national self-determination with ethnic disputes, or with economic and strategic considerations in Eastern Europe. As a consequence, the successor states to the defeated empires suffered from both internal and external fragilities.22 With the defeat of Wilson in the 1920 presidential election and the subsequent refusal of the United States to enter the League of Nations, the United States was not in a position to facilitate the survival of these states. Its policy at the end of the Second World War was subjected to similar criticisms. According to Coker: In retrospect, the United States cut the unfortunate figure of a country which had severed itself from the outside world in the interwar years and thus had cut itself off from reality. The US was essentially a one-dimensional power which treated Eastern Europe as it had under Wilson, as raw material for its mission.23 Similary Davis writes: A general lack of interest and knowledge about conditions in Eastern Europe pervaded the American public and government. The remoteness and chaos of this region, combined with competing events and issues, led to little sustained interest. The individual questions in dispute in Eastern Europe never seemed terribly important. During the war, the events in Eastern Europe were not considered to be as crucial as from hindsight it might appear that they should have been.24 These authors point to the weakness of a policy that focused exclusively on the abstract validity of norms, and they emphasise the importance of contextual knowledge such as historical circumstances, geopolitical characteristics and the realities of power or particular interests in finding the most appropriate solution to policy dilemmas in situations where normative priorities collide. If these authors are right in their analysis of US policies, it is possible that a distinguishing feature of the US approach to Eastern Europe, compared with that of the West Europeans, was the priority given to moral imperatives – the desire to avoid the moral ambiguity that almost inevitably arises when one moves from abstract principles to practical policy. In concrete situations there will be collisions of basic principles, as more than one justified norm may be called upon. Choosing the correct norm requires careful

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 99

The United States 99

interpretation of the situation, with consideration of particular interests and political contexts.25 This desire to avoid moral ambiguity seems to have been echoed in the Reagan administration’s position after the imposition of martial law in Poland. The United States’ commitment to democracy and human rights continued after the Second World War, although it did not consistently follow the logic of moral justification. In fact, a tension between moral imperatives and what were seen as feasible policy objectives was evident in US policy of the time. The basic guidelines for US policy towards Eastern Europe during the Cold War were set out in 1949 in a National Security Council (NSC) document.26 The objective was to discuss ‘means . . . to cause the elimination of dominant Soviet influence in the satellite states of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Rumania’.27 Thus, the moral imperative was clearly stated. However, the NSC argued that overturning Soviet control in Eastern Europe had to be seen as a long-term objective: The ultimate aim must, of course, be the appearance in Eastern Europe of non-totalitarian administrations willing to accommodate themselves to, and participate in, the free world community. Strong tactical considerations . . . argue against setting up this goal as an immediate objective.28 Hence, the recommended action was for the United States to encourage the emergence of ‘schismatic Communist regimes . . . fostering a heretical drifting-away process on the part of the satellite states’.29 Nonetheless, the tension between the desire for a policy free of moral ambiguity and the pressure for a feasible foreign policy remained. This was particularly evident in the first years of the Cold War. In their approach to Eastern Europe, US policy makers hesitated between a policy of containment and one of liberation or ‘roll back’. The concept of containment, first expressed in George Kennan’s article ‘The Sources of Soviet Conduct’, published in Foreign Affairs in 1947 under the pseudonym ‘X’, consisted essentially of preventing the further expansion of Soviet communism.30 As US–Soviet relations deteriorated and anticommunist sentiment increased in the United States, some elements, particularly on the right wing of the Republican Party, denounced the policy of containment as too soft. A policy of liberation or roll back, representing a more active alternative, was advocated. During the 1952 electoral campaign, the debate on containment and liberation was an important issue.31 A prominent advocate of the policy

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 100

100 National Responses

of liberation was the future Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, who argued that the Republicans should: repudiate all commitments contained in secret understandings such as those of Yalta which aid Communist enslavement and replace the negative, futile and immoral policy of containment with a message of liberation that would set up strains and stresses within the captive world which will make the rulers impotent to continue in their monstrous ways and mark the beginning of the end.32 The theme of liberation continued to be part of the US foreign policy vocabulary after the election of Eisenhower and Dulles’ appointment as Secretary of State. However, it is unclear what the content of this policy was supposed to be, or perhaps more precisely, the feasibility of such a policy was not clear.33 The weaknesses of the concept of liberation were exposed for the first time during the uprising in East Germany in 1953. During this uprising, the US government insisted that liberation could only be obtained by peaceful means.34 The liberation rhetoric received a further blow with the Hungarian uprising of 1956.35 After the Soviet intervention in Hungary, the terms ‘roll back’ and ‘liberation’ disappeared from the US foreign policy vocabulary until the election of Ronald Reagan in 1981. The new administration’s approach to Eastern Europe was to encourage gradual pluralism in the Warsaw Pact countries. Zbigniew Brzezinski and William E. Griffith first advocated this approach in an article in Foreign Affairs in 1961, entitled ‘Peaceful engagement in Eastern Europe’. The authors suggested that this policy should (1) aim at stimulating further diversity in the Communist bloc; (2) thus increasing the likelihood that the East European states can achieve a greater measure of political independence from Soviet domination; (3) thereby ultimately leading to the creation of a neutral belt of states which, like the Finnish, would enjoy genuine popular freedom of choice in internal policy while not being hostile to the Soviet Union and not belonging to Western military alliances.36 Gordon and Kovrig argue that although presented under slightly different headings – ‘peaceful engagement’, ‘bridge building’ and ‘differentiation’ – US policy towards Eastern Europe did not change fundamentally after the early 1960s. Although the limits to East

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 101

The United States 101

European independence were illustrated by the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, according to Kovrig the reason why there was no significant change in US policy towards Eastern Europe is that there were no alternative policy options.37 In other words, pragmatism had taken over. Following the logic of Brzezinski’s and Griffith’s article, the key features of the policy of differentiation were that East European countries are not regarded as members of a monolithic Soviet bloc, like component republics of the Soviet Union itself, and that they are to be treated differently from each other. The grounds for favourable treatment have consistently been two: East European foreign policies at variance with those of the USSR and favourable to Western (or U.S.) interest, and measures of domestic economic, political and cultural liberalization.38 Poland became a principal target for the policy of differentiation, which tended to rank the East European states according to their autonomy from the Soviet Union and degree of internal liberalisation. In fact, economic aid to Poland in 1957 can be seen as an early manifestation of the policy of differentiation. This aid was a direct response to Wladyslaw Gomulka’s successful defiance of the Soviet Union in the 1956 uprising. In 1977, Poland became the only Soviet bloc country to be visited by Jimmy Carter during his presidency of the United States. The difficulty US policymakers had in reconciling moral principles with concrete and realisable foreign policy objectives was not removed by the strategy of differentiation. This was demonstrated by the uproar caused by a statement by State Department Counsellor Helmut Sonnenfeldt at a private conference for US ambassadors in London in 1975. During this meeting, Sonnenfeldt said the United States should ‘strive for an evolution that makes the relationship between the East Europeans and the Soviet Union an organic one’. He also said that the current relationship was ‘unnatural’ and that ‘our policy must be a policy of responding to the clearly visible aspirations in Eastern Europe for a more autonomous existence within the context of a strong Soviet geopolitical influence’.39 His statement was widely interpreted to mean that the United States endorsed Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe and accepted the spheres of influence that had been rejected by Roosevelt in the wake of the Second World War. That this should be the case seemed difficult for the US public to accept.

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 102

102 National Responses

Human rights through power politics In order to understand the apparent inconsistencies in the US approach to the Polish crisis, and in particular its disregard for the position of its West European allies, it is helpful to look at the normative underpinnings of the policy. The decisive rationale of the US policy was its reference to moral principles. The policy seemed to be designed to be consistent with abstractly framed norms of human rights and democracy. Thus, the policy may or may not have been the most effective one in terms of promoting a steady increase in democracy in Poland, but this would not have been the main issue as the United States was first and foremost responding to a ‘moral imperative’. The element of ‘power politics’ does not disappear with this interpretation. It is quite clear that US policy was conducted according to the premises of power politics. However, this does not necessarily mean that power was an aim in itself. In fact, rather than a calculated strategy aimed at enhancing the power of the United States, Reagan’s policy must be seen as being inspired by a deep-rooted conviction that the values promoted by the United States would ultimately benefit the entire world. Hence focusing exclusively on power as both the aim and the means of US policy risks losing an important dimension of this policy. Power refers principally to the means of policy rather than its ends. With this in mind, it is possible to identify a fundamental conflict inside the Western alliance: there was a basic difference between the West European and US perspectives on the role of universal principles in foreign affairs. For the United States, the defence of human rights was a national mission that followed logically from its status as a superpower. The policy of defending human rights and democracy was conducted according to the premises of power politics. This is very clear in the following quote from one of Reagan’s advisers, Edwin Meese: the Soviets would have to come to terms on authentically peaceable agreements, not because they were trustworthy, but because they had no other choice. The ‘objective factors’, to use a communist phrase, would lead inexorably to a stand down from the Cold War.40 The underlying assumption of US policy after the imposition of martial law in Poland was that it was possible for the West to provoke the breakdown of the Soviet regime by means of economic, political and military pressure that would lead to the overstretching of the Soviet economy and encourage domestic dissent.41 As Gordon notes:

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 103

The United States 103

One substantial group [in the Reagan administration] believed that a policy of rigorous economic denial could bring the Soviets to their knees. They opposed any economic concessions to Eastern Europe, including Poland, arguing that the USSR would be forced to replace any resulting losses, thus adding to the costs of empire. There was also a small minority . . . that positively welcomed the idea of a Soviet invasion [of Poland].42 The problem for the United States was that as long as policies in the name of justice or human rights were not grounded in international law, they would often be arbitrary and simply appear to be – and often are – a cover for particular interests.43 This, indeed, seems to have been the West European interpretation of US policy. Such interpretations are also prevalent in the academic literature on US foreign policy. For example, Lundestad considers that Most European observers have been rather sceptical about the American claim to uniqueness, particularly as it usually implied American superiority. To many Europeans, what was unique about America was its uncanny ability to make the most inspiring idealism coincide almost perfectly with rather ordinary national objectives.44 Yergin describes the doctrine of national security as enabling America’s post-war leaders to be democratic idealists and pragmatic realists at the same time. So emboldened, American leaders pursued a global, often crusading, foreign policy, convinced that it was made urgent by something more earthly than the missionary impulse of Woodrow Wilson.45 As the next chapter will discuss, this does not mean that the West Europeans took to the other extreme: the traditional realist dictum that foreign policy makers should not concern themselves with what is right or just but simply follow a policy of might, through which stability is maintained.46 The realist argument is that a stable international system is the ultimate aim and that it will result from acceptance by all actors of the legitimacy of the existing system. However, the system’s legitimacy has nothing to do with independent standards of justice. From this perspective human rights, which cut across the principle of the sovereign state, lead to disorder and are therefore undesirable.47 It may be that the negative consequences of Wilson’s policy caused some to

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 104

104 National Responses

take this position. However, what the failure of past US policies towards Eastern Europe show rather that a policy that is defined only with reference to abstract principles and does not take account of the particular context in which the principles are to be applied, is unlikely to be successful. An alternative to the US’ approach of ‘human rights through power politics’ and to the problem of arbitrariness would be to seek a situation where all international relations would have to be subordinated to a common judicial order that would transform the fundamental parameters of power politics. Human rights policy would be an attempt to subordinate all international relations to a common judicial order in order to transform the fundamental parameters of power politics.48

Domestic tensions There was no universal agreement within the US administration on the moral unilateralist strategy. In fact, there were serious domestic disputes about the direction of policy, of which relations with the West European allies were a point of concern. The internal tensions in the US administration became evident in conflicting accounts of the purpose of the so-called Buckley Commission, which was dispatched to Europe in the winter of 1982.49 The confusion related in particular to the sanctions on the pipeline project, which were introduced in three stages after martial law was imposed in Poland.50 From Reagan’s perspective, the pipeline sanctions were a direct response to the imposition of martial law.51 The objective of the Buckley Commission, then, was to convince the West European allies to support the US sanctions and to persuade them to follow suit by imposing their own sanctions. The Buckley Commission was also to seek agreement on the reform of Western credit policies towards the Warsaw Pact as a whole. If the West Europeans did not agree to this, the sanctions on pipeline products would be extended to cover US affiliates abroad. For Reagan, there was no question of lifting the sanctions as this depended on events in Poland and not on relations with the West Europeans. Buckley himself stated that his aim was to find a compromise that would allow the lifting of the pipeline sanctions and their replacement with a tighter Western credit policy towards the Soviet Union.52 Thus, Buckley was using the lifting of the sanctions as a lever to achieve West European agreement on the credit issue – he was not threatening to impose further sanctions. Haig presents yet another perspective. He argues that the second stage of the pipeline sanctions – blocking

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 105

The United States 105

existing contracts as well as denying future ones – was implemented not because of a presidential decision but as a result of bureaucratic procedures.53 Nau denies this and states that the President agreed with the decision to extend the sanctions to existing contracts.54 The confusion over the purpose of the sanctions continued at the Versailles summit. Haig and the Assistant Secretary of State for Economics and Business, Roger Hormats, who also served as Reagan’s personal representative, operated on a different set of assumptions from officials at the White House and members of the National Security Council.55 As noted in Chapter 4, Haig claimed to have achieved agreement on a compromise involving credit policy towards the Soviet bloc and US intervention in the foreign exchange market. The pipeline sanctions were not explicitly mentioned in this bargain, but it was implicitly understood that they would be abandoned if agreement was reached on the other two issues.56 Other American policy makers have claimed that this compromise was never considered. It was after this failed summit that Reagan imposed the condition of extraterritoriality. Some members of the administration have argued that this was what he had intended to do all along if the Europeans did not comply with the US policy on credit for the Soviet Union. Others have argued that Reagan imposed the sanctions as an act of retribution: ‘Reagan imposed the sanctions in a fit of anger when he could not reach French President Mitterrand. Reagan’s decision occurred after Mitterrand had spoken out, implying that the United States was acceding to a European position’.57 It is also clear that not all members of the Reagan administration shared the conviction that the United States was capable of undermining the Soviet Union. According to Nau: The tug of war within the administration – particularly between the State Department and some elements of the Commerce Department (the trade promotion officers), on the one hand, and the NSC, Defence Department, and export control offices in the Commerce Department, on the other – was at least as intense as it was within the alliance. The tug of war even reached inside the White House, where public relations and policy officials clashed repeatedly over the next several months on the handling of the pipeline and East–West trade issues.58 These domestic political disputes are important in helping us to understand some of the inconsistencies in US initiatives after martial law, as well as US relations with Western Europe.59 It is clear that the sanctions

0333_740661_06_cha05.qxd

10/31/2002

10:07 AM

Page 106

106 National Responses

on Poland and the Soviet Union were caught up in a domestic US dispute about the control of foreign policy, and ultimately about the direction this policy should take. Although the key posts in Reagan’s first foreign policy team were filled by members of the traditionally Europhile east-coast elite, the same was not true of Reagan’s advice team. As representatives of ‘sunbelt capitalism’, they were sceptical of the value of the alliance with Europe and more interested in developing the United States’ links with Latin America and the Pacific countries.60 Haig, who appointed himself spokesman for the West Europeans, was too isolated to make his voice heard.61 According to Rubin: When Haig warned that sanctions against a Soviet gas pipeline were alienating Western European allies, one White House aide commented that Haig ‘sometimes acts like Europe’s ambassador to Washington’. The key meeting on the issue [of the pipeline] was held when Haig was out of town and, he claimed, Clark placed only the most hardline option before Reagan.62

Conclusion Emphasising the importance of normative justification of foreign policy often leads to criticism and scepticism. Such justification can quite easily be used cynically or instrumentally to promote goals aimed at satisfying particular national interests. However, as this chapter has suggested, it is difficult to sustain this argument in the US case because the means chosen did not fit very well with this end. In fact, by highlighting the importance of a moral imperative for core actors in the US administration, it is possible both to modify the argument that US policy was entirely self-serving and to question the official story of this policy, which was presented as purposeful action in which the means were carefully chosen to bring about the ends in the most effective manner possible. This approach helps us to understand two blind spots in US policy: (1) the overemphasis on the part played by the Soviet Union in the decision to impose martial law in Poland and the refusal to discuss any ambiguity in this particular course of events; and (2) the systematic disregard of the interests and arguments of United States’ West European allies in what until martial law had been defined as a collective policy-making process.

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 107

6 The Europeans

Germany: for the sake of peace in Europe On the day martial law was imposed in Poland, West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt was in East Berlin at a meeting with his East German counterpart Erik Honecker. During their joint press conference the following morning, Schmidt stated that both Honecker and he were concerned about the fact that the imposition of martial law had been ‘necessary’.1 His unfortunate comment provoked a storm of protest in the Western media. Against this backdrop, West Germany’s policies after martial law are still the subject of dispute.2 How should we understand the German position? It is clear that West German policy makers did not follow the same moral imperatives as the Reagan administration. Respect for human rights and the development of democracy did not have primacy in West Germany’s reaction to martial law. At first glance, the German position bears every sign of pragmatism or traditional realpolitik. The best that could be hoped for, according to the West German authorities, was stability. That stability would lead to the repression or neglect of legitimate demands and interests was apparently accepted as inevitable. Peace in Europe had a price: Germany, as the instigator and loser of the Second World War, had no choice but to accept the partition, under which it had been suffering for forty years; for the sake of peace, the Germans had also made the boundaries forced on them the subject of non-aggression pacts. In a different way, the Poles, too, suffer from the partition of Europe, which made them subject to Soviet sovereignty; they have also been forced to cede large tracts of their country to the Soviet Union.3 107

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 108

108 National Responses

According to the West German authorities martial law was a lesser evil than Soviet intervention. Schmidt saw Jaruzelski first and foremost as a Polish patriot whose main concerns were to prevent a Soviet or Warsaw Pact military intervention in Poland, and to prevent Poland from sliding into political and economic anarchy.4 He also suggested that Solidarity had gone too far in its demands for change and thereby, in part, had brought martial law on itself. Thus, Schmidt contrasted what he saw as a rational assessment of the situation in Poland with what he referred to as the over-emotional response of the American public and American policy makers to martial law. Schmidt has described the mood in the United States during his visit to Washington in January 1982 as ‘close to hysteria’.5 The emphasis on stability could mean that West Germany had calculated the costs and benefits of various scenarios in Poland for its relations with East Germany and concluded that martial law offered the best possible outcome. Such an interpretation would assume that West Germany had no regard for what was at stake for the Poles themselves. Hence, the question of the normative validity of the policy did not arise. It is not unreasonable to presume that the West German authorities were willing to go to great lengths to safeguard inter-German relations. Indeed, since the beginning of Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik in the late 1960s West Germany had succeeded, by means of careful and skilful policy making, in improving relations between the two parts of Germany and thus in improving the lives of all the individuals affected by partition after the Second World War. If the events in Poland took a dramatic turn for the worse, this carefully built edifice was likely to fall. This is the interpretation that Timothy Garton Ash provides in his impressive study of Germany’s role in Europe. He contends that West Germany’s position on martial law was entirely self-serving. Highly critical of the West German position, he argues that the West Germans thought that ‘the Poles [must] curb their claim to freedom in order that the Germans might continue to pursue their claim to unity’.6 This depiction of West German foreign policy being guided primarily by its concern for its relations with East Germany echoes some of the worst fears of West Germany’s allies. In France in particular, the spectre of Rapallo still loomed large in the minds of policy makers. Renata Fritsch-Bournazel illustrates how memories of the past and of Germany’s policy in Eastern Europe still seemed to be important in French interpretations of West German policies by pointing out that ‘Except for the fear of a German finger on the nuclear trigger, no other political issue in the Franco-German partnership weighs so heavily psychologically as

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 109

The Europeans 109

the Federal Republic’s attitude towards the East.’7 In order to compensate for this, West Germany constantly had to prove its loyalty to Western institutions. In the words of Reinhard Rummel: For reasons of legitimation and credibility, Germany needs Western partners and institutions to protect itself against political pressure and to operate internationally without being suspected – by proponents in the East as well as in the West – of renewed German hegemonical ambitions.8 Or as David Marsh puts it, West Germany had to become an eminently humble partner: subsuming its interests to those of the Western alliance, eschewing independent use of military force, reassuring its allies that it saw its destiny in European rather than national terms, ostentatiously playing down the practical possibilities for reunification.9 West Germany’s dilemmas were not resolved by the implementation of Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik, which sowed the seeds of future misunderstandings within the Western alliance about West Germany’s true aims in Eastern Europe. It was not entirely clear to West Germany’s allies whether Ostpolitik meant abandonment of the objective of reunification, or whether West Germany was still a revisionist power in Europe.10 Although the partitioning of Germany and the constraints this put on West Germany’s foreign policy was a consequence of the Cold War, the West’s continuing attachment to partition was due to anxiety about the potential power of a unified Germany. Consequently, West Germany’s aspiration to overcome this division through rapprochement with the East inevitably provoked disquiet amongst its Western allies, and as Ostpolitik accelerated in the 1970s and global détente lost its momentum, West Germany’s allies became increasingly concerned about its commitment to the Western institutions.11 ‘Westernisation’ was not only a policy imposed by the victors of the Second World War. It was also a deliberate policy choice by West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who considered that Germany’s roots lay in Western Europe.12 In fact, most academic observers insist that there was no doubt about the importance West Germany placed on its links with the West through its membership of NATO and the EC, and on the continued support of the United States and France. Philip Windsor stresses that ‘it is hard to exaggerate the importance of

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 110

110 National Responses

France at almost any level of German political perception’.13 Similarly, Roger Morgan argues that ‘Ostpolitik has been firmly rooted in Westpolitik; neither Brandt nor Schmidt allowed the Federal Republic’s involvement with the Soviet bloc to grow to a point at which it threatened their country’s fundamental commitment to Nato.’14 Is there, then, an alternative way of understanding West Germany’s emphasis on European stability in the Polish crisis? The burden of the past: ethical considerations in German policy It could be argued that if the West German government was influenced by considerations of realpolitik, this was a realpolitik of a particularly German brand. It would, in fact, seem that it was not only West Germany’s allies but also the West German government that was haunted by the past. During their research in official archives of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), Michael Kubina and Manfred Wilke found new evidence on the role of the GDR in the Polish crisis, as well as on contacts between the East and West German authorities on the matter.15 Their findings confirm the idea that the West Germans were extremely concerned about the situation in Poland and about the consequences it might have for inter-German relations.16 However, there was a clear limit to what West Germany would tolerate on the issue of Poland. Thus, the hypothesis that West Germany would accept anything in order to protect its relations with East Germany does not hold. But the limits of what was tolerable seemed to have less to do with the rights of the Poles than with the duties of the Germans. A principal concern for West Germany was the possibility of East German troops taking part in an intervention in Poland. According to the GDR archives, in a meeting on 17 July 1981 Helmut Schmidt warned East German officials that the presence of East German troops on Polish territory would be unacceptable. He contrasted this with the possibility of a Soviet intervention, implying that the latter would be understandable, given the Soviet Union’s role as leader of the Warsaw Pact, whereas East German participation would not be acceptable.17 Assuming that his telephone conversations with Honecker were tapped by the Soviet Union’s secret service, Schmidt had three human channels of communication with the East German leaders that could be used if he wanted to prevent the Soviet Union from listening in: Manfred Stolpe (counsellor and secretary of the Federation of the Evangelical Churches in the GDR),18 the lawyer Wolfgang Vogel, and Bonn’s permanent representative in the GDR.19 It was the Stolpe channel that was used in the meeting of 17 July. According to the SED records, the meeting was mostly taken

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 111

The Europeans 111

up by a monologue by Helmut Schmidt aimed at conveying West Germany’s concern about the possibility of East German involvement in a crackdown in Poland. Given the history of Polish–German relations, the concern about German troops being on Polish soil is not difficult to understand. Germany was the Western state with the closest historical ties with Poland, as well as with the rest of Central and Eastern Europe.20 Historically, to the extent that post-1870 Germany can be considered as the successor state of Prussia, it was part of the group of countries traditionally referred to as Central European. It was only with Germany’s defeat in 1945, and its subsequent partition, that its western part became a Western power. Closeness does not mean that relations between Germany and the Central/East European states had always been friendly. From the perspective of Poland in particular, but also of the other East European states, Germany’s power and the fear of German/Prussian expansionism went back several centuries: ‘While the other West European states colonized beyond the seas, and Russia colonized Siberia, Germany colonized its immediate eastern neighbours’.21 At the end of the First World War, under the terms of the Versailles Treaty Germany was forced to cede territory to Poland and Czechoslovakia, and when Hitler rose to power in 1933, eastward expansion became a primary goal of German foreign policy.22 Poland suffered more than most from German occupation, and in the words of Wladislaw Kulski, ‘Poland and Germany emerged from the Second World War animated by mutual animosity’.23 Relations were not improved by the fact that when Poland inherited the territories of Eastern Prussia, it proceeded with the forced expulsion of ethnic Germans.24 The roots of Polish–German animosity, however, went back even further: Men and women of goodwill on both sides of the Oder–Neisse line have tried to evoke the happier moments of German–Polish relations. They recall the rich cultural and technological interchanges in the late middle ages and the period of German liberal enthusiasm for the cause of Polish independence in the 1830s . . . yet the sad truth is that long before 1939 the German–Polish relationship was one of the most tense and difficult in Europe.25 West Germany’s refusal to recognise Poland’s territorial integrity after the Second World War fuelled the Poles’ fear of German imperialism. This, in turn, enabled the Soviet Union to justify its presence in Poland

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 112

112 National Responses

by presenting itself as a guarantor against future German claims on Polish territory.26 By the time of the Polish crisis, the West German position on this issue had undergone important changes. The first step in a new direction had come with the so-called ‘policy of movement’, initiated by Foreign Minister Gerhard Schrøder during the final years of the Adenauer administration. It had been continued under the new Chancellor, Ludwig Erhard, from 1963, but the changes introduced were considered insufficient. West Germany had not abandoned the Hallstein doctrine, nor had it accepted the Oder–Neisse line. It was only under the new leadership of the SPD and Willy Brandt that West Germany radically altered its Ostpolitik. Willy Brandt’s aim was to follow the same principles in Ostpolitik as were emphasised in the Federal Republic’s Western diplomacy; that is, the pursuit of economic and political interdependence and multilateral cooperation as a means to bring about durable peace. The new Ostpolitik represented a reversal of West Germany’s previous policy in Eastern Europe: that progress on the question of German reunification would have to precede a fundamental East–West accommodation on Europe. In fact, West German policy in the early years of the Cold War had born similarities to the policy of the Reagan administration in that it had sought to achieve results through confrontation rather than cooperation. In the first years after the creation of the Federal Republic in 1949, its policy towards Eastern Europe had, under the leadership of Adenauer, been based on the goal of reunification and refusal to accept the existing borders in Europe. This policy had been institutionalised through the Hallstein Doctrine of December 1955, in which the West German Minister of Foreign Affairs had declared that West Germany would break its diplomatic relations with any country (except the Soviet Union) that officially recognised East Germany. During the negotiations on the dismantling of the occupation regime in western Germany and on West German membership of NATO in 1955, West Germany had succeeded in imposing on its Western allies its position on the German question.27 However, the legitimation of the policy had been the need for German reunification, not the matter of human rights. This contrasts with the later US policy. Brandt’s new policy was based on the assumption that the gap between East and West Germany could only be narrowed by East–West accommodation. This suggests that his policy was not just a clever ruse to bring about the ultimate aim of reunification. Rather, it implies a policy in which cooperation had value in itself. However, Brandt went even

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 113

The Europeans 113

further than this. Ostpolitik was also a policy of reconciliation – it was a policy in which West Germany sought to atone for past sins and ensure they were not repeated. The solution to both these aims was to institutionalise relations with the country’s former enemies. In its policies towards the Western world, this had led to engagement in multilateral institutions and to economic and political cooperation, which would also serve to keep German power in check. This had been a good thing not only from the perspective of West Germany’s allies, but also from the West Germany perspective. Now its policy of promoting economic and political interdependence and multilateral cooperation in order to keep its power in check was to be applied to the East as well.28 Consecutive treaties were signed between West Germany, the Soviet Union, Poland, East Germany and Czechoslovakia. Essential to these agreements was mutual renunciation of the use of force, as well as a declaration by West Germany that it would treat the existing borders in Europe, including the Oder–Neisse line and the border between the two Germanies, as inviolable.29 Unsurprisingly, the negotiations with Poland proved particularly difficult. According to Haftendorn: ‘the difficulties that had accumulated between Poland and Germany as a result of a calamitous past necessitated laborious detailed work to produce solutions that were at once politically and morally convincing’30 The border question was particularly sensitive, but the negotiations also involved Polish claims for compensation for the crimes of nazism, as well as the right of remaining Germans to emigrate from Poland. The Warsaw Treaty, which was eventually signed in 1970, stated that ‘the Oder– Neisse line laid down in the Potsdam Agreement shall constitute the Western state frontier of the People’s Republic of Poland’.31 Both Poland and West Germany committed themselves to respecting the other’s territorial integrity and renounced all territorial claims. After the signing of the Warsaw Treaty, an agreement that linked Poland’s compensation claims to the granting of emigration permits for Germans living in Poland was negotiated.32 Chancellor Willy Brandt explicitly demonstrated the effort being put into reconciliation in 1970 when he fell to his knees before the memorial commemorating the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto. When the crisis broke out in Poland in the early 1980s, there was a risk that German sins would be repeated, not by the West Germans but by their ‘other half’, the East Germans. This was the message that Schmidt passed on to his East German counterparts. His concern was confirmed in his memoirs, where he writes that one of his main fears during the Polish crisis was the possibility of seeing East German

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 114

114 National Responses

troops involved in an intervention in Poland. Given the history of German–Polish relations, he worried that this would have disastrous consequences.33 Thus, West Germany’s policy had a clear pragmatic dimension, and the Poles’ desire for democracy was considered impossible and unrealistic: At present it is impossible to see how the morally and historically untenable situation of the division of Europe can be ameliorated. Every attempt to use the will to freedom of the Poles, Hungarians, Czechs or Germans as a lever to force restriction of Soviet controlled territory will run the risk of provoking violent intervention by Moscow; in the end there are the threats of civil war and international war.34 Yet, West German policy was not based purely on pragmatism. It was strongly influenced by the idea that Germany’s past gave it a particular duty to be prudent. The policy developed was a policy that was considered appropriate, given Germany’s particular identity. It was based on ethical-political rather than moral considerations. The question was not whether the policy was equally good for all. In fact, an ethical foreign policy may well be unjust if universal standards are applied. This is what distinguishes ethical considerations from moral ones, which were so predominant in the policy of the United States. From the West German perspective, Germany had a particular responsibility and duty to exercise self-restraint. West Germany’s concern about the threat it posed to peace is something that has never been found in any other European state. It has found expression in the debate on the so-called German problem, which is often couched in terms of geopolitics. For example, in his definition of the German problem, historian Hans-Peter Schwarz argues that a German great power cannot be reconciled with a European system of balance of power, and that Germany’s political situation must be understood on the basis of the so-called ‘Deutsche Mittellage’: Germany’s geographical position between East, West, North and South Europe.35 However, the German problem has not only been discussed in terms of geography and size. The problem also involves a deep-rooted German concern about potential dangers within its own society. Hence, Schwarz argues that there is a link in German self-perception between the existence of a German great power and German nationalism. This helps to explain the duty Germany feels to show self-restraint in international politics, which in turn helps to explain the policy conducted by

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 115

The Europeans 115

West Germany after the imposition of martial law in Poland. Of all its European neighbours, Poland had borne the consequences of German power most strongly. In the words of Schmidt, ‘No other nation, no other people had suffered more from German military occupation [during the Hitler period] than Poland.’ Furthermore, ‘Hitler, Himmler and the so-called governor general of occupied Poland, Hans Franck, had taken the anti-Polish sentiment then prevalent in Germany and raised it to unimaginable horror.’36 West Germany’s concern to avoid a scenario that would be a reminder of this past overrode its concern about encouraging human rights and democracy in Poland. Ethical considerations do not break completely with a self-regarding perspective. Choices are still made with reference to the actors themselves: ‘Other persons, other life histories, and structures of interests acquire importance only to the extent that they are interrelated or interwoven with my identity, my life history, and my interests within the framework of an intersubjectively shared form of life’.37 Thus, the West German leadership failed to take the claims of the Poles seriously. This failure was recognised in 1993 by Egon Bahr during the Bundestag enquiry into the consequences of the SED dictatorship in East Germany. He states that when he heard about the Solidarity movement ‘I thought they are mad . . . they risk a repetition of 1968. . . . We did not take Solidarity seriously enough, we underestimated Poland.’38 According to Axel Honneth, this is in fact a general feature of West German foreign policy. He writes that West Germany has never had a political culture whose moral sensitivity to the fate of other peoples or countries was so great that the international condition of human rights could become a topic of public discourse . . . public reflection and debate on the defence of human rights is restricted to the question of the legitimacy of deploying the German army.39 In fact, in contrast to France, the imposition of martial law in Poland did not produce much of a public response in West Germany. Much in line with Honneth’s argument, the West German authorities faced domestic pressure of a different kind. The Polish crisis emerged at a time of growing disagreement on the fundamentals of West German foreign policy, and the imposition of martial law and the question of how to react to it fed directly into this debate. Schmidt was facing increasingly strong opposition from the left wing of the SPD, which advocated West German disengagement from NATO, rejected the double-track

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 116

116 National Responses

decision of 1979 and promoted the notion of a ‘security partnership’ between East and West in Europe. It was becoming increasingly difficult for the West German government to balance domestic dissatisfaction with the shift away from détente.40 Thus, Joffe argues that, ‘In stark contrast to France, where the legitimacy of a conservative regime is not tied to relations with the East, the diplomatic flexibility of the West German government is tightly circumscribed by the imperatives of domestic control.’41 Indeed, after Schmidt’s resignation as Chancellor in the autumn of 1982,42 the new SPD leadership called for what they called ‘the second phase of Ostpolitik’, which featured party-to-party contacts with the SED and the Soviet and other East European communist parties. The purpose was to draw up, in advance of the SPD returning to power and in the hope of influencing the Bonn government’s policies, a series of agreements on such issues as nuclear and chemical weapons-free zones.43 As the continuing electoral success of the CDU after 1982 showed, the left wing of the SPD did not speak for a majority of West Germans. Nevertheless, their position is significant in that it constituted a considerable constraint on Schmidt’s foreign policy while in government. The domestic political debate on martial law was further complicated by the fact that the CDU joined the Western allies in criticising Schmidt’s position. In a debate on martial law in the Bundestag on 18 December 1982, Helmut Kohl accused Schmidt of being insensitive to the concerns of the Polish people.44 This hitherto unprecedented polarisation of the country’s foreign policy debate was a clear sign of the extreme unease in West German society in the early 1980s, and was indirectly linked to the issue of relations with East Germany. According to Morgan, ‘the underlying issue [in the domestic West German debate] was the paradox of West Germany’s combination of economic strength, political maturity, high international prestige, and total inability to make real progress in solving the fundamental problem of national division’.45 Hence, the West German government was caught in the crossfire of two opposing normative arguments, one domestic, focusing on peace, the other external, focusing on human rights. A German community of responsibility According to SED archives, the West German authorities believed that the East Germans shared, or at least understood, their concern about

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 117

The Europeans 117

what was acceptable behaviour for Germany. Likewise, Bonn’s permanent representative in East Berlin, Klaus Bölling, wrote in his memoirs that it was to Honecker’s credit that he recognised the dangers of a radical approach to Poland and therefore tried to silence the hawks in his own camp.46 Schmidt notes in his memoirs that Honecker was clearly dismayed about the news of martial law. Given what is now known about East Germany and Honecker’s role in the Polish crisis, it is clear that the West German authorities were strongly deluded about the potential for a common German responsibility for peace in Europe. In fact, Honecker was one of the most determined advocates of a Warsaw Pact military intervention in Poland. From very early on in the Polish crisis (as early as the autumn of 1980), Honecker tried to convince the Soviet Union that ‘fraternal aid’ against Polish counter-revolutionary forces was necessary.47 Furthermore, East German troops were prepared, together with Czech and Soviet troops, for the possiblity of action.48 From the outset of the crisis, the East German position was clear: the situation in Poland was even worse than that in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Early on in the crisis, Honecker gave the following message to the Polish ambassador to the GDR: We are not in favour of a bloodbath. That would be the last option. However, also this last option must be used in order to defend the worker’s and farmer’s state. This is our experience from 1953 and this is what the events in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968 also show.49 Honecker tried several times during the autumn and early winter of 1980 to convince the Soviet leadership to convene a meeting of the Warsaw Pact leaders to consider the Polish question, and eventually succeeded in December.50 According to East German records, Honecker believed that the only solution to the situation in Poland was military intervention. At no point do the records suggest that he thought a compromise with Solidarity was possible. However, at the meeting on 5 December the leaders of the Warsaw Pact decided against intervention and to give the Polish leadership one more chance51 (the reasons for this are not given in the SED records). In spite of this decision, East German troops started to prepare for military intervention – referred to as a ‘training exercise’ on Polish territory – together with Soviet and Czech troops.52 At Honecker’s instigation a further meeting with Husak and Brezhnev was held in Moscow on 16 May 1982, when it was concluded that ‘the present leadership [in Poland] cannot be depended

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 118

118 National Responses

upon, we see however on the other hand there are no real potential candidates to replace them. We must think of how we will find suitable people and prepare them for extraordinary situations.’ 53 When Honecker played host to Schmidt in East Berlin on 12 December, he was already aware that martial law would be imposed in Poland. During the night of 12–13 December, he had communicated with East German border troops about the forthcoming imposition of martial law and called for extra vigilance.54 This contrasts sharply with Schmidt’s statement that he considered it important not to incriminate East Germany in the events in Poland.55 The West German government was, at best, the victim of wishful thinking on the question of East Germany’s role in Poland.56 During early 1982, West Germany gradually modified its position on martial law. It associated itself with the NATO compromise hammered out on 11 January and fell into line with the other West European states on the question of sanctions.57 As the crossfire over the Atlantic intensified, despite the NATO compromise mentioned above, the ‘German problem’ was superseded by the imperatives of transatlantic relations. Furthermore, at the end of June, following the clash between Mitterrand and Reagan at the Versailles summit, Helmut Schmidt notes in his memoirs that France aligned with the West German position.58 However, by now there had also been some clarification on the West German position. As noted in the introduction, Helmut Schmidt’s public statement about the imposition of martial law was that it had been ‘necessary’. In fact, some doubt has been cast on whether Schmidt considered martial law to be a less worse scenario than military intervention, or whether he thought that order had to be restored in Poland. According to East German records, Erich Honecker’s understanding of Schmidt’s position was that it was the latter.59 In his report to the Politburo about his meeting with Schmidt in December he stated that Schmidt was essentially relaxed about the developments in Poland, that order had to be restored in Poland and that he hoped for a peaceful solution. Honecker relayed the same description of Schmidt’s position to Jaruzelski.60 However, according to Schmidt this was pure imagination on the part of Honecker.61 Schmidt clarified his position in a telephone conversation with Honecker a month after martial law was imposed. According to the verbatim record of this conversation, Honecker assumed that the two had the same view of martial law as a positive event that would permit the Polish authorities to restore order. However, Schmidt considered that order could only be

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 119

The Europeans 119

established by normalising the situation, lifting martial law and releasing all political prisoners. Schmidt added that if martial law were not lifted the Western allies would impose sanctions against Poland and the Soviet Union.62

France and Britain: a matter of appropriate conduct in the alliance It is clear that France and Britain had less at stake than West Germany as a result of the events in Poland. Although one would be mistaken to think in terms of an entente cordiale between these two countries, their positions and interests were closer to each other than to those of West Germany. Both states were more openly critical of the Soviet Union, and clearly attributed a large share of the responsibility for martial law to the Soviet Union. Why, then, the dispute with the United States? France At first sight, the French position on martial law seems highly ambiguous. On the one hand, Mitterrand was amongst those Western leaders who most strongly condemned martial law in Poland. On the other hand, in terms of the substance of its policy France did little more than West Germany. In essence, the French position consisted in adhering to existing economic agreements with Poland but refusing to negotiate new commercial contracts, as well as advocating cessation of the debt negotiations with Poland. There is no indication that the French government considered imposing economic sanctions against the Soviet Union or Poland. Was its condemnation of martial law, then, simply empty rhetoric motivated by the need to look good in the eyes of the public at home and abroad? In other words, was French policy based purely on self-interest? It is true that the burden of sanctions against Poland and the Soviet Union would be greater for France than for the United States, particularly in the case of the pipeline sanctions, where French economic interests were at stake. Furthermore, although the Soviet bloc was not a major trading partner, the importance of such trade for some French industries, as well as for France’s overall balance of payments, could not be ignored. This was particularly so in the early 1980s, when France was experiencing growing difficulties with its balance of payments and its economic reform programme. Hence, the economic concerns of the French government cannot be neglected,63 and from this perspective, it

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 120

120 National Responses

would not have been in France’s interest to do much about martial law. However, it is difficult to understand French policy as exclusively based on economic self-interest. If this had been the case, France would have followed West Germany’s lead and taken a far less critical stand on martial law. It could be argued that France’s ambiguity resulted from the challenge that martial law presented to France’s view of its own role in Europe. In fact, in many ways similar to the United States, France’s foreign policy was influenced by the idea of a ‘mission civilisatrice’. According to Pierre Hassner, France sees itself as a country with a mission: ‘a country that is not itself if it does not defend a goal beyond itself – whether a principle, or a vision of [a] European or world order’.64 According to this view, the principles of the French Revolution had to be exported abroad. The imposition of martial law in Poland put France’s perception of itself as ‘a country with a mission’ to the test. This was even more so because France had close historical ties with Poland. Direct assistance to the Polish opposition was required, in principle, even by military means if necessary. However, rightly or wrongly, this imperative collided with France’s assessment of the concrete situation in Europe in the early 1980s. What is more, it contradicted the long-term strategy of both France and West Germany of overcoming the divisions in Europe through a process of gradual change. France and Poland – a special relationship? Napoleon’s brief restoration of Poland’s sovereignty (in the form of the Duchy of Warsaw) in 1807 is often cited as the first example of revolutionary France defending the ideals of national independence in Eastern Europe. It is also seen as the start of a long friendship between France and Poland. The importance of Franco-Polish relations is frequently emphasised in French texts on the subject. For example: La France pour la Pologne représente un peuple ami libre, qui fut, pendant plus d’un siècle de partage, le symbole de l’espoir pour les patriotes d’un État qui avait disparu en tant que tel de la carte de l’Europe, et dont l’unité nationale ne subsistait que dans le cœur de sa population.65 [For Poland France represents a friendly and free people who remained the symbol of hope for the people of a state that had vanished from the map of Europe and whose national unity survived only in the hearts of its population.]

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 121

The Europeans 121

However, the ‘romance’ between France and Poland did not result in the desired outcome for either side. France was never strong enough to guarantee the security of Poland; indeed, when it considered it convenient, France turned to the Soviet Union Russia to further its aims. Furthermore, its links with Poland and other East European states did not provide it with its desired status as a great power, and did not allow it to withstand the power of Germany. The sense of France as a country with a mission also arose in connection with de Gaulle’s vision of a ‘Europe stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals’. De Gaulle’s Ostpolitik was launched in the context of superpower détente, when for the first time in post-war history France was leading the way in East–West relations. De Gaulle’s vision was based on the idea of a gradual disengagement by both superpowers in Europe, enabling the West and East European countries slowly to converge and thus overcome the political divisions of the Cold War. It was, as most aspects of de Gaulle’s foreign policy, a non-ideological approach to East–West relations, inspired by a geopolitical vision of Europe and underlining the importance of the historical links between France and Eastern Europe. De Gaulle’s policy was introduced gradually. The first steps were taken in 1964 with meetings between Soviet and French officials, and in November that year, de Gaulle received the foreign ministers of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia to discuss the development of economic and cultural relations. The high points of the exercise were visits by de Gaulle to the Soviet Union in 1966, Poland in 1967 and Rumania in 1968.66 In writing about de Gaulle’s policy, the French Prime Minister of the time, Maurice Couve de Murville, highlights the idea of France as a country that was promoting justice and peace in the name of Europe as a whole: Le voyage du général de Gaulle en URSS couronnait l’évolution qui s’était produite depuis deux ou trois années. Il donnait sa marque finale aux rapports vraiment renouvelés que la France avait voulu créer dans un contexte international qui rendait désormais possible une politique conforme au rôle qu’il lui appartenait de jouer en Europe et qui, à notre sens – c’est une autre façon d’exprimer la même pensée – servait au mieux les intérêts de la paix.67 [De Gaulle’s visit to the Soviet Union constituted the peak of the changes that had occurred over the previous two or three years. It gave the final touch to the genuine revival of relations that France

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 122

122 National Responses

had wished for in an international climate that finally allowed for a policy that was consistent with the role it was appropriate for France to play in Europe and that from our point of view – that is another way of expressing the same idea – served the interests of peace in the best manner.] However, as Kolodziej points out, the idea of a Europe stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals was highly controversial. Its success depended on a large number of conditions, most of them unlikely to materialise: For de Gaulle, the conditions of European peace were as many as they were complex: liberalisation of the Russian regime and the East European empire, Germany’s settlement of its frontiers and its agreement on armaments, West European economic integration and political union, including a common defence policy, and the establishment of a European system of states from the Atlantic to the Urals in harmony and cooperation with a view to the development of her vast resources.68 After de Gaulle, French leaders continued to emphasise the importance of good relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who was elected to the presidency in 1974, strongly believed that détente and trade and economic relations were valuable means of maintaining peace and stability.69 In his memoirs, Giscard particularly underlines the importance of his good relations with the Polish Secretary General, Edward Gierek, a personal friendship that was no doubt strengthened by the fact that Gierek, the son of Polish immigrants to France, had spent his childhood in the north of France and received most of his education in French.70 It was also Gierek who acted as an intermediary in Giscard’s much criticised meeting with Brezhnev in Warsaw in the spring of 1980, which apparently took place in an attempt to mediate in the conflict over Afghanistan. Human rights versus peaceful cooperation With the imposition of martial law in Poland, the policy of détente with Eastern Europe was challenged. Détente was built on the idea of gradual change and continued respect for the sovereignty of each state, and peace and stability were to be brought about by cooperation between these states. The moral imperative of supporting the opposition in Poland constituted a serious challenge to this approach. The same Polish regime with which France had enjoyed friendly relations had allowed the Polish reform movement to be brutally crushed.

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 123

The Europeans 123

The question of how to respond to the events in Poland provoked conflict in the French government. Consistent with the idea of France’s particular mission civiliatrice Michel Rocard, with the support of sections of the Socialist Party, argued for a stronger response to martial law than the one outlined by Mitterrand.71 Attali recounts the following lines from a discussion on Poland’s martial law in the French Council of Ministers on 16 December 1981: Michel Rocard attaque violemment Claude Cheysson: Il y a devoir d’assistance à personne en danger. Il faut agir. Robert Badinter intervient dans le même sens: Il faut réagir et ne pas s’aligner sur la prudence des autres. Il faut interrompre les crédits à la Pologne.72 [MR violently attacks CC: We have a duty to assist people in danger. We must act.] [RB takes the same position: We must react and not side with others’ cautiousness. The credit to Poland must be interrupted.] It was not only the Rocard wing of the Socialist Party that reacted in this way – the trade union CFDT and the right-wing political parties also called for a stronger response to martial law. Furthermore, the French public were incensed and the French media criticised their own government and that of West Germany for not reacting strongly enough to the situation.73 A considerable number of French people took to the streets to protest against the abolition of civil liberties in Poland, but such manifestations of outrage were not observed in neighbouring West Germany, nor in Britain. This corresponded to a more general trend in France. In fact, unlike its northern European counterparts, including West Germany and Britain, while France did not have a strong pacifist, anti-nuclear movement in the early 1980s, there had been a shift in French public opinion, particularly amongst French intellectuals (who traditionally intervene actively in French political debates), which went in a different direction: the so-called ‘nouveaux philosophes’ rejected Sartre’s and his generation’s intellectual dominance in France, criticised Soviet totalitarianism, and called for a ‘stronger’ Western reaction to its consequences in Eastern Europe.74 On this basis, it is difficult to consider that French policy was exclusively based on economic self-interest. The fact that the French position, rightly or wrongly, was more pragmatic than that of the United States was due to a different view of what was appropriate and feasible

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 124

124 National Responses

in the context of Europe in the early 1980s. The French were convinced that the goal of democracy could not realistically be achieved in Poland in 1981. The following statement by Mitterrand captures the essence of his position: Jamais l’URSS n’acceptera que la Pologne sorte de son orbite. Le monde occidental ne bougera pas. Nous n’abandonnerons pas les Polonais, mais il n’est pas dans notre pouvoir de les sauver. Peut-être dira-t-on un jour que Jaruzelski a agi de façon intelligente, au prix de la perte provisoire des libertés? Je pense que tout le monde est d’accord pour qu’on n’envoie pas de divisions en Pologne?75 [The Soviet Union will never accept that Poland leaves its orbit. The western world will not move, we will not abandon the Poles but it is not within our powers to save them. Maybe one day it will be said that Jaruzelski acted intelligently, at the temporary cost of freedom? I think everybody agrees that we do not send any divisions [military] to Poland?] This is confirmed in the following statement by Mauroy: Compte tenu de la situation géopolitique dans laquelle se trouve la Pologne depuis la fin de la deuxième guerre mondiale, chacun sait que l’Union Soviétique est impliquée par tout ce qui touche à l’Europe de l’Est. C’est le résultat des rapports de force sanctionnés par les accords de Yalta. La diplomatie française ne mettra pas un terme à cette situation.76 Given the geopolitical situation in which Poland has found itself since the end of the Second World War, everyone knows that the Soviet Union is involved in everything that has to do with Eastern Europe. This is the result of the distribution of force sanctioned by the Yalta agreement. French diplomacy can not put an end to this situation. It could be argued that the more cautious French position was due to the presence of four communist ministers in the French government, who were naturally reluctant to express criticism of the events in Poland. The particular dilemma that they represented became visible with the so-called ‘conseil restreint’ on Poland on 12 January 1982, the day after the NATO statement on martial law. The French Foreign Minister, Cheysson, was criticised by Mitterrand for the tone of his declaration on the Soviet Union during the NATO meeting on 11 January, when he was

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 125

The Europeans 125

considered to have been ‘inutilement provoquant pour les ministres communistes’ [unnecessarily provocative for the communist ministers].77 A general statement was issued to the effect that the President was personally responsible for French foreign policy and that it was important for the French to speak with one voice on the subject of Poland. The essence of France’s policy on martial law had not, however, changed. The above incident simply appears to have been an exercise in bridge building and an effort by the President to assert his authority over foreign policy. Hence, the ministers from the Communist Party did not seem to have had much influence in respect of making the French position either more or less belligerent. An Atlanticist turn in French foreign policy? Although France put more emphasis than the United States on geopolitical realities, they both agreed on the unacceptability of martial law. It is therefore difficult to understand the extent of France’s falling out with the United States by looking only at the French position on martial law. Their differences do not appear to have been so large as to be impossible to overcome. What is more, Mitterrand’s general reorientation of French foreign policy should have laid the ground for better relations with the United States than Giscard d’Estaing had entertained with the previous US administration. During his presidential electoral campaign, Mitterrand had criticised Giscard for being too soft on the Soviet Union. Giscard had been particularly ridiculed for his meeting with Brezhnev in Warsaw in the summer of 1980, which was supposed to have led to a solution to the question of Afghanistan but instead had earned him the nickname ‘petit télégraphiste’ (messenger boy),78 during the presidential election campaign. Once in power, Mitterrand took a less conciliatory stand on East–West relations than Giscard. He expressed particular concern about the arms build-up in Eastern Europe and acknowledged the need to restrict exports of strategic goods to the Warsaw Pact countries. According to Moisi, ‘Giscard d’Estaing was anticommunist at home and soft on the Soviet Union. Mitterrand has brought Communist ministers into his government for a mixture of historical and tactical reasons but is firmly anti-Soviet.’79 One of the most often quoted statements by Mitterrand from this period was one made during his state visit to West Germany in 1983, at the height of the German debate on the deployment of Cruise and Pershing II missiles. He told the German Bundestag that ‘les missiles sont à l’Est, les pacifistes à l’Ouest’ [the missiles are in the East and the pacifists in the West].80 Hence, on this, he was in line with the Reagan administration.

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 126

126 National Responses

Britain Considering Margaret Thatcher’s declared affection for her American counterpart, Britain’s opposition to the US initiatives was more surprising than that of France. After all, France had a tradition of falling out with its American ally. Despite the relatively special position of Poland in British foreign policy compared with the other Central and Eastern European countries, of the three major West European states, Britain had the least interest in and probably the least to lose from the Polish crisis. From this perspective, Neil Winn argues that Carrington wanted to use the crisis to further Britain’s influence over the development of European political cooperation.81 Indeed, throughout the crisis the British government underlined the importance of maintaining a cohesive European position on Poland. However, Britain’s policy on martial law cannot be properly understood in the context of political cooperation alone. British policy towards Poland and Eastern Europe was traditionally formulated as part of its alliance strategy, and the Thatcher government continued to stress the importance of maintaining close cooperation with the United Stated during the Polish crisis.82 In addition to the multilateral ties of the alliance, British foreign policy was still to a large extent operating on the assumption that a special relationship existed between the United States and Britain.83 This is also the key to understanding the British government’s response to US policy. The absence of an independent British Ostpolitik While Poland remained symbolically important to Britain during the postwar era, historians disagree on the significance of the guarantee Britain made to Poland in March 1939 promising support, should they resist attack from Germany.84 The orthodox view is that the guarantee represented a radical departure in British foreign policy, not only because it signalled the abandonment of Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement but also because Britain had traditionally followed a policy of disengagement in Eastern Europe. This view has since been challenged in at least two respects. Simon Newman argues that the Polish guarantee was not a new departure in British policy, but the ultimate manifestation of Britain’s determination to prevent German expansionism.85 Anita Prazmowska, on the other hand, sees the guarantee as a continuation of the ‘traditional and long-term policy of successive British governments of disengagement from the affairs of Central and Eastern Europe’.86 She stresses that Britain had no economic or military

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 127

The Europeans 127

interest in Central and Eastern Europe during the interwar period, and points to the ‘haphazard nature of British considerations and plans’.87 Thus, she argues that although the Polish guarantee illustrated Britain’s resolve to deter German aggression, it reflected continuity in Britain’s policy towards East and Central Europe. Not only was it not intended as a direct commitment to defend Polish territory, it was also a retreat from a similar guarantee to all the states in Central and Eastern Europe after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia.88 Regardless of which of the above interpretations is correct, it remains the case that Poland was central to Britain’s entry into the Second World War, and Poland featured again towards the end of the war. The conference between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill in Yalta in February 1945 has emerged as a symbol of the division of Europe, and conjures up the image of great powers bargaining over the fate of the people of Eastern Europe, dividing the continent into spheres of influence. In the words of Brzezinski, ‘The myth is that at Yalta the West [merely] accepted the division of Europe’.89 Poland was a victim of Yalta and Britain was one of the principal architects.90 Having failed to achieve the independence of Poland and the other East European states, Britain’s foreign policy in the postwar period was designed to fit in with the geopolitical realities in Europe, and Britain was also influential in establishing the Cold War structures in Western Europe. Churchill’s famous speech about an ‘iron curtain’ descending over Europe, was the first statement to alert public attention to the evolving political situation in Eastern Europe. Britain also played a key role in the establishment of the Western alliance.91 These early years of the Cold War seem to have set the pattern for Britain’s East– West policy throughout the postwar period.92 To the extent that Britain had a policy in Eastern Europe, it was an integral part of its Soviet policy and closely connected to Britain’s membership of the Western alliance. Britain’s policy towards Eastern Europe was conducted as alliance policy.

Reagan and Thatcher: a special understanding? Until 1979, Britain’s close links with the United States did not result in Britain adopting a confrontational stance towards the Soviet bloc, and it was critical of the American tendency to embrace the rhetoric of liberation. However, with the arrival of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister this began to change. During Thatcher’s first term of office, British foreign policy took on a more ideological hue and drew closer

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 128

128 National Responses

to US foreign policy.93 As a flag-bearer of the new right, Thatcher displayed a strong distaste for the Soviet regime, and her view of détente as ‘just another Soviet tactic to gain influence over the West’ corresponded to that of the Reagan administration.94 As Bullard argues: In her total rejection of all that the Soviet Union stands for, its moral basis as well as its visible activity, its claimed achievements no less than its evident failures, Mrs Thatcher did strike a note which was qualitatively different from the language of her post-war predecessors.95 Despite Thatcher’s expressed preference for a more ideological approach to East–West relations, and despite the importance she placed on maintaining close relations with the United States, the British position on martial law fell within the category of what could be called the ‘Atlanticist policy of containment’ rather than the policy of liberation advocated by Reagan. Furthermore, Clarke argues that there was a discrepancy between Thatcher’s discourse on relations with the Soviet Union and her practical policies, which were far more pragmatic and in tune with those of her predecessors.96 As Ullmann points out: in their approaches towards the Soviet Union . . . all [British governments] have pursued détente and all have defined the issues in contention between Moscow and the West in fairly specific and circumscribed rather than global terms. Even the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher – much the most right wing government in twentieth century British history – has eschewed the globalist anti-Soviet rhetoric that has been the hallmark of the Reagan Administration’s foreign policy.97 The impact of Thatcher’s ideological leanings on Britain’s policy towards the Soviet Union was no doubt reduced by the limited influence she had over her first (divided) cabinet. What is more, as she had little experience of foreign policy, it is reasonable to assume that her personal views were dampened by the Foreign Office and Foreign Secretary Carrington. As one representative of the Foreign Office pointed out, ‘foreign policy was made by Carrington’. Although the Foreign Office recognised the part played by the Soviet Union in the imposition of martial law in Poland, it was not supportive of Reagan’s liberation rhetoric.98

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 129

The Europeans 129

Nevertheless, of the three West European governments considered here, Britain went furthest in supporting the American view of the events in Poland. British statements after the imposition of martial law clearly stressed the responsibility of the Soviet Union. Furthermore, Britain was more insistent than the other countries on the need to maintain good relations with the United States. Britain’s efforts to ensure EPC cohesion as well as Atlantic cohesion cannot be seen as contradictory. Rather it was part of a single approach – British policy in general was based on the idea that there was no contradiction between Atlantic and European policy. Until martial law was imposed in Poland, this functioned well. All of this leads to the expectation that Britain would have little difficulty following the American lead on martial law, especially as Britain had few interests in Poland. Although Britain did not subscribe wholeheartedly to Reagan’s policy of liberation, similar differences between past British and US administrations had not led to such difficulties and there was no particular reason why this should inhibit cooperation. Breaching agreed alliance norms If there was little at stake for Britain in terms of its relations with Poland and the Soviet Union, the same was not true of its relations with its main ally, the United States. During Thatcher’s time in office, particular importance was given to the Anglo-American ‘special relationship’, which was strengthened by the close personal relations between Reagan and Thatcher. Reynolds and Dimbleby argue that for Thatcher the special relationship was ‘an article of faith’.99 Likewise, Sir Anthony Parsons, Thatcher’s special foreign policy adviser from 1982–83, stated that ‘It is many years since there was such ideological compatibility between an American president and a British Prime Minister as there was between Mrs Thatcher and President Reagan; both leaders made the most of this nexus.’100 It is against this background that Britain’s reaction against the United States must be considered. It was not until the summer of 1982 that Britain fully rallied with the West Europeans. What eventually triggered its break with the United States was frustration with the latter’s conduct rather than concern about Poland or loyalty towards the other West Europeans. Thatcher sums up her position on the issue as follows: ‘My view was that ultimately we must support the American leadership: but that did not mean that the Americans could pursue their interest regardless of the opinion of their European allies.’101

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 130

130 National Responses

Thus, when France and Britain turned their backs on the United States, it had less to do with their different assessments of the events in Poland and the part played by the Soviet Union, and more to do with the divergent US–European views on how to handle this particular event. This, in turn, reflected highly divergent views on how East–West relations should be conducted more generally. But most importantly, the breakdown of coordination was triggered by British and French discomfort with the unilateral initiatives taken by the United States, which broke with the expected behaviour and agreed norms of the Atlantic alliance. Three decisions in particular triggered their response. The first was the United States’ unilateral announcement of sanctions after the imposition of martial law. The second was the US decision to lift the grain embargo on the Soviet Union in April 1982 and the subsequent signing of a new agreement to export US agricultural products to the Soviet Union in the summer of 1982.102 As noted in Chapter 4, this was the only sanction that clearly had a cost to the United States itself. The third decision was the extension of the gas pipeline sanctions after the Versailles summit in 1982.103 In the view of the allies, these unilateral moves violated the norms of consultation and mutual respect that were at the heart of the Atlantic community, and therefore put the whole alliance at risk in the eyes of the West Europeans. However, the French were probably less surprised than the British at this breach of the accepted codes of conduct. France’s relationship with both the United States and the Western alliance had always been problematic. Many of the problems had been fuelled by France’s suspicion that in the eyes of the United States this alliance was not one of equals. France’s withdrawal from the military arm of NATO in 1966 and its decision to develop its own nuclear capacity cannot be understood only as an expression of anti-Americanism. It must be also understood in the context of France’s particular view of the role of the French nation state. It was this idea that gave legitimacy to French security policy, and it also helps to explain the numerous crises that characterised the FrancoAmerican relationship throughout the Cold War. The importance of the US decisions from the West European perspective is discussed by Attali and by Thatcher in her memoirs.104 Sir Nicholas Henderson, writing about Thatcher’s reaction to Reagan’s attempt to explain the reasons for the US embargo on the gas pipeline, says that ‘Mrs. T’s eyes blazed and she launched into a fierce attack on the President’s decision, pointing out that American exports to the USSR would grow this year because of the lifting of the grain

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 131

The Europeans 131

embargo.’105 The following quote from Attali confirms the tone of the transatlantic dialogue during the winter of 1982: Déjeuner, prévu de longue date, du Président avec l’ambassadeur américain, Evan Galbraith. On parle encore du gazoduc: François Mitterrand: ‘vous leur vendez bien du blé. Nous leur vendons des équipements pour un gazoduc’. Evan Galbraith: ‘si vous leur achetez du gaz, vous leur donnez des devises, c’est mal! Quand nous leur vendons du blé, nous leur prenons des devises: c’est bien!’106 The President’s lunch, planned long in advance, with the American ambassador, Evan Galbraith. The gas-pipeline is still the subject of discussion: François Mitterrand: ‘You sell them grain. We sell them equipement for a pipeline.’ Evan Galbraith: ‘If you buy gas from them, you give them foreign currency, that’s bad. When we sell them grain, we take their currency, that’s good.’ In the case of France, irritation with the United States’ position and its demand for West European sanctions was reinforced by the disagreement between the two governments over economic policy. By 1982, Mitterrand’s programme of economic reform was running into serious difficulties and the radical deterioration of France’s balance of payments was partly blamed on the US policy of high budgetary spending, which had pushed up the value of the dollar. Thus, when Mitterrand and Reagan clashed at the Versailles summit, it was after a failed attempt to absorb the issue of economic policy-making into a broader compromise that included East–West trade and sanctions against Poland.107 So the French government’s position was no longer just a matter of the situation Poland, it was also a matter of relations within the Western alliance and what was considered appropriate behaviour in that particular context.108 As for Britain, it can be argued that its responses during the Polish crisis were indicative of the fact that by the end of the 1970s British and American interests and perspectives had drifted far apart, not only in the area of economic relations but also over political and security issues. Consequently, as Christopher Hill argues, the difficulties in the relationship between Britain and the United States could not be overcome by the positive relationship established between Thatcher and Reagan:

0333_740661_07_cha06.qxd

10/31/2002

10:09 AM

Page 132

132 National Responses

there are strict limits to what can be achieved through personal relationship of the two heads of government in London and Washington, however clubby . . . there is a tendency on both sides to indulge in wishful thinking about the many tests which foreign policy throws up.109 According to David Watt, ‘the “special relationship” in the broad sense ceased to exist in the early 1960s and perhaps even earlier.’110 Still, it must have been a rude awakening for the British Prime Minister to be reminded of the limits to the special relationship. The expectation was that being part of an alliance imposes certain obligations in respect of consultation and taking the interest of the other partners into consideration. It was in this spirit that the British government underlined the importance of alliance cohesion throughout the crisis, and Britain’s refusal to follow the United States was triggered by its consideration that the United States’ unilateral moves broke the rules of appropriate behaviour in the alliance and jeopardised its entire purpose. While the West Europeans’ positions on Poland were shaped by different sets of concerns and to some extent they disagreed with each other, they were united in their disapproval of the conduct of the United States and what they considered infringements of alliance norms.

0333_740661_08_cha07.qxd

10/31/2002

10:10 AM

Page 133

7 Conclusion: The Cold War Between Human Rights and Security

The aim of this book has been to gain an understanding of the Western alliance’s involvement in the Polish crisis of the early 1980s. Why, in the context of the Cold War, did the allies bother so much about a domestic political struggle in the ‘enemy camp’? And why did the struggle in Poland almost bring the alliance to breaking point? The explanation is twofold. Firstly, the crisis in the Western camp should be understood in terms of a conflict between two different conceptions of appropriate action. However, on its own this is not sufficient to explain the seriousness of the crisis – we must also look at the nature of the Western alliance and the values and norms embedded in its political culture. With regard to decision making, these values and norms not only excluded the use of force, they also required consensual decision making with equal respect for the views all of the participating parties. The breaching of these norms triggered adverse reactions in France and Britain. Thus, the Polish crisis and the Western responses to it serve as an example of how international relations are governed by norms. The Cold War cannot be understood simply as a process of strategic moves aimed at maintaining the balance of power. While national security concerns were important during the Cold War, other factors also influenced Western policy makers. Competing interests were also at play in the talks between the Western allies about how to respond to the events in Poland. However, focusing exclusively on these would only reveal parts of the story, and would fail to catch the complexity of intra-alliance and East–West European relations in the early 1980s. 133

0333_740661_08_cha07.qxd

10/31/2002

10:10 AM

Page 134

134 Conclusion

The Polish crisis and transatlantic relations during the Second Cold War At the time of the Polish crisis, relations between Eastern and Western Europe had changed a great deal compared with the early years of the Cold War. Political processes on the European continent had to some extent decoupled these relations from the overall logic of superpower conflict. Thus, the Polish crisis and the crisis in the Western camp could be seen as a European crisis that emerged as a consequence of changes in East–West relations in the 1970s and changes within the Soviet and US spheres of influence. With regard to the latter, the gradual strengthening of the West European economies and the intensification of European cooperation through the European Community (EC) and European political cooperation (EPC) had made the Europeans less inclined to accept US hegemony. Hence, the crisis in the alliance was a symptom of wider structural changes in the transatlantic relationship. The West Europeans clashed with the United States over how to respond to martial law, with the West Europeans arguing that détente in Europe was divisible and that superpower tension should not affect relations between Eastern and Western Europe. As has been argued throughout, the situation within the alliance in the early 1980s was not clear cut. The events surrounding the Polish crisis can not be seen as a desire on the part of the West Europeans to move towards an all-European solution to Europe’s dilemmas. Although there were moves to strengthen EPC in the early 1980s, it was still eclipsed by allegiance to NATO on East–West issues. Throughout most of the crisis in Poland, the EC took a back seat and coordination took place mainly bilaterally or within the context of NATO and the Quad, under the leadership of the United States. Nonetheless, the EC took it upon itself to organise food to Poland, which marked an important milestone for the organisation: it signalled the strengthening of the EC’s role in international politics and set the pattern for relations between Eastern and Western Europe after the end of the Cold War. For example, it was to the EC that the G7 turned to coordinate Western economic aid to Central and Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War. However, for the time being, NATO was the most important institution, particularly in the case of security issues. There was an inherent contradiction in transatlantic relations in the early 1980s. One of the most vital factors in the Western alliance at the time of the Polish crisis was what Putnam has called ‘the European hunger for US leadership,’1 and the West Europeans expected Reagan to

0333_740661_08_cha07.qxd

10/31/2002

10:10 AM

Page 135

The Cold War Between Human Rights and Security 135

provide this. At the same time, while there were many differences between the French, British and West German interpretations of and responses to the events in Poland, they were at one in their shared frustration with the United States. The ambiguities of transatlantic relations becomes even more evident when one considers developments in the medium term. The failure of the United States to convince its West European allies to follow its lead is an indication of its reduced authority within the alliance. But, at the same time, the West Europeans’ reluctance to adopt the US initiatives was not followed up by a reinforcement of their collective identity, or even a strengthening of their ability to discuss security.2 Furthermore, the West Europeans, despite having won the short-term battle with the United States by refusing to accept its pipeline embargos, lost the medium-term battle over the continuation of détente. Paradoxically, the Western crisis over Poland, in itself a sign of the contradictions and entanglements within the alliance, reinforced the contradictions and forced the allied states further apart, without bringing them closer to a break-up. There was nothing in Europe to replace the reduced authority of the United States, nor was a fundamental review of the terms of the transatlantic relationship undertaken. The fear of Soviet military action may have served to constrain Western disagreement, but the Cold War should not be understood exclusively in security terms – it was also a conflict over forms of governance: the glue that kept the Western alliance together was a set of shared values that set them apart from the Soviet bloc.

Diverging views of détente and human rights That there is a need to modify the standard view of the nature and effects of the Cold War (in particular by the early 1980s) is further reinforced if we take a closer look at the issue of détente. The growing complexity of East–West relations in the early 1980s, particularly in Europe, helps to explain why the Western alliance became so involved in the Polish crisis. This complexity was in part a result of the process of détente, which made it difficult to stand idly by as the events unfolded in Poland. The strong public reaction against to the imposition of martial law in Poland testifies to this. At the same time, the disagreement over the nature of détente helps to explain why a crisis eventually arose in the Western alliance. There was a strange duality in the West’s policies towards Poland in that, while the events there did not constitute a direct threat to the

0333_740661_08_cha07.qxd

10/31/2002

10:10 AM

Page 136

136 Conclusion

Western states’ security, indirectly they had the potential to affect their stability. Central and Eastern Europe would be the battleground for any NATO–Warsaw Pact confrontation, and thus were integral to Western strategic concerns. The possibility of a Soviet or Warsaw Pact intervention in Poland was of significant concern to all the Western states, particularly West Germany, as the domestic Polish crisis might turn into an East–West crisis that could seriously destabilise Europe. However, there was also an important economic dimension to the Polish crisis as Poland was highly indebted to Western Europe as a result of the substantial amount of credit extended to the Gierek regime in the 1970s. This economic interdependence between the East European Warsaw Pact countries and the West European members of the Atlantic alliance contrasts sharply with the image of the Cold War as a Hobbesian struggle between two military blocs. Relations between East and West in Europe had become more complex and this was not only a matter of economic exchange. Détente also had a political dimension. The fact that confrontation coexisted with cooperation between Eastern and Western Europe meant that there was a difference between European and superpower détente. One way of viewing this difference is to consider it as a disagreement between those who believed that the two systems could coexist and those who believed they were irreconcilable. One could argue that the difference between these two approaches was to a large extent disguised by the ambiguous purpose accorded to détente policy.3 For some, détente was an objective in itself to promote a peaceful coexistence between the two systems that would allow them to draw gradually closer. Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik was the most consistent application of this approach. For others, détente was an instrument in the continuous struggle against communism, and it was from this perspective that Nixon and Kissinger launched the US policy of détente in the 1960s. Détente as peaceful coexistence was not, however, only a German perspective. The president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French National Assembly summarised the differences between the US and West European perspectives on détente in the following way: Pour les États-Unis, la détente a été essentiellement un code de conduite de la stratégie nucléaire avec l’URRS. Pour les Européens Occidentaux, elle a été beaucoup plus humaine. Elle a consisté à multiplier les échanges de personnes, de marchandises, culturels, matériels, à essayer de faire changer les choses de l’intérieur avec le temps, et de créer les condition d’une meilleure cohabitation.4

0333_740661_08_cha07.qxd

10/31/2002

10:10 AM

Page 137

The Cold War Between Human Rights and Security 137

[For the United States, détente was essentially a code of conduct for strategic nuclear relations with the Soviet Union. For the West Europeans it was much more human. It consisted in multiplying the exchange of people, goods, culture, supplies, in seeking to change things slowly from the inside, and create conditions for a better coexistence.] For some, détente was simply a means, a policy instrument. For others, it was both ends and means. The United States’ policy of détente, as it was launched in the late 1960s, was a strategy for managing its relations with the other superpower5 – it was not expected to alter the nature of the relationship. In Europe, particularly in the case of West Germany’s Ostpolitik, détente took on a different meaning. It was not about managing or overthrowing an adversarial power but about improving relations between Eastern and Western Europe, and particularly between East and West Germany. Thus, for the United States it was logical to change tactics once they proved inefficient in bringing about the downfall of communism. However, this served to exacerbate the diverging perspectives within the alliance, and therefore the compromise that had worked for the last decade became difficult to maintain during the Polish crisis. Détente had strengthened the tendency to put human rights and the promotion of democracy on the foreign policy agenda. The idea that respect for human rights was a necessary condition for peace and stability had gained ground, but the Western states disagreed about how to take this further. They clashed over the way in which human rights should and could be enforced in an international system where legal procedures were weak. The United States’ reaction was heavily influenced by its tradition of a normatively oriented foreign policy, and if détente was no longer an effective means of ensuring this, there was no point in maintaining it for its own sake. In fact, the United States now considered détente to be hindering the promotion of human rights and democracy, rather than the opposite. Seeing the protection of human rights as a national mission, the United States pursued this goal according to the premises of power politics, with little regard for the views of its West European allies or collective procedures for weighing up the different goals and norms involved. In an international system where legal procedures for protecting human rights are weak, the United States has often, by its own decision taken on the task of international police. It enforces human rights according to the premises of power politics.

0333_740661_08_cha07.qxd

10/31/2002

10:10 AM

Page 138

138 Conclusion

The problem is that in so doing, the United States also demonstrated many of the problems with a policy of human rights in an ‘anarchical’ international system of weak institutions and weak legal instruments. If the enforcement of human rights is based on the will of a great power, it may very well be used as window dressing to cover up that power’s real goals, and in turn this leads to arbitrariness, as human rights are not universal principles applied to all. Indeed, the West Europeans interpreted the United States’ strong emphasis on the moral imperative as a cover for the promotion of particular US interests. An important aim of European détente was to try to bind East–West relations into law-based agreements through instruments such as the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, thereby instituting a common legal order that would ensure the constant protection of human rights. Ultimately, it sought to alter the parameters of power politics. However, the United States saw this as legitimising the existing political systems of the Warsaw Pact countries when instead they should be overthrown. Hence, the Polish crisis presented the Western states with a dilemma in respect of the politics of human rights. On the one hand, all liberal democracies would subscribe to the imperative of human rights. On the other hand, there is the need for stability and peace, which has traditionally been sought through agreements between sovereign states. This is what is entailed in the Westphalian model of international system. The political compromise that underlies this model is centred on a geographic basis for political organisation, to which the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and non-intervention are key. There can be no superior authority able to lay down the law from a more independent or objective position than individual states. Universal human rights, by definition, challenge this way of organising international relations in that human rights are not bound by borders or collectives, they apply to humanity as such.6 So, enforcement of a human rights policy could lead to instability in the international system. The state-centric norm was still predominant at the time of the Polish crisis, but it was clearly challenged by the norm of human rights. However, as long as a human rights policy is primarily a moral orientation for a particular actors’ political activities – in this case the United States – rather than a legal norm, its enforcement is bound to be both controversial and difficult.7 During the Polish crisis, deep divisions between the West European and US perspectives on foreign policy came to the surface. However, on their own these are not sufficient to explain the seriousness of the crisis

0333_740661_08_cha07.qxd

10/31/2002

10:10 AM

Page 139

The Cold War Between Human Rights and Security 139

in the Western alliance. The moral dimension had always been a feature of US foreign policy, although it was particularly strong under Reagan’s presidency. Hence, in order fully to understand the crisis, we must consider the particular nature of the alliance. First, however, we shall take a closer look at the substance of the West’s policies.

Could more have been done? The substance of the Western governments’ policies during the Polish crisis has been the subject of much criticism. First, it has been argued that the handling of the debt question was inadequate and the provision of food aid was insufficient. The assumption here is that if more had been done, this might have helped to stabilise the situation in Poland and strengthened the chance of political reform.8 Second, the Western countries have been criticised for failing to predict, prevent or prepare for the eventuality of martial law. For example, Cynkin argues that the United States should have threatened to declare Poland to be in default and used this as a bargaining chip with the Soviet Union to prevent the imposition of martial law.9 Third, the Western states were criticised for not condemning martial law strongly enough, and in particular for not taking sufficient action to penalize the Soviet Union.10 Fourth, after a while many began to argue that the sanctions had been kept in place too long and ought to be lifted, and that the best way to promote change in Poland was to restart economic aid to the country.11 The view that the West did not do enough to support Poland may be valid, but how much would have been ‘enough’? The critics appear to have different assumptions about the objectives the West could reasonably expect to achieve in Poland, about the significance of martial law (particularly in respect of whether or not it was a lesser evil than Soviet intervention), and about the alternative outcomes (other than martial law or Soviet intervention) that could realistically have been hoped for. Rather than focus on whether or not the West’s policies were the best ones for Poland, this book has investigated why these policies were developed. The argument that policy initiatives are inadequate often implies that actors are purely self-regarding, and that more is not done because the cost to self-regarding actors is too high. In many cases this may be right, but not always. Hence, the analysis here has sought to open up other possible understandings of the West’s policies. This does not excuse inadequate policies; however, it helps explain why they were developed. We need to understand the reasons and intentions

0333_740661_08_cha07.qxd

10/31/2002

10:10 AM

Page 140

140 Conclusion

of the actors in their own right, given the definition of the situation that prevailed at the time. Perhaps not enough was done, but this could have been due to factors other than self-interest. This book has suggested that if more was not done in the Polish crisis, this was not just because of considerations of costs or security, but also because of certain ideas and values that, in different ways, the Western allies sought to export to the Soviet bloc. This also suggests that we might modify our idea of what constituted the Soviet threat in the eyes of the Western allies. The Western states’ policies were based not only on fear of the Soviet Union’s military prowess but also on opposition to its totalitarian political system because it challenged the fundamental beliefs of the Western political leaders. However, the West’s policies were not just the result of a considered assessment of what was right from a perspective of morality and universal standards of justice, they were also affected by a lack of knowledge of and understanding about the political situation in Poland and the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the individual states were influenced by different historical and cultural considerations. For example, West Germany’s response was strongly influenced by the long history of Polish–German relations and the fear that wartime history would be seen as repeating itself if East German troops participated in a military intervention in Poland. Its policy was value-based rather than rights based. With the benefit of hindsight this does not make a lot of sense, given what we now know about conditions in the Soviet Union and its extreme reluctance to use military force in Poland. However, in the context of the Cold War, the situation looked different. The West Germans did believe that there was a real threat that the Soviet Union would invade Poland. In fact, according to Mastny, not only West Germany, but all the Western allies were ‘misled by the formidable appearance of [the] Soviet military machine’.12 They did not see what is now almost taken for granted, that by the early 1980s things were changing inside the Soviet bloc. It is only with the benefit of hindsight that there is general agreement that the Polish crisis was the first indicator of the breakdown of Soviet control in Eastern Europe. Hence, the alliance countries’ failure to do enough or to do the right thing was partly the result of their lack of knowledge about and understanding of the real situation. As noted in Chapter 3, this also affected policy priorities before martial law, and it helps to explain why the focus of Western policies was on the Soviet Union, as well as the West’s lack of preparedness for martial law. The Polish crisis highlighted many of the

0333_740661_08_cha07.qxd

10/31/2002

10:10 AM

Page 141

The Cold War Between Human Rights and Security 141

contradictions and weaknesses of the West’s policies towards Poland and Eastern Europe as a whole. Poland was rarely at the top of the West’s list of priorities during the Cold War. Rather than being a separate object of the West’s policy, it was often just one factor in overall policy towards the Soviet bloc. By analysing the probable reasons for the policies developed by the Western allies, it has been possible to show that a number of considerations were important and that their policies cannot be understood by considering instrumental rationality alone – they entailed too many costs and the benefits were too vague and uncertain for this to have been the dominant logic.

A community of values In the same way as the realist assumption that actors are purely selfregarding cannot explain all dimensions of the West’s policies, it also fails to capture important dimensions of intra-alliance relations. This is important for explaining why the Polish crisis almost brought the alliance to breaking point, as well as the limitations of the West’s responses to Poland. It is not enough to focus on single actors when analysing the West’s policies – the interaction between them must also be considered. Cynkin, for example, focuses exclusively on the policy of the United States and argues that if it had threatened to declare Poland to be in default, things might have been different. But the United States did not hold a large enough share of Poland’s debt to make the threat of default credible.13 In order to have any chance of succeeding, the policy Cynkin advocates would have had to be supported by the West Europeans, who were Poland’s main creditors. Their commitment to coordination – and sometimes, given the interconnectedness of Western economic policies, the need to coordinate – contributed to the lack of efficiency in the West’s response. The West was concerned with creating a feasible policy to maintain cohesion, which was seen as important in its own right. Although martial law was known to be a possibility, no contingency plans were made for this eventuality, largely because the allies could not come to an agreement on what should be done. In addition, the sanctions against Poland were lifted only gradually and in a disorganised fashion, with reference chiefly to internal Western factors rather than in response to economic and political conditions in Poland. There was reluctance on the part of the Western states to break the fragile consensus they had established during the autumn of 1982. Ideally, increased coordination is supposed

0333_740661_08_cha07.qxd

10/31/2002

10:10 AM

Page 142

142 Conclusion

to lead to increased influence, but in the case of the Polish crisis it tended to rebound and to lead to a less efficient policy response. The difficulty of coordinating foreign policy is considered to arise from the fact that international society is a society in which actors are not subject to a central authority. It is this absence of a central authority that has led realists to consider that the ability of states to sustain a coherent common foreign policy is extremely limited. From such a perspective, it is not difficult to understand why the Western allies were unsuccessful in maintaining their cohesion. However, as noted in Chapter 1, the expectation was that in an alliance of democratic states, political processes would be governed by other factors in addition to the instrumental calculations that are said to prevail in an anarchical international system. The assumption here is that democracies externalise their internal norms when they cooperate with each other. Not only pragmatic but also ethical values and moral principles prevail. Furthermore, in international organisations such as NATO, procedures have been established that are conducive to consensus and compromise and the norm is to solve conflicts through deliberation and negotiation. Hence, the use of military threats or other exercises of power to persuade allies to follow a particular policy is not the norm. These considerations allow for a different and more convincing explanation of the crisis in the Western alliance. The events in Poland raised a different set of concerns for each of the Western states and the Western institutional framework was not strong enough to hold them together after the imposition of martial law. At one extreme was West Germany, where the possibility of a Soviet or Warsaw Pact military intervention (with East German participation) in Poland provoked considerable concern. Not only would such an intervention have damaged the carefully constructed edifice of West German Ostpolitik, it could also have ended the rapprochement with East Germany. Finally, at a time when West Germany was experiencing domestic uncertainty about its international role, the presence of East German troops on Polish soil would have been a highly uncomfortable reminder of the past. Across the Atlantic, the Polish crisis presented itself in a different way. It fitted in perfectly with the increasingly confrontational nature of US foreign policy in the early 1980s, and allowed the President to depict the United States as the leader of the free world and defender of democracy and human rights. What is more, the crisis played into the hands of those who were critical of the West Europeans’ attachment to détente, and Poland became a stick with which to beat not only the Soviet Union, but also the United States’ European allies.

0333_740661_08_cha07.qxd

10/31/2002

10:10 AM

Page 143

The Cold War Between Human Rights and Security 143

However, all four allies shared a set of common concerns, including the long-term objective of democracy in Poland. All the Western leaders, even Margaret Thatcher, welcomed the creation of an independent trade union and the possibility of political pluralism in Poland. They were at one in condemning the imposition of martial law, the internment of the Solidarity leaders and the later dissolution of Solidarity. France, the United States and Britain were in no doubt that the imposition of martial law was the result of Soviet pressure on the Polish leadership. However, they recognised that they had insufficient resources to promote the changes needed. Hence, there were common as well as conflicting concerns among the alliance countries. Nonetheless, close cooperation was the rule in the Western alliance, and the member states were committed to ensuring a cohesive response to the events in Poland, especially in light of the mistakes made after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. This commitment is illustrated by the effort they made to consult one another about and exchange information on Poland. A fragile compromise was built against the backdrop of the partly shared, partly contradictory concerns of the member states and took the shape of an understanding rather than a bargain based on well-defined national interests. The main tactic in this consensus building was to focus on issues on which there was agreement and to avoid those which were divisive. The cornerstone of their policy was warning the Soviet Union against military intervention. This was accompanied by the provision of food aid and credit to Poland, as well as the rescheduling of Poland’s existing debt. This was not really a policy of a minimum common denominator, because policy proposals were not watered down, but excluded altogether. Arguably, the issues upon which the Western allies agreed were only the easy ones: it was not difficult to agree that democratic principles should be protected, but it was difficult to agree on who should pay for it. As already noted, while the conflict over the material interests at stake in the Polish crisis was not that large, it became visible in issues such as the distribution of food aid, which was caught up in the EC dispute about the share of each member state in the overall aid package.14 The negotiations on rescheduling Poland’s debt were also dogged by arguments between Western creditors that slowed down the process. Yet these issues led to less efficient policy, not to a breakdown in Western relations. What is more, disagreement on the debt issue was not really about its cost but about the best policy to adopt. Western policy makers did not have clearly defined preferences and the policy-making process was governed as much by norm following as by the calculation of costs

0333_740661_08_cha07.qxd

10/31/2002

10:10 AM

Page 144

144 Conclusion

and benefits. The conflict over values and norms had as much weight as the conflict over material interests. Also the conflict over material interests was long-standing but the crisis in the Western alliance only erupted after martial law was imposed. Finally, there was no unified perception of events inside each member state. Hence, it is difficult to blame the crisis on irreconcilable national interests. This study suggests that when cooperation broke down after the imposition of martial law, it was not only because of diverging views on détente but also because the United States broke with the agreed norms of the alliance. To take the example of Britain, its position was that the United States should be supported, but that any differences of opinion, large or small, should be resolved through cooperation and dialogue. Hence, there was a sense of being betrayed by the United States when it made no great effort to accommodate the demands or interests of any of its West European allies – they were not even consulted about the United States’ decision to impose sanctions. By flexing its superior economic muscle, the United States tried to force its own view through rather than to reason, negotiate or deliberate with its allies. Both the French and the British considered that such a use of power was unacceptable. Relations between the Western alliance states were qualitatively different from those at the broader international level. The Western institutional framework provided an important setting for state interaction. It provided channels of communication and consultation fora, as well as, in the case of the EC, instruments for common action in the provision of food aid. But this was not all. These institutions were not simply held together by ‘mutual agreement about their advantageousness or through the use of coercive power’.15 The realists and neorealists seem to have underestimated the impact that participation in a permanent institutionalised structure such as the Atlantic alliance has on the individual states. Even if the allies entered the alliance for different and distinctly national reasons, it is likely that they, perhaps unwittingly, accepted certain constraints on their foreign policies. And, over time, the structures of the Western alliance has bound its member states closer together. It is likely that they underestimated the particular requirements of a democratic alliance and the norms and values that underpin such a community. There is no reason why norms of appropriate behaviour should exist only at the domestic political level when the required conditions, that is the commitments and institutions necessary for concerted action, are in place at the international level.

0333_740661_08_cha07.qxd

10/31/2002

10:10 AM

Page 145

The Cold War Between Human Rights and Security 145

East–West relations after 1989 A central theme of this book has been the normative underpinnings of Western policies towards Poland. It has suggested that there are limitations to a human rights policy, and it has pointed to differences between the US and West European views on how such a policy should be conducted. This can serve as an example of how international relations are governed by norms. In this regard, we may not be able to make broad empirical generalisations based on a single case, but we can identify a central theme in international relations. Hence, what is done here must be seen as a theoretical or analytical generalisation, where one example can tell us something about the utility of a particular theory or approach. With the end of the Cold War, the constraints on East–West relations were lifted. A declared objective of Poland and the other Central and East European members of the Warsaw Pact was to return to Europe, and Western leaders were called upon to honour the promises they made during the Cold War with regard to the sponsorship of democracy and the reunification of Europe. The Central and East European states also wanted membership of NATO and the EC/EU. Western leaders could not renege on their Cold War promises without losing their credibility so, in 1993, the EU committed itself to embracing all Central and Eastern European states that could comply with three criteria: they should have a fully functioning market economy and the ability to cope with the competitive pressures and market forces within the EU; they should have stability of institutions that could guarantee democracy, the rule of law and human rights; and they should have the ability to take on the obligations of EU membership, including adherence to the aims of economic and political union. In 1995, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were accepted as members of NATO after what was probably not the last round of negotiations on Central and Eastern European membership of this organisation. This book indicates something of the power of discourse and also of norms in international relations. The discourse that Western policy makers maintained during the Cold War, stressing their sense of responsibility for Eastern Europe and the importance of ending the division of Europe, created a number of expectations. Because we cannot look into the hearts and souls of policy makers, it is impossible to know whether their words were 100 per cent genuine. Nonetheless, a policy discourse binds, regardless of the real motives of actors. Having consistently made such statements, it was difficult for the Western states not to live

0333_740661_08_cha07.qxd

10/31/2002

10:10 AM

Page 146

146 Conclusion

up to them when the empirical conditions changed, given their selfunderstanding as democratic states. This was so even though the cost of the enlargement of NATO and the EU was high. The Western states’ decision to live up to their promises could be interpreted in a rational choice manner as the result of entrapment, but even if what was said during the Cold War was only empty rhetoric that rhetoric was now difficult to escape. This book has suggested that it is possible that these arguments were not empty rhetoric, but were grounded in deep-seated beliefs about the kind of principles that should govern relations between states in general and the foreign policies of democratic states in particular. * * * Interpreting historical events is a never-ending process because the particular lenses we are socialised into using to examine the world necessarily influence our understanding of it. This is so not only in the sense that the choice of a particular theory or methodology influences the selection and interpretation of empirical data, but more generally in the sense that history is understood and interpreted in the light of present-day conditions. The particular context in which this book was written helps to explain its particular focus. At the same time, the case examined here is highly relevant for the international politics of the post-Cold War world. It puts the post-1989 disagreements between the United States and Western Europe into a longer-term context. A central issue both now and then is the understanding of human rights policy as well as its status and implementation in international relations. Differing views on norm enforcement and Europe’s concern about American unilateralism are not new, although the context in which they are played out has changed.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 147

Notes 1 Introduction 1. For example, see Mark Kramer, ‘Ideology and the Cold War’, Review of International Studies, 25:4 (1999), pp. 539–76; Odd Arne Westad (ed.), Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory (London: Frank Cass, 2000), and ‘Symposium: the end of the Cold War and theories of international relations’, International Organization, 48:2 (Spring 1994), pp. 155–278. 2. Indeed, interest-based perspectives also build on certain normative assumptions; for example, that of the sovereign equality of states. 3. Dana H. Allin, Cold War Illusions: America, Europe and Soviet Power 1969–1989 (London: Macmillan, 1989), p. 66. 4. Odd Arne Westad (ed.), The Fall of Détente: Soviet American relations during the Carter years (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1997), p. 24. The first SALT agreements on the control of strategic arms were reached in 1972 and were considered the cornerstone of superpower détente. The SALT II Treaty was signed in Vienna in 1979. For detailed analyses of the negotiations, see Raymond Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American–Soviet relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1994, revised edition). 5. Constantine C. Menges, The Twilight Struggle: the Soviet Union v. The United States today, (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 1990). 6. For an overview of this debate, see Vladislav M. Zubok ‘Why did the Cold War end in 1989? Explanations of “the turn” ’, in Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, op. cit. 7. Traditionalist authors tend to argue that US initiatives in Eastern Europe came too late or were insufficient to save Eastern Europe. Revisionists argue that US foreign policy was a deliberate attempt to impose US hegemony on the rest of the world. Moving beyond the apportioning of blame, the postrevisionist perspective, introduced by Gaddis, pitches the explanation in the complex interaction between US and Soviet policies. Halliday makes a further distinction between the argument amongst historians about the origins of the Cold War, and the debate within international relations and the peace movement on the underlying dynamic of the conflict. He identifies four categories: the realist, the subjectivist, the internalist and the intersystemic. Arguably, however, there is a degree of overlap between the two debates. Post-revisionists, for example, seem to be largely inspired by the same motives as subjectivists in emphasising factors such as misperception. Furthermore, sections of the traditionalist literature fit into the realist category. The difference between the two debates, then, is not that they present fundamentally different interpretations of the Cold War but that one emphasises theory more explicitly than the other. Fred Halliday, Rethinking International Relations (London: Macmillan, 1994), pp. 171–7. 147

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 148

148 Notes

8.

9. 10.

11. 12.

13.

14.

15.

Gaddis’s post-revisionist thesis is presented in ‘The emerging postrevisionist synthesis on the origins of the Cold War’, Diplomatic History, 7, (Summer 1983), pp. 171–90. For the revisionist perspective, see Gar Alperovitz, Cold War Essays (New York: Doubleday 1970); William Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (New York: Dell 1962); Walter LaFeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945–77 (New York: Wiley, 1972). A critical view of the revisionist position can be found in Charles Maier, ‘Revisionism and the interpretation of Cold War origins’, Perspectives in American History, 4 (1970), pp. 313–47. Three central books in the debate on revising the Cold War are John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: rethinking Cold War history (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); Vojtech Mastny, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity: the Stalin years (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: from Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996). Geir Lundestad ‘How (not) to study the origins of the Cold War’, in Westad (ed.), Reviewing the Cold War, op. cit., pp. 64–80. Vojtech Mastny, ‘The Soviet non-invasion of Poland in 1980–81 and the end of the Cold War’, Cold War International History Project, Working Paper no. 23 (Washington DC, 1998). Sir Clive Rose, ‘Political consultation in the Alliance’, NATO Review, 31:1 (1983), p. 2. To some extent alliance theories do take this into consideration. They point out that a sense of community may reinforce alliances. They also recognise that periodic consultation contributes to the development and preservation of alliance cohesion. Following this logic, one might also question the assumption that the only motive for the creation of NATO was the perception of a Soviet threat. Alternatively, one might argue that membership of the alliance had unintended consequences for the foreign policy orientation of member states. For the democratic peace argument, see Michael Doyle, ‘Kant, liberal legacies, and foreign affairs’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 12:3 (1983), pp. 204–35, and 12:4 (1983), pp. 323–53. Risse-Kappen argues that ‘Peace and conflict research has reached a consensus that democracies rarely fight each other, see Thomas Risse-Kappen, ‘Democratic Peace – warlike democracies? A social constructivist interpretation of the liberal argument’, European Journal of International Relations, 1:4 (1995), pp. 491–517, and Thomas Risse-Kappen ‘Collective identity in a democratic community: the case of NATO’, in Peter J. Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security: norms and identity in world politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 357–99. See Wolfgang Wessels, ‘EPC After the Single European Act: Towards a European Foreign Policy via Treaty Obligations?’, in Martin Holland (ed.), The Future of European Political Cooperation (London: Macmillan, 1991), pp. 143–60; Françoise de la Serre, ‘The scope of national adaptation to European Political Cooperation’, in A. Pijpers, E. Regelsberger and W. Wessels (eds), European Political Cooperation in the 1980s: A Common Foreign Policy for Western Europe? (London: Martinus Nijhoff, 1988), pp. 194–210; Christopher Hill (ed.), The Actors in Europe’s Foreign Policy (London: Routledge, 1996).

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 149

Notes 149 16. See, for example, Emmanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (eds), Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Peter J. Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security: norms and identity in world politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). 17. Karl W. Deutsch, S. A. Burrell et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957); Richard Neustadt, Alliance Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970). 18. For an overview of the developments of EPC in the late 1970s and early 1980s, see Simon Nuttall, European Political Cooperation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), pp. 149–238. 19. This failed to obtain the necessary support from the majority of member states. At that stage even France, although it later changed its mind, opposed the Genscher–Colombo Plan. See Henrik Larsen, ‘Discourse Analysis and Foreign Policy: The Impact of the Concepts of Europe, Nation-State, Security and the Nature of International Relations on French and British Policy toward Europe in the 1980s’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics (1993), p. 283. 20. For a discussion of the concept of Atlanticism and the Atlantic Community, see Michael Smith, ‘Atlanticism and North Atlantic Interdependence: The Widening Gap?’, in Barry Jones and Peter Willetts, Interdependence on Trial (London: Frances Pinter, 1984), pp. 167–229. The text of the Report of the Committee of Three on Non-Military Cooperation in NATO (13 December 1956) is reprinted in North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Facts and Figures, 1999, Brussels NATO Information Service, pp. 384–401. 21. For a discussion of the events in the Year of Europe, see Pierre Mélandri, Une Incertaine Alliance: Les Etats Unis et l’Europe, 1973–1983 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1988), pp. 79–120. Kissinger himself gives a detailed account of the events of 1973 in Years of Upheaval (Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Company, 1982), pp. 128–95, 700–47. 22. Pierre Gerbet, La Construction de l’Europe (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1983), p. 426. 23. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, op. cit., p. 192. 24. Document on The European Identity, Copenhagen, 14 December 1973. 25. Quoted in Bennett Kovrig, The Myth of Liberation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), pp. 214–15. 26. For a useful overview of this debate, see Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, op. cit., which contains a collection of essays from different perspectives. See also Allen Hunter (ed.), Re-thinking the Cold War (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998); Robert Jervis, ‘Was the Cold War a security dilemma?’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 3:1 (Winter 2001), pp. 36–60; ‘Symposium’, op. cit. 27. For a discussion on this, see Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, trans. L. Wirth and E. Shild (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1936). See also Hans Skjervheim, Ideologianalyse, dialektikk, sosiologi (Oslo: Pax forlag, 1973). 28. This is based on Jürgen Habermas, ‘On the pragmatic, ethical and moral employment of practical reason’, in Justification and Application: Remarks on discourse ethics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993).

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 150

150 Notes 29. Erik Oddvar Eriksen, ‘Towards a logic of justification. On the possibility of post-national solidarity’, in Morten Egeberg and Per Lægreid (eds), Organizing Political Institutions. Essays for Johan P. Olsen (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1999); Erik Oddvar Eriksen and Jarle Weigård, ‘Conceptualising politics: strategic or communicative action?’, Scandinavian Political Studies, 20: 3 (1997), pp. 219–41. 30. See, for example, Thomas Cynkin, Soviet and American Signalling in the Polish Crisis (London: Macmillan, 1988). 31. Arthur Rachwald, In Search of Poland: The Superpowers’ Response to Solidarity (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1990). Rachwald extends his examination to 1989 arguing that the Solidarity movement did not disappear after martial law, and that its establishment in 1980 should be seen as the first step in a process that culminated with the breakdown of the communist regime in Poland in 1989. However there is still a case for centring the analysis on martial law, despite the fact that Solidarity survived beyond that event. It is particularly justifiable for this book, which examines how a group of states responded to a particular external event rather than their long-term policies towards Poland. 32. France, despite having left its military structure 1966, was still a member of the Atlantic Alliance. 33. Indeed, as Kundera argues Poland is part of Western culture. See Milan Kundera, ‘The tragedy of Central Europe’, New York Review of Books, 31:1 (1984). 34. Greece became very vocal on foreign policy after it joined the European Community in 1981. Indeed, Greece and Denmark, in the context of EPC and the European Community, adopted dissenting positions on sanctions against Poland. Italy and Canada (the latter has a large number of Polish immigrants) have always had important relations with Poland. Greece’s and Denmark’s opposition to EC sanctions is discussed in Simon Nuttall, ‘Interaction between European Political Cooperation and the European Community’, Yearbook of European Law, 7 (1987), pp. 211–49 (see in particular pp. 231–2). For Canada’s relations with Poland see Adam Bromke, Harald von Riekhoff, Jacques Levesque, J. K. Federowicz Canada’s Response to the Polish Crisis (Toronto: Canadian Institute for International Affairs, 1982); D. H. Avery and J. K. Fedorowicz, The Poles in Canada (Ontario: University of West Ontario Canada Historical Association). Italy’s relations with Poland are dealt with in Vojtech Mastny (ed.), Italy and East Central Europe (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995). 35. William Wallace, ‘Introduction: cooperation and convergence in European foreign policy’, in Christopher Hill (ed.), National Foreign Policies and European Political Cooperation (London: George Allen & Unwin for RIIA, 1983), pp. 1–15. 36. Max Weber, Economy and Society, ed. by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1978), p. 4. 37. Andrew Moravscik, The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht (London: UCL Press, 1999), p. 81. 38. Ibid., p. 82. 39. See, in particular, the Cold War International History Project Bulletin, 5 (Spring 1995) and 11 (Winter 1998); Mark Kramer ‘Soviet deliberations during the

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 151

Notes 151 Polish crisis, 1980–81’, Special Working Paper no. 1 (Washington: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1999); Vojtech Mastny, ‘The Soviet non-invasion’, op. cit.; Malcolm Byrne, Pawel Machcewicz, Christian Ostermann (eds), Poland 1980–82: Internal Crisis, International Dimensions. A compendium of declassified documents and chronology of events (Washington, DC: National Security Archive, 1997). 40. Some elements of the Western response to the Polish crisis – such as the amount of economic aid – are quantifiable.

2 The Double-Edged Sword of the Polish Crisis 1. Kevin Ruane, The Polish Challenge (London: BBC, 1982), p. 5. 2. Ibid., p. 9. 3. Timothy Garton Ash, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity 1980–81 (London: Granta, 1991); George Schopflin, ‘Poland: A Society in Crisis’, Conflict Studies, 112 (October 1979). See also George Schopflin’s Politics in Eastern Europe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993). 4. Garton Ash, The Polish Revolution, op. cit., p. 14. 5. Ibid., pp. 29–30. 6. Ibid., pp. 42–3. 7. Agence Europe Bulletin 1–2 September 1980. The full text of the Gdansk agreement is reprinted in ‘Documentation. Crisis in Poland’, Survival, 23:5 (1981), pp. 225–31. 8. According to Jiri Valenta, the Polish crisis constituted a threefold challenge to the Soviet Union: strategic, politico-ideological and economic. He argues that ‘A truly successful workers’ revolution, originating from below, is even more threatening to the USSR than were the Czech intellectual reforms of 1968’. Jiri Valenta, ‘Soviet options in Poland’, Survival, 23:2, p. 51. 9. For a typical comment, see Financial Times, 5 September 1980: ‘Few world events of recent years have given such widespread pleasure in Britain as the winning by the Polish workers of the right to organise independent trade unions.’ See also Le Monde, 2 September 1980; The Times, 1 September 1980; Guardian, 1 September 1980. 10. Le Monde, 29 August 1980 (my translation). See also the statement by the French foreign minister, Jean François-Poncet, to the French National Assembly, Débats Parlementaires de l’Assemblée Nationale, Première Session Ordinaire de 1980–81, 12 November 1980, ‘Loi des finances, deuxième partie, pour 1981’, Journal Officiel, 13 November 1980, pp. 3773–4. 11. Daily Telegraph, 2 September 1980. 12. Le Monde, 18 October 1980 (my translation). 13. Fontaine is also the author of Un Seul Lit Pour Deux Rêves: Histoire de la Détente (Paris: Fayard, 1981) and was one of France’s foremost experts on East–West relations. 14. Agence Europe bulletin, 15 September 1980. 15. Agence Europe bulletin, 27 October 1980 and 4 November 1980. The meeting in Echternach was an informal EPC meeting. No declaration was adopted. 16. Le Quotidien de Paris, 27 November 1980.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 152

152 Notes 17. Interview, Oslo, December 1992. 18. As a result of this, Poland had become the Federal Republic’s most important East European trading partner. See Constanze Ketterer, ‘German Liberalism and Foreign Policy: The FDP’s Ostpolitik under Hans Dietrich Genscher, 1974–1990’, PhD dissertation, London School of Economics, November 1994, p. 59. 19. Financial Times, 27 August 1980. 20. Financial Times, 9 August 1980. 21. Richard Portes, The Polish Crisis: Western Economic Policy Options (London: RIIA, January 1981), p. 9. Portes defines ‘refinancing’ as the issuing of ‘new loans to pay off the maturing principal obligation on an old loan’. ‘Rescheduling’ is defined as ‘the stretching out of maturities on existing loans, postponing repayments of principal and sometimes interest’. 22. Poland’s total hard currency debt at the end of 1979 was estimated at $19.4 billion. Poland was one of the first countries in the 1980s to have problems with its large foreign debt, but by the mid-1980s that debt looked small in comparison with those of Mexico and other Latin American states. 23. Portes, The Polish Crisis, op. cit., p. 27. 24. Ibid., p. 2. 25. Stephen Woolcock, Western Policies on East–West Trade (London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1982), p. 16. 26. For the economic dimension of West Germany’s Ostpolitik, see Angela Stent, From Embargo to Ostpolitik (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 27. This was no doubt helped along by the fact that the beginning of Ostpolitik coincided with the Budapest declaration of 1968 by the Warsaw Pact countries, which favoured increased trade with the West. Woolcock, Western Policies, op. cit., p. 51. 28. This was partly the result of a trade and cooperation agreement between Poland and West Germany, which was negotiated in parallel with the negotiations on the Warsaw Treaty between the two states. 29. These included some basic chemical products, intermediate metal products and machine tools. 30. Woolcock, Western Policies, op. cit., pp. 16–22; Josef Joffe, ‘The view from Bonn: the tacit alliance’, in Lincoln Gordon (ed.), Eroding Empire: Western Relations with Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1987), p. 154. 31. The following is based chiefly on Thomas Schreiber, ‘Les Relations de la France avec les pays de l’Est (1944–1980)’, Annexe, ‘Les échanges commerciales de la France avec les pays de l’Est’, La Documentation Française, 30 April 1980, pp. 93–101. 32. For an overview of French trade relations with Poland, see Assemblée Nationale, Première Session Ordinaire de 1979–1980, Rapport d’information, no. 1520, 20 December 1979. 33. Michael Clarke, ‘The debate on European security in the United Kingdom’, in Ole Waever, Pierre Lemaitre and Elzbieta Tromer (eds), European Polyphony: Perspectives Beyond East–West Confrontation (London: Macmillan, 1989), p. 130.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 153

Notes 153 34. Curtis Keeble, ‘The development of the relationship between the United Kingdom and the USSR’, Appendix A, part IV, ‘Trade relations’, para. 4.2, Second Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee, 1985–86, UK–Soviet Relations, vol. 1, HC 28-1 (London: HMSO), pp. lxxxc–cii. Two reasons are often put forward to explain the limited British trade with Eastern Europe: (1) in Britain trade was to a large extent subordinated to security interests, and (2) the British government did not offer the same political and financial support for trade with the Soviet bloc as for other European countries. Yet these can only be partial explanations. When, in 1975, in the context of the signing of an Anglo-Soviet Protocol on political consultation, the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson signed a long-term credit agreement with the Soviet Union, only a small part of the credit was used. Furthermore, the areas covered by the cOCom rules represented only about 5 per cent of trading potential with the Soviet Union. See Clarke in Waever et al., European Polyphony, op. cit.; Edwina Moreton, ‘The view from London’, in Gordon, Eroding Empire, op. cit.; Margot Light, ‘Anglo-Soviet relations: political and diplomatic’, in Alex Pravda and Peter Duncan, Soviet–British Relations since the 1970s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 120–46. 35. Sir Julian Bullard, who was political director at the Foreign Office at the time of the Polish crisis, has argued that: ‘As the internal crisis in Poland built up during the summer of 1980, the Nine were torn between a feeling that “We cannot remain silent” and a natural caution in the face of a situation so fraught with dangers.’ Bullard, ‘European Political Cooperation 1970–1990: a Tale of Two Decades’, in Power and Plenty? From the Internal Market to Political and Security Cooperation in Europe, Jean Monnet Chair Papers, The European Policy Unit at the European University Institute, Florence, 1991, p. 36. 36. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Le Pouvoir et la Vie (Paris: Compagnie 12, 1988), p. 169 (my translation). 37. Zbigniew Brzezinski, ‘Documentation. White House Diary’, Orbis, 32:1 (1988), p. 37. 38. The Polish-Americans are one of the largest ethnic groups in the United States, with an estimated 5.1 million Americans being of Polish heritage in 1972. The Polish-American Congress was founded in 1944 with the aim of ensuring Polish independence in Europe. By coincidence, two leading policy makers in Carter’s administration (Secretary of State Edmund Muskie and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski) happened to be of Polish origin. ‘Poles’, Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 787–803. For press coverage of the Polish–American links and the strikes in Poland, see Le Monde, 24 August 1980. Research does not confirm that the Poles constituted an irresistible pressure group for US foreign policy, although their presence no doubt enhanced domestic interest in events in Poland. See Stephen Garrett, ‘Eastern European ethnic groups and American foreign policy’, Political Science Quarterly, 93:2 (1978), pp. 301–27. Garrett argues that ‘Americans of East European ethnic origins have not in fact had much influence on American diplomacy toward Eastern Europe’, ibid., p. 321. 39. Agence Europe bulletin, 6 September 1980.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 154

154 Notes 40. New York Times, 12 September 1980, 10 September 1980. 41. During the Polish crisis, Britain was in the paradoxical position of having a government that defended the right for free trade unions to exist in Poland while seeking to crush them at home. See The Times, 20 August 1980, 6 September 1980. 42. Agence Europe bulletin, 14 November 1980. 43. This reflects a long-standing debate in Western states on how to deal with Eastern Europe. 44. For an account of the Soviet Union’s policy towards the Third World in the 1970s, see Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, Ni Paix ni Guerre (France: Flammarion, 1986); Fred Halliday, The Making of the Second Cold War (London: Verso, 1989). 45. ‘The Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan a fortnight later, on 27 December 1979, which followed by a few weeks the humiliating occupation by Islamic radicals of the United States embassy in Teheran, precipitated a drastic and rapid deterioration of East–West relations. The Soviet action appeared to be taken in violation of the explicit and implicit rules of conduct agreed to in the June 1972 Nixon–Brezhnev understanding which was intended to distinguish between tolerable meddling and unacceptable expansion in the Third World.’ Carl-Christoph Schweitzer (ed.), The Changing Western Analysis of the Soviet Threat (London: Pinter, 1990), p. 40. 46. Excerpts of the interview are published in ‘Documentation. Crisis in Afghanistan. Interview with President Carter, 31 December 1979’, Survival, 22:2 (1980), p. 68. 47. US sanctions after Afghanistan included deferring the ratification of the SALT II Treaty, limiting sales of high technology and strategic items to the USSR, an embargo on the 17 million tons of grain ordered by the USSR, and boycotting the Olympic Games in Moscow in 1980. See ‘Statement by President Carter, 4 January 1980’, Survival, 22:4 (1980), pp. 66–8. For an assessment of the impact of Afghanistan on superpower relations, see William Griffith, ‘Superpower relations after Afghanistan’, and Zalmay Khalilzad, ‘Afghanistan and the crisis in American Foreign Policy’, Survival, 22:4 (1980), pp. 146–51, 151–9. 48. See, for example, the French government’s refusal to boycott the Olympic games in Moscow, in Débats Parlementaires de l’Assemblée Nationale, seconde session ordinaire de 1979–1980, ‘Questions au Gouvernement’, 28 May 1980, Journal Officiel, 29 May 1980, pp. 1334–42. 49. Stanley Sloan, ‘Crisis in NATO: A Problem of Leadership?’ NATO Review, 3 (1982), p. 15. See also Stanley Sloan, NATO’s Future: Toward a Transatlantic Bargain (London: Macmillan, 1986). 50. Ernst van Der Beugel, ‘After Afghanistan’, Survival, 22:6 (1980), p. 247. 51. For the French government’s defence of continued East–West détente, see ‘Déclaration du gouvernement sur sa politique etrangère’ (Foreign Minister Jean-François Poncet), Débats Parlementaires de l’Assemblée Nationale, seconde session ordinaire de 1979–1980, 17 April 1980, Journal Officiel, 18 April 1980, pp. 476–7. 52. Interview, Glasgow, June 1996. 53. H.-G. Wieck, ‘The future of East–West relations’, NATO Review, 6 (1981), p. 18.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 155

Notes 155 54. ‘Témoignages et interventions’, in Samy Cohen and Marie-Claude Smouts (eds), La Politique Extérieure de Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1985), pp. 63–7; Gabriel Robin, La Diplomatie de Mitterrand (Paris: Editions la Bièvre, 1985), p. 66. Robin was a technical adviser at the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic from 1974 to 1979, and then director of political affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs until 1981. 55. Giscard d’Estaing, Le Pouvoir op. cit., pp. 132–6. 56. Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (London: Collins, 1982), pp. 112–13; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1983), pp. 25–6. 57. Phillippe Moreau Defarges, Les Relations Internationales Dans le Monde d’Aujourd’hui (Paris: Editions STH, 1987), p. 109. 58. The neutron bomb controversy is also cited by Giscard d’Estaing as an important cause of distrust between Schmidt and Carter: ‘la perte de confiance d’Helmut Schmidt dans l’administration Carter a été definitive’, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Le Pouvoir et la Vie. II. L’affrontement (Paris: Compagnie 12, 1991), pp. 132–5. For a discussion of alliance politics and the neutron bomb, see Sherri Wassermann, The Neutron Bomb Controversy (New York: Praeger, 1983). 59. Richard Woyke, ‘A Crisis in US/West European Relations?’, NATO Review, 5 (October 1981), p. 15. 60. Interview, London, September 1994. 61. The Eurogroup consisted of the European members of NATO’s integrated military organisation. Thus, France was not a member. Agence Europe bulletin, 12 May 1980, 14 May 1980. 62. Agence Europe bulletin, 25 June 1980. For a discussion of the G7 summit in Venice, see Robert Putnam and Nicholas Bayne, Hanging Together: Cooperation and Conflict in the Seven-Power Summits (London: Sage, 1987), pp. 221–6. 63. The Ottawa Declaration was signed in Brussels on 26 June 1974. See Pierre Gerbet, La Construction de l’Europe (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1983), p. 428. 64. Reinhardt Rummel, ‘Coordination of the West’s Crisis Diplomacy’, Aussenpolitik, 31:2 (1980), p. 124. 65. Financial Times, 9 August 1980. 66. International Herald Tribune, 29 August 1980. 67. Le Monde, 29 August 1980 (my translation). 68. Guardian, 30 October 1980. 69. Telegram from Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher to the US Embassy in London. ‘Presidential letter on Poland’, 1 September 1980. The letter from the US president was sent to Thatcher, Giscard and Schmidt in August 1980. 70. Portes, The Polish Crisis, op. cit., p. 34. 71. Guardian, 27 November 1980. 72. US Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on European Affairs, 97th Congress, second session, ‘The Polish Economy and Poland’s International Debt: Implications for US Foreign Policy’, January 1982; International Herald Tribune, 4 September 1980; Agence Europe bulletin, 9 September 1980. See also Brzezinski, ‘Documentation’, op. cit., p. 32.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 156

156 Notes 73. Agence Europe bulletin, 6 September 1980. Several documents have now been released that reveal the deliberations by the US administration on how to respond to the Polish debt issue in the early days of the crisis. See, for example, ‘Memorandum for Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski. The White House. Subject: CCC for Poland’, 10 September 1980; memorandum, 13 October 1980, US Department of State, ‘What actions the United States should take in response to Poland’s economic and financial crisis and its $3 billion-plus aid request to the US’; minutes of Policy Review Committee, ‘Economic assistance to Poland’, 5 November 1980. 74. Agence Europe bulletin, 29 August 1980. 75. International Herald Tribune, 29–30 November 1980. 76. Financial Times, 21 October 1980. 77. Portes, The Polish Crisis, op. cit., p. 28. See also ‘Poland, the USSR and the West’, Background Paper, House of Commons Library, 5 December 1980, p. 10. 78. Portes, The Polish Crisis, op cit., p. 28. 79. International Herald Tribune, 29 August 1980. 80. Agence Europe bulletin, 15 October 1980. 81. Agence Europe bulletin, 11 September 1980. 82. Giscard had, without consulting his allies, met with Brezhnev in Warsaw in May 1980 to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. The reasons for his visit are outlined by Foreign Minister François-Poncet in ‘Déclaration du gouvernement sur la rencontre de Varsovie’, Débats Parlementaires de l’Assemblée Nationale, Seconde Session Ordinaire de 1979–1980, 21 May 1980, Journal Officiel, 22 May 1980, pp. 1124–7. 83. Agence Europe bulletin, 26 June 1980. 84. Guardian, 25 October 1980. 85. Edward Gierek was replaced by Stanislaw Kania in early September 1980. 86. Agence Europe bulletin, 29 October 1980. 87. Guardian, 22 November 1980. 88. Memorandum to Brzezinski from Stephen Larrabee, ‘SCC on Poland’, 22 September 1980. 89. Special Coordination Committee, ‘Meeting on Poland’, Summary of Conclusions, 23 September, 1980. 90. Brzezinski, ‘Documentation’, op. cit., p. 33, emphasis added. 91. Ibid., p. 34. 92. Norman Davies, Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 433.

3 Balancing Democracy and Security 1. Telegram from US Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher to all diplomatic posts, ‘Poland: current assessment and policy guidance’, 6 December 1980. 2. Ibid. 3. Telegram from Warren Christopher to the US Embassy in London transmitting the text of President Carter’s letter on the Polish situation to Thatcher and Giscard, Schmidt, 2 December 1980.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 157

Notes 157 4. London Press Service, 3 December 1980, text of the Presidency’s conclusions on East–West relations issued on 2 December 1980 after the European Council meeting in Luxembourg. 5. London Press Service, 2 December 1980. 6. NATO Press Service, 12 December 1980. 7. Telegram from US Secretary of State Muskie to US Mission to NATO, ‘Poland–NATO procedures’, 24 September 1980; US Secretary of State Muskie to US Embassy Paris, ‘The Secretary’s meeting with French Ambassador’, 10 December 1980; US Delegation Secretary in Brussels to US Secretary of State Muskie, ‘Evening reading Quad dinner’, 11 December 1980; US Secretary of State Muskie to all NATO capitals, ‘NAC discussion on Polish measures’, 17 December 1980. 8. Japan Times, 9 April 1981. 9. Thomas Cynkin, Soviet and American Signalling in the Polish Crisis (London: Macmillan, 1988), p. 74. Several of these are also confirmed in telegrams between the US Mission to NATO and the Secretary of State in 1980–81. See, in particular, ‘Poland: contingency planning in NATO’ (from US Mission to NATO), ‘Military Committee recommendations on Poland’ (from US Mission) and ‘Guidance on Poland contingencies’ (from Secretary of State Muskie), all telegrams sent on 4 December 1980. Similar information was provided in interviews in London in September 1994. 10. International Herald Tribune, 10 December 1980. This must be considered an important diplomatic signal. AWACS were indispensable instruments in times of war and a US sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia caused a heated debate in the United States in 1981. For excerpts from this discussion, see ‘Documentation. The AWACS Debate’, Survival, 24:1 (1982), pp. 37–42. See also Arnold Lee Tessmer, Politics of Compromise: NATO and AWACS (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1988). 11. NATO press release, 10 December 1980. 12. Lincoln Gordon, ‘Interests and policies in Eastern Europe: the view from Washington’, in Lincoln Gordon (ed.), Eroding Empire: Western Relations with Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1987), p. 123. 13. See, for example, Le Monde, 12–13 April 1981 ( Jean-François Poncet, French Foreign Minister under Giscard d’Estaing); Le Monde, 9 June 1981 (Claude Cheysson, French Foreign Minister under Mitterrand); International Herald Tribune, 7 April 1981 (Ronald Reagan); Financial Times, 3 April 1981 (US administration); interview with Lord Carrington on National Public Radio in Washington, 27 February 1981, London Press Service, 3 March 1981; ‘Déclaration de politique générale du Gouvernement’ (Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy), Débats Parlementaires de l’Assemblée Nationale, session de droit en application de l’article 12 de la Constitution, quatrième séance, 8 July 1981, Journal Officiel, 9 September 1981, p. 54. 14. Guardian, 9 April 1981. 15. North Atlantic Council, Rome, 4–5 May 1981. Text published in NATO. Final Communiques, 1981–85 (Brussels: NATO Information Service), pp. 25–29. 16. Japan Times, 9 April 1981 (statement by Lord Carrington). See also Zbigniew Brzezinski, ‘White House Diary, 1980’, Orbis, 32:1 (1988), p. 32; Alexander Haig, Caveat: Realism, Reagan and Foreign Policy (New York:

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 158

158 Notes

17.

18. 19. 20.

21.

22.

23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28.

29. 30.

31. 32.

Macmillan, 1984), pp. 241–2; Gordon, ‘Interests and policies’, op. cit., p. 119. Interviews, London, September and December 1994. Agence Europe bulletin, 18 February 1981. See also ‘European Political Cooperation’, Bulletin of the European Communities, 14:2 (1981), section 2.2.45. Financial Times, 31 March 1981. Le Monde, 8–9 February 1981 (my translation). Le Monde, 7 February 1981. See also ‘Declaration on Poland’, Maastricht European Council, Bulletin of the European Communities, 14:3 (1981), section 1.1.13. Guardian, 9 April 1981. This corresponds with the view that Thatcher’s government ‘made EPC the main plank of its contribution to the European Community’. Christopher Hill, ‘Britain: a convenient schizophrenia’, in Christopher Hill (ed.), National Foreign Policies and European Political Cooperation (London: George Allan & Unwin, 1983), p. 22. Neil Ascherson, The Polish August: The Self-Limiting Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982), p. 211; Timothy Garton Ash, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity 1980–81 (London: Granta, 1991), p. 94. Ascherson, The Polish August, op. cit., p. 206. See, for example, Financial Times, 1 December 1980; The Times, 3 December 1980; New York Times, 5 December 1980. Brzezinski, ‘White House Diary’, op. cit, p. 34; Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (London: Collins, 1982), p. 584. For the minutes of this meeting (which decided against military intervention despite strong pressure from Erich Honecker), see Cold War International History Project. Bulletin, 11 (Winter 1998). For details of the ‘Narozniak affair’, see Ascherson, The Polish August, op. cit., pp. 204–8; Garton Ash, The Polish Revolution, op. cit., pp. 88–93. There are a number of documents on this issue; for example, US Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, ‘Soviet Communist Party Member’s Views on Polish crisis’, 22 October 1980; US Defense Intelligence Agency, Information Report, ‘CGF-CSLA Status – Polish situation’, 8 December 1980; CIA National Intelligence Estimate, ‘Poland’s prospects over the next six months’, January 1981; US Defense Intelligence Agency, Information Report, ‘Weekend of 28–29 March Ominous for Poland’, 27 March 1981. Brzezinski, ‘White House Diary’, op. cit., p. 34. Carter, Keeping Faith, op. cit., p. 584. It should be added that in the last year of Carter’s presidency, his administration was considerably weakened by the Iranian hostage crisis. There is no doubt that this event constituted a drain on resources and limited the time that the Carter administration had to deal with the Polish crisis. See Barry Rubin, Secrets of State: The State Department and the Struggle over US Foreign Policy (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), particularly p. 197. Special Coordination Committee Meeting and National Security Council Meeting, 7 December 1980, ‘Summary of Conclusions’. Telegram from US Mission NATO to Secretary of State Muskie, ‘Political committee discussion of possible Soviet intervention’, 9 December 1980; Interview, Oslo, December 1992.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 159

Notes 159 33. Mark Kramer, ‘Poland, 1980–81. Soviet policy during the Polish crisis’, in Cold War International History Project. Bulletin, 5 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Spring 1995), pp. 116–39. This article is based on documents released by the Soviet Union and East Germany after the end of the Cold War. See also International Herald Tribune, 11 January 1993, for references to similar findings from the archives of the East German Communist Party. 34. Richard D. Anderson, ‘Soviet decision-making and Poland’, Problems of Communism, March–April 1982, pp. 22–36. Similar statements are presented in Minton F. Goldman ‘Soviet policy toward the turmoil in Poland during the fall of 1980’, East European Quarterly, 20:3 (1986), pp. 335–57; André Gerrits, ‘Limits of influence: the Kremlin and the Polish crisis 1980–81’, Bulletin of Peace Proposals, 19:2 (1988), pp. 231–9. 35. See Kramer, Poland, op. cit., see also Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, 20 February 1981, pp. 30721–2; Goldman, ‘Soviet policy’, op. cit., p. 351; Richard Weitz, ‘Soviet Decision-Making and the Polish Crisis’, East European Quarterly, 22:2 (1988), p. 193. 36. Michael Kubina, ‘Moscow’s man in the SED Politburo and the crisis in Poland in Autumn of 1980’, Cold War International History Project. Bulletin, 11 (Winter 1998) (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars), pp. 90–5. 37. Brzezinski, ‘White House Diary’, op. cit., p. 39. 38. Ibid., p. 41. 39. International Herald Tribune, 10 December 1980. See also Guardian, 10 December 1980. 40. Three different scenarios are referred to: Soviet military intervention, intervention with resistance from the Polish armed forces, and Soviet intervention on Polish invitation. Telegram, ‘Soviet estimates on Polish intervention forces’, 4 November 1980. 41. Brzezinski, ‘White House Diary’, op. cit., p. 39; Carter, Keeping Faith, op. cit., p. 584. Carter writes that ‘fifteen or twenty divisions’ were ready to move into Poland. Brzezinski refers to a message from Stan Turner (CIA Director) that 18 Soviet divisions would enter Poland on 7 December 1980. 42. Jiri Valenta, ‘Soviet options in Poland’, Survival, 23:2 (1981), pp. 50–9. Valenta also notes that the following moves were made by the Warsaw Pact countries: Soviet military commanders in Czechoslovakia were recalled to Moscow in early December; a series of unannounced, ad hoc, bilateral Soviet meetings took place over the Polish crisis; and other Warsaw Pact countries, particularly East Germany, stepped up their public campaign against Solidarity. Valenta argues that these initiatives were similar to Warsaw Pact moves before the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. 43. For a translation of several messages sent by Kuklinski to the US authorities, see Mark Kramer, ‘Colonel Kuklinski and the Polish crisis, 1980–81’, Cold War International History Project. Bulletin, 11 (Winter 1998), pp. 59–60. 44. ‘Documentation. Special Report: Poland in Crisis, 1980–81’, Orbis, 32:1 (1988), pp. 14–15. 45. Telegram from US Embassy in Belgrade to Secretary of State Muskie, ‘Polish diplomat suggests possibility of martial law in Poland’, 30 January 1981; Secretary of State Muskie to US Embassy in Warsaw, ‘Martial law and

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 160

160 Notes

46.

47. 48. 49. 50.

51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62.

the Kania government’, 15 September 1981; US Embassy in Warsaw to Secretary of State Haig, ‘Martial law – an unpromising option’, 19 September 1981; information memorandum to the Secretary of State from Ronald Spiers, ‘Polish resistance to Soviet intervention’, 15 June 1981; US defense intelligence appraisal, ‘Poland: martial law’, 4 November 1981. Cold War International History Project. Bulletin (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, Spring 1995), pp. 1, 50–6. Several other observers have argued that the Polish army could not be relied upon to remain passive in the face of an external intervention. See Valenta, ‘Soviet options’, op. cit., particularly p. 53; Dale Hesping and Ivan Volgyes, ‘How reliable are East European armies?’, Survival, 22:5 (1980), pp. 208–18; Karen Dawisha, Eastern Europe, Gorbachev and Reform: The Great Challenge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 100, 106. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of a National Security Adviser (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1983), p. 467. Haig, Caveat, op. cit., p. 240. Ibid., p. 239. Memorandum, US Department of State, 13 October 1980. On US objectives in Poland it says ‘We have a number of objectives in the Polish crisis which may not be wholly compatible.’ Philippe Moreau Defarges, Les Relations Internationales dans le Monde d’Aujourd’hui (Paris: Editions STH, 1987), p. 109. Le Monde, 4 December 1980. Agence Europe bulletin, 29 January 1981. Interview with Reagan in Figaro magazine, 20 February 1981, quoted in Agence Europe bulletin, 21 February 1981. In his first press conference, Reagan stated that ‘so far, détente has been a one-way street that the Soviet Union has used to pursue its own aims . . . the promotion of world revolution and a one world socialist or communist state’ . . . He also argued that, in order to further this cause, the Soviets ‘reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat’. ‘Documentation. The Reagan administration and superpower relations’, Survival, 23:3 (1981), pp. 129–30. Gordon, ‘Interests and Policies’, op. cit., p. 123; see also Haig, Caveat, op. cit., pp. 111–16. Quoted in the International Herald Tribune, 13 February 1981. ‘The West Europeans did not view détente as a quid pro quo formula, wherein trade is considered a concession requiring political rewards. In Europe, the interlocking East–West interdependence was designed to create a generally harmonious politico-military environment in which Polish liberation was not the crucial objective.’ David William Hunter, ‘Western Trade Pressure on the Soviet Union: An interdependence perspective on sanctions’, PhD dissertation, London School of Economics, 1988, p. 142. For the full text of the interview see Le Monde, 29 January 1981. See also his memoirs, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Le Pouvoir et la Vie (Paris: Compagnie 12, 1988), pp. 168–72. Agence Europe bulletin, 22 November 1980. Robert Putnam and Nicholas Bayne, Hanging Together: Cooperation and Conflict in the Seven-Power Summits (London: Sage, 1987), p. 126–40. See also

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 161

Notes 161

63.

64.

65. 66. 67.

68.

69. 70.

71. 72. 73. 74.

75.

Jack Brougher, ‘1979–82: The US uses trade to penalize Soviet aggression and seeks to reorder Western policy’, pp. 419–53 of a study prepared for the use of the Joint Economic Committee, US Congress, 31 December 1982, 97th Congress. See, for example, Samuel Pisar, Coexistence and Commerce: Guidelines for Transactions Between East and West (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1970). Pisar’s work is said to have influenced President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s views on East–West trade. For a discussion of the question of East–West trade and the utility of sanctions in East–West relations, see Philip Hanson, Western Economic Statecraft in East–West Relations (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1988); Stephen Woolcock, Western Policies on East–West Trade (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982); Robert O’Neill (ed.), The Conduct of East–West Relations in the 1980s (London: Macmillan 1985). Strategic Survey 1982–1983 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1983), p. 31. Woolcock, Western Policies, op. cit., p. 79. On France’s commitment to East–West trade see Pierre Hassner, ‘Les mots et les choses’, in Samy Cohen and Marie-Claude Smouts (eds), La Politique Extérieure de Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1985), pp. 232–41. Constanze Ketterer, ‘German Liberalism and Foreign Policy: the FDP’s Ostpolitik under Hans-Dietrich Genscher, 1974–1990’, PhD dissertation, London School of Economics, 1994, p. 59. Hunter, Western Trade Pressure, op. cit., p. 72. Telegram from Secretary of State Muskie to US Embassy in Bonn, ‘Poland: Nato contingency planning and the FRG’, 19 December 1980; telegram from Christopher to US Embassy in Bonn, ‘Poland alliance military measures’, 21 January 1981; telegram from Assistant Secretary of State Eagleburger to US Embassy in Bonn, ‘Berlin: UK proposal in Bonn group on Polish contingency study’, 7 March 1981. Interview, London, September 1994. Quoted in Josef Joffe, The Limited Partnership: Europe, the United States and the Burdens of Alliance (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1987), p. 19. Kevin Ruane, The Polish Challenge (London: BBC, 1982), pp. 76–7. See Richard Portes, The Polish Crisis: Western Economic Policy Options (London: RIIA, January 1981); Garton Ash, The Polish Revolution, op. cit., pp. 338–45. Both argue that a concerted and coordinated Western programme of economic aid could have helped to ensure stability in Poland, thus providing fertile ground for reforms. For this argument see the US Congress debates on Poland, for example, ‘Developments in Europe’, US Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, 97th Congress, Second Session, 9 February 1982. Cynkin argues that the United States should have used the threat of a Polish default as a bargaining chip with the Soviet Union. Cynkin, Soviet and American Signalling, op. cit., p. 221. Gati takes a different view: he criticises the notion that a massive economic aid programme could have made a difference and argues that an economic policy of complete denial was unrealistic. Still, he

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 162

162 Notes

76. 77.

78. 79.

80. 81. 82. 83.

84.

85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92.

93. 94.

95. 96.

97.

comes down on the side of those favouring a strengthening of US sanctions on Eastern Europe. Charles Gati, ‘Polish futures, Western options’, Foreign Affairs, 61:2 (1982), pp. 292–309. Interview, London, September 1994. It must, of course, be added that if a Soviet or Warsaw Pact military intervention had taken place, it would not only have caused a human disaster but would also have seriously destabilised the European continent. Consequently, it was important to seek to prevent it. Haig, Caveat, op. cit., p. 247. This figure is quoted in several sources. See London Press Service, 3 December 1980; Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, 20 February 1981. p. 30717; Strategic Survey: 1981–82 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1982), p. 58. See ‘Letter from the President’, op. cit. Le Monde, 27 February 1981. International Herald Tribune, 7 January 1981. For US assessments of the debt issue see ‘Polish debt negotiations’, draft memorandum to the Vice President from the US State Department, 15 April 1981; ‘Poland: rescheduling and financing gap’, memorandum, Department of State, 12 March 1981. Progress on the debt negotiations was reported in the Financial Times on 22 January 1981, 12 and 24 February 1981, 31 March 1981 and 1 April 1981. See also ‘Poland – the continuing crisis’, Background Paper, no. 97, House of Commons Library, 23 November 1981, pp. 4–7. US Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on European Affairs, 97th Congress, second session, ‘The Polish economy and Poland’s international debt: implications for US foreign policy’, 27 January 1982, pp. 11–12; Financial Times, 28 April 1981. Financial Times, 30 April 1981. Peter Montagnon ‘Rescheduling Polish debt. More than money at stake’, Financial Times, 22 June 1981. International Herald Tribune, 22 May 1981. Financial Times, 6 March 1981. Financial Times, 1 April 1981; Le Monde, 17 April 1981. Financial Times, 26 June 1981. Financial Times, 30 July 1981; Guardian, 26 August 1981. Financial Times, 1 October 1981. The agreement had also been delayed by the insistence of US banks that Poland should be charged penalty interest rates. ‘Poland. Foreign economic assistance’, Keesings Contemporary Archives, 4 December 1981, p. 3122. Guardian, 5 December 1981. International Herald Tribune, 20 November 1981. Towards the end of November it was reported that new negotiations had started for Poland’s debt for 1982. Financial Times, 21 November 1981. Agence Europe bulletin, 3 and 4 December 1980. Agence Europe bulletin, 25 March 1981; ‘Poland to receive food supplies from the Community’, Bulletin of the European Communities, 13:12 (1980), sections 1.2.1–1.26. Agence Europe bulletin, 8–9 December 1980, p. 5.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 163

Notes 163 98. It is interesting to note that the Polish government was dealing directly with the EC despite the fact that it had not officially recognised its existence. Official recognition of the EC by the Comecon countries only came in 1988. 99. This estimate depended on the world market prices at the time of payment. 100. Agence Europe bulletin, 23–4 February 1981. 101. Agence Europe bulletin, 25 March 1981. 102. Agence Europe bulletin, 25 March 1981. See also ‘Supply of agricultural products to Poland’, Bulletin of the European Communities, 14:5 (1981), section 2.1.62. 103. Agence Europe bulletin, 3 October 1981. See also ‘Supply of food products to Poland’, Bulletin of the European Communities, 14:10 (1981), section 2.1.94. 104. Agence Europe bulletin, 2 April 1981. See also the European Parliament’s resolution, urging member states to eliminate the problems that were hampering the rapid supply of food aid to Poland. ‘Institutions and organs of the Communities’, Bulletin of the European Communities, 14:4 (1981), section 2.3.13. 105. Agence Europe bulletin, 5 March 1981. 106. Agence Europe bulletin, 18 September 1981. 107. Agence Europe bulletin, 16 April 1981, 15 May 1981. 108. Memorandum to the President from Secretary of State Alexander Haig, ‘Poland economic situation comes to a head’, 3 January 1981. Here, Haig does not recommend new CCC credits. This is in line with a memorandum from Brzezinski to Secretary of State Muskie on 18 November 1980, which states that the President decided to prepare for the full rescheduling of Poland’s hard currency debt in 1980 but not to make any new financial commitments to Poland. See also memorandum from George Vest to Muskie, ‘Economic assistance to Poland’, 7 November 1980. 109. Agence Europe bulletin, 29 October 1981. 110. Agence Europe bulletin, 5 December 1981.

4 After Martial Law 1. Kevin Ruane, The Polish Challenge (London: BBC, 1982), p. 277. 2. Still, in comparison with other East European countries, the Polish regime was relatively liberal. See, for example, Karen Dawisha, Eastern Europe, Gorbachev and Reform: The Great Challenge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 3. Alexander Haig, Caveat: Realism, Reagan and Foreign Policy (New York: Macmillan, 1984), p. 247. This was also confirmed in interviews in Oslo in December 1992 and London in September 1994. See also Vojtech Mastny, ‘The Soviet non-invasion of Poland in 1980–81 and the end of the Cold War’, Working Paper no. 23, Cold War International History Project. Bulletin (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, September 1998). He writes that ‘Unlike previously, this time the US government misjudged entirely what was happening’ (ibid., p. 28). 4. Christopher Hill and James Mayall, ‘The Sanctions Problem: International

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 164

164 Notes

5.

6. 7. 8.

9. 10.

11. 12.

13.

14.

15.

and European Perspectives’, EUI Working Paper no. 59, Florence, July 1983, p. 17. According to several US memos, the US administration thought that Soviet intervention was still possible. See ‘Draft paper – strategy on Poland: next steps vs. the USSR’, 26 January 1982; memorandum from Lawrence Eagleburger to the Secretary of State, ‘Consultation with the Allies on Poland’, 18 December 1982; ‘Poland – the next thirty days’, memorandum to the Secretary of State from Allen Holmes, 8 January 1982. Pierre Hassner, ‘Le Deuil sied à l’Europe’, Esprit, April 1982, p. 12 (my translation). Thomas M. Cynkin, Soviet and American Signalling in the Polish Crisis (London: Macmillan, 1988), p. 181. ‘Das war psychische Folter’, Der Spiegel, 11 May 1992, pp. 181–94. Interestingly, Jaruzelski appears to have been relatively successful in convincing his compatriots of his position. An opinion poll conducted in October 1992 indicated that 59 per cent of Poles thought the imposition of martial law was a ‘patriotic act’. Aftenposten, 29 August 1993. Wojciech Jaruzelski, ‘Commentary’, Cold War International History Project. Bulletin, 11 (1998), pp. 32–9. Mark Kramer, ‘Jaruzelsi, the Soviet Union, and the imposition of martial law in Poland: new light on the mystery of December 1981’, Cold War International History Project. Bulletin, 11 (1998), pp. 5–31. See also Le Monde, ‘Les Soviétiques ont refusé d’intervenir en Pologne en décembre 1981’, 30 August 1993; ‘Uncle Boris big surprise’, Newsweek, 6 September 1993; Aftenposten, 29 August 1993 on documents brought to Poland by Boris Jeltsin in 1993. Similar arguments were put forward by Soviet General Gribkov and Soviet Foreign Minister Ustinov. See Der Spiegel, 11 May 1992. See also Mark Kramer, ‘Soviet deliberations during the Polish crisis, 1980–81’, Cold War International History Project, Special Working Paper no. 1 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, April 1999). Mastny, ‘The Soviet non-invasion’, op. cit., p. 32. Ruane, The Polish Challenge, op. cit., p. 293. For a similar perspective, see André Gerrits, ‘Limits of Influence: The Kremlin and the Polish Crisis 1980–81’, Bulletin of Peace Proposals, 19:2 (1988), pp. 231–9. Garton Ash writes: ‘That the experiment would fail was, from the outset, probable, but not inevitable’. Timothy Garton Ash, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity 1980–81 (London: Granta, 1991), p. 299. He also points to the inconsistent position of those who considered that Solidarity had gone ‘too far’, and points out that they often tended to argue that change in Poland was impossible from the outset. Quoted in Gabriel Robin, La Diplomatie de Mitterrand, (France: Éditions la Bièvre, 1985), p. 38; and in Pierre Hassner, ‘The View from Paris’, in Lincoln Gordon (ed.), Eroding Empire: Western Relations with Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1987), p. 208. Mitterrand is quoted by Mauroy in Débats Parlementaires de l’Assemblée Nationale, Première Session Ordinaire de 1981–82, seconde séance de 16 décembre 1981, Journal Officiel, 17 December 1981, p. 4991. See also Financial Times, 17 December 1981.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 165

Notes 165 16. See Le Monde, 15 December 1981, and Financial Times, 15 December 1981, for domestic protests about the French government’s position. 17. Financial Times, 18 December 1981. 18. ‘Government statement on Poland’, Hansard, 14 December 1981, cols 19–25; ‘Polen’, Hansard, 22 December 1981, cols 933–61. See also Financial Times, 23 December 1981. 19. Financial Times, 14 December 1981. 20. Le Monde, 20–21 December 1981. 21. In his memoirs, Schmidt also expresses his relief that the turning point in Poland came with martial law rather than military intervention. Helmut Schmidt, Die Deutschen und ihre Nachbarn: Menschen und Mächte II (Berlin: Siedler, 1990). 22. Guardian, 14 December 1981. 23. After their meeting the foreign ministers issued a statement on Poland, but this contained little new, beyond stating that they were greatly concerned about the situation. ‘The Community and Poland’, Bulletin of the European Communities, 14:12 (1981), sections 1.4.1–1.4.6. Nuttall argues that it was unfortunate that an EPC meeting was scheduled so soon after the imposition of martial law because it allowed the foreign ministers almost no time to prepare for the discussions. Simon Nuttall, European Political Cooperation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 200. 24. International Herald Tribune, 18 December 1981, 19–20 December 1981. 25. International Herald Tribune, 15 December 1981. 26. Guardian, 22 December 1981; Financial Times, 22 December 1981. 27. Guardian, 22 December 1981; Le Monde, 23 December 1981. See also ‘Developments in Europe’, US Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, 97th Congress, second session, 9 February 1982, particularly p. 34. 28. Financial Times, 22 December 1981, 23 December 1981. 29. See, for example, ‘Eagleburger–Genscher meeting on Poland’, telegram to the Secretary of State from Eagleburger, 22 December 1981. 30. Various options considered by the US administration can be found in ‘Draft paper – strategy on Poland: next step vs. The USSR, op. cit., and ‘State comments on proposed measures to be taken against the Soviet Union’, miscellaneous document, 27 December 1981. 31. ‘We have been pushing in Nato and bilaterally for a firm response which pins the blame on Moscow as well as Warsaw’. Lawrence Eagleburger, ‘Memorandum for the President on Poland, and next steps with the Allies’, op. cit., and ‘Influencing European attitudes on Poland: memorandum for the President’, 26 December 1981. 32. Memorandum from Secretary of State Alexander Haig to President Reagan, ‘Your meeting with Chancellor Schmidt’, 5 January 1982. 33. ‘Developments in Europe’, US Congress, House of Representatives, 9 February 1982, op. cit., Appendix 4, ‘Summary of US Measures vis-a-vis Poland and the USSR’, pp. 42–3. 34. ‘The US and Poland: A report on the current situation in Poland after the declaration of martial law’, Appendix D, presidential statement, US

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 166

166 Notes

35.

36. 37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43. 44.

45.

Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on the Budget, 97th Congress, second session, April 1982, p. 19. Reagan’s 23 December speech can be found in Appendix C, pp. 16–18. See also Le Monde, 31 December 1981, for the United States’ reaction to martial law. ‘Developments in Europe’, US Congress, House of Representatives, 9 February 1982, op. cit., Appendix 4. See also Financial Times, 30 December 1981. ‘Allied Measures in Response to US Sanctions’, US Congress, House of Representatives, 9 February 1982, op. cit., Appendix 5, pp. 44–5. Telegrams from US Embassy in Bonn to Secretary of State: ‘Poland: updating measures – the FRG’, 5 January 1982; and ‘Chancellor Schmidt and sanctions’, 15 January 1982. Rakowski met with Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher in Bonn. Genscher refers to this meeting in his memoirs but does not indicate whether Rakowski threw new light on the Polish government’s intentions. Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Erinnerungen (Berlin: Siedler Verlag, 1995), p. 267. For references to Rakowski’s visit, see International Herald Tribune, 30 December 1981; Le Monde, 31 December 1981. This contrasts with the situation after Afghanistan, when French President Giscard was the principal dissenter in the alliance. He took off for a meeting with Brezhnev in Warsaw with little prior consultation with his allies. On the other hand Schmidt, before his meeting with Brezhnev in Moscow in June 1980, ensured that his allies, particularly the United States, were well informed and in agreement with his actions. For excerpts of Schmidt’s comments on Afghanistan, see ‘Speech by Chancellor Schmidt, Moscow 30 June 1980’, Survival, 22:5 (1980), p. 223. Haig, Caveat, op. cit., p. 254. The lack of consultation is confirmed by Eagleburger (US Congress, 9 February 1982, op. cit., pp. 33–4): ‘if we had decided to consult in detail in advance of the decision, I suspect that we would still be at it. . . . There was warning. There was not, in the classical sense of the term, consultation.’ Débats Parlementaires de l’Assemblée Nationale, première session extraordinaire de 1981–2, troisième séance, 23 décembre 1981, Journal Officiel, 24 December 1981, p. 5403 (my translation). In general, President Mitterrand took a more confrontational approach to East–West relations than his predecessor, Giscard d’Estaing. For example, in a speech to the German Bundestag in January 1983 he stated that ‘Les missiles sont à l’Est et les pacifistes à l’Ouest’. [The missiles are in the East and the pacifists in the West (my translation)]. See Diana Johnstone, The Politics of Euromissiles (London: Verso, 1984), p. 84. Mitterrand’s support for the zero option is also outlined in François Mitterrand, Réflexions sur la Politique Extérieure de la France (Paris: Fayard, 1986), p. 234, and Ici et Maintenant: Conversations avec Guy Clarisse (Paris: Fayard, 1980). Le Monde, 6 January 1982 (my translation). ‘The Community and Poland’, Bulletin of the European Communities, 14:12 (1981), sections 1.4.1–1.4.6 (includes the text of the final communiqué of the foreign ministers’ meeting on 4 January 1981). International Herald Tribune, 30 December 1981; Guardian, 30 December 1981. As a compromise, an informal meeting of political directors accom-

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 167

Notes 167

46. 47.

48.

49. 50. 51.

52. 53.

54.

55.

56.

57. 58. 59.

60. 61.

panied by economic advisers was held on 30 December. Nuttall, European Political Cooperation, op. cit., p. 201. In the case of Greece, there was disagreement on substance. Greece also refused to adhere to the NATO declaration on Poland on 11 January 1982. Le Monde, 6 January 1982; Financial Times, 5 January 1982. See also Robin, La Diplomatie, op. cit., pp. 36–7. In fact, France continued its credit for the purchase of food after martial law. France’s commitment to food aid and its refusal to impose sanctions on Poland is confirmed in a response to a parliamentary question in April 1982. See ‘Questions orales au gouvernement’, Débats Parlementaires de l’Assemblée Nationale, seconde session ordinaire de 1981–2, 16 avril 1982, Journal Officiel, 17 April 1981, pp. 1180–2. Helmut Schmidt confirms his fundamental disagreement with Reagan over sanctions in Men and Power: A Political Retrospective (London: Jonathan Cape, 1990), pp. 251–62. See quotes from Haig after his meeting with Schmidt in the Guardian, 7 January 1982. Interviews, London, September 1994. ‘Special ministerial session of the North Atlantic Council 11th January, 1982. Declaration on events in Poland’, NATO press release, M-1(82)1, 11 January 1982. Guardian, 13 December 1982; Le Monde, 13 December 1982. For Schmidt’s own account of the meeting, see Helmut Schmidt, Die Deutschen, op. cit., p. 295, where he underlines the fundamental convergence of his own and Mitterrand’s perspectives on martial law and sanctions. Financial Times, 1–2 February 1982. Further sanctions were introduced on 17 February. They included postponement of the negotiations on a science and technological agreement and more restrictive interpretations of cooperation agreements between West Germany and the Soviet Union. Financial Times. 6 February 1982. The full list of British sanctions is presented in ‘Developments in Europe’, US Congress, House of Representatives, 9 February 1982, Appendix 5. ‘External relations. State trading countries’, Bulletin of the European Communities, 15:3 (1982). A regulation limiting imports from the Soviet Union into the EC was imposed on 15 March 1982. Sixty products, representing 8 per cent of EC imports from the Soviet Union, would be reduced by 25 per cent or 50 per cent. International Herald Tribune, 12 March 1982. Financial Times, 15 January 1982; International Herald Tribune, 13 January 1982. Henrik Larsen, ‘Discourse analysis and foreign policy: the impact of the concepts of Europe, Nation-State, Security and the Nature of International Relations on French and British policy toward Europe in the 1980s’, PhD dissertation, London School of Economics, 1993, p. 287. Interview, London, September 1994. The signing of Poland’s agreement with the commercial banks for 1982 should have taken place on 29 December. It was delayed when Poland failed to pay off the outstanding interest arrears (approximately $250 million) on

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 168

168 Notes

62.

63.

64. 65.

66. 67.

68. 69. 70.

71. 72.

its 1981 debt, which was a precondition of the agreement to defer repayment of the principal. However, this interest was gradually paid back. See ‘The Polish economy and Poland’s international debt: implications for US foreign policy’, US Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on European Affairs, 97th Congress, second session, 27 January 1982, p. 11. See also Le Monde, 9 January 1982; Financial Times, 23 December 1981. International Herald Tribune, 5 February 1982. The option of declaring Poland to be in default was discussed on a number of occasions in the US Congress and the American press during the winter of 1982 and spring of 1983. See, in particular, ‘The Polish Debt Crisis’, US Congress, Foreign Assistance and Related Programmes, Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1983, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, 97th Congress, second session, 9 February, 6 March and 21 April 21, 1982; Washington Post, 7 February 1982; Wall Street Journal, 7 January 1982; New York Times, 3–4 February 1982. Guardian, 30 March 1982; International Herald Tribune, 16 December 1982. The US government was well aware of the unequal distribution of the cost of disrupting East–West trade, which was often mentioned during the Congressional hearings on Poland’s debt. See, for example, Robert Hormats, Assistant Secretary of State in the US Senate, 9 February 1982, op. cit., p. 132. Haig, Caveat, op. cit., pp. 255–6. For the pipeline dispute, see Antony J. Blinken, Ally Versus Ally: America, Europe and the Siberian Pipeline Crisis (New York: Praeger, 1987); Stan Woods, ‘Pipeline Politics: the Allies at Odds’, Centrepieces, 5 (Spring 1983) (Aberdeen: Centre for Defence Studies); Bruce Jentleson, Pipeline Politics: the Complex Political Economy of East–West Energy Trade (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986). Robin, La Diplomatie, op. cit., p. 37. My translation. For Mauroy’s justification of his position, see ‘Discussions et vote sur la motion de censure’, Débats Parlementaires de l’Assemblée Nationale, seconde session extraordinaire de 1981–2, 28 janvier 1982, Journal Officiel, 29 January 1982, pp. 643–68. The prime minister’s statement is quoted on p. 646. Strategic Survey, 1982–83 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1983), p. 52. Blinken, Ally Versus Ally, op. cit., p. 4. For an examination from the US perspective of the risks to West European security posed by the pipeline agreement, see Thomas Blan and Joseph Kircheimer, ‘European dependence and Soviet leverage: the Yamal pipeline’, Survival, 23:5 (1981). The authors argue that ‘the Yamal project raises serious issues of Soviet leverage; the project could enable the Soviet Union to achieve political concessions as well as economic benefits’ (ibid., p. 211). Haig, Caveat, op. cit., p. 254. Guardian, 1 March 1982; Washington Post, 2 January 1982. The question of the pipeline sanctions is also discussed in ‘The Polish Debt crisis’, US Congress, op. cit., and ‘Developments in Europe’, US Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Europe

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 169

Notes 169

73. 74.

75.

76.

77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

83.

84.

and the Middle East, 29 April 1982, particularly pp. 3–6, and 21 July 1982, particularly pp. 20–1. ‘The Polish Debt Crisis’, US Congress, op. cit. Le Monde, 3 February 1982; International Herald Tribune, 21 April 1982. Confirmed by Haig in Congress: ‘Statement by Alexander Haig’, US Congress, Committee on Foreign Affairs, 97th Congress, 2 February 1982, p. 8. By that time the House of Representatives had also rejected a proposal to force the US administration to declare Poland to be in default. See also Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott and Kimberley Ann Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered: History and Current Policy (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1990), p. 192. Memorandum to the Secretary from Robert Hormats, ‘Terms of reference for the mission to Europe on sanctions vis à vis the Soviet Union’, 20 February 1982; Memorandum to the President from Alexander Haig, ‘Buckley mission’, 27 February 1982. For the US position, as outlined for the Europeans, see telegram from the Secretary of State to US Embassies, ‘Interagency mission on East–West economic relations: meetings with Italian, German, British and French ambassadors’, 12 March 1982. Haig, Caveat, op. cit., p. 255. Guardian, 17 March 1982. See also Financial Times, 18 March 1982. Memorandum to Eagleburger, ‘Possible courses of action following Buckley mission’, 20 March 1982. Haig, Caveat, op. cit., pp. 304–5. Blinken, Ally Versus Ally, op. cit., p. 8. Another element that should not be ignored in this context is competition between the Europeans, particularly between France and West Germany, for exports to the Soviet Union. This made France even more reluctant to restrict its official credit. The US grain embargo imposed by Carter against the Soviet Union after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979 was lifted by Reagan in April 1981. The embargo failed to influence Soviet policy in Afghanistan. See Joseph Hajda, ‘The Soviet grain embargo’, Survival, 22:6, (1980), pp. 253–8. This viewpoint was reflected in a statement by Maurice Faure, president of the French National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee: ‘[Les Etats-Unis] . . . ont demandé aux Européens de manier l’arme économique, tout en se gardant bien de le faire elle-même puisqu’elle continue à vendre du blé à l’Union Soviétique. Elle a donc incité les Européens à livrer dans une large mesure le combat à sa place’. [The United States has asked the Europeans to use economic weapons, while carefully avoiding to do so itself because it continues to sell grain to the Soviet Union. Thus, it has urged the Europeans to a large extent to conduct the battle in its place. (my translation)] ‘Discussion sur la Déclaration du Gouvernement sur sa Politique Etrangère’, p. 4228, Débats Parlementaires de l’Assemblée Nationale, troisième session extraordinaire de 1981–82, 6 juillet 1982, Journal Officiel, 7 July 1982. The text of the French government’s declaration on foreign policy (‘Déclaration du gouvernement sur sa politique étrangère) can be

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 170

170 Notes

85. 86.

87.

88. 89. 90. 91. 92.

93.

94. 95. 96. 97. 98.

found in Documents de l’Assemblée Nationale, no. 1014, troisième session extraordinaire de 1981–82. Robert Putnam and Nicholas Bayne, Hanging Together: Cooperation and Conflict in the Seven-Power Summits (London: Sage, 1987), p. 138. The French government ordered French companies to honour their contracts for the pipeline on 22 July. Invoking the Protection of Trading Interests Act, the British government followed suit on 2 August. On 25 August, the West German government informed the US government that the latter’s initiative was illegal under international law and violated German sovereignty. Hufbauer et al., Economic Sanctions, op. cit., p. 207. ‘Statement on Extension of US Sanctions on the Export of Oil and Gas Equipment to the Soviet Union’, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, vol. 18, 18 June 1982, quoted in Blinken, Ally Versus Ally, op. cit., p. 103. Philip Hanson, Western Economic Statecraft in East–West Relations (London: Routledge, 1988), p. 47. Putnam and Bayne, Hanging Together, op. cit., p. 139. The domestic political dimension will be examined more closely in Chapter 7. International Institute for Strategic Studies, Strategic Survey, 1982–83, op. cit., p. 55. The most important economic sanctions were the block on negotiations to reschedule Poland’s debt, the freeze on credit to Poland, the US removal of Poland’s Most Favoured Nation status and the blocking of the negotiations on Poland’s membership of the IMF. Poland had also been politically isolated since the imposition of martial law and all high-level visits from the West to Poland had been banned. The Danish Folketing voted in February to withdraw its support for EC sanctions against the Soviet Union. Although provoked by the Danish parliament’s claim that the European Community was not a reasonable forum for foreign policy decisions, the decision cannot be considered as wholly unrelated to the issue itself. It is unlikely that the Danes would have taken this initiative purely as a matter of principle. For a discussion of the link between the EC proper and European Political Cooperation over the Polish sanctions, see Simon Nuttall, ‘Interaction between European Political Cooperation and the European Community’, Yearbook of European Law, no. 7 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), pp. 211–49. Le Monde, 23 July 1982. Financial Times, 30 July 1982. Le Monde, 23 July 1982. ‘Reagan acts to end Poland’s MNF status’, United States Information Service, 12 October 1982. The French government stressed to the National Assembly that although it condemned the abolition of Solidarity, it did not consider that further sanctions would serve a useful purpose. Débats Parlementaires de l’Assemblée Nationale, première session ordinaire de 1982–3, questions au government (Andrée Chandernagor, Ministre Délégué, Chargé des Affaires Européennes), 13 octobre 1982, Journal Officiel, 14 October 1982, pp. 5727–29. See also Le Monde, 10–11 October 1982.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 171

Notes 171 99. 100. 101. 102.

103. 104. 105. 106. 107.

108.

109.

110. 111.

112.

113. 114.

115. 116.

Financial Times, 14 December 1982. Le Monde, 12–13 December 1982. Le Monde, 25 December 1982. An amnesty for ‘almost all’ prisoners, including 652 political prisoners, was approved by the Sejm in July 1984. See Hufbauer et al., Economic Sanctions, op. cit. See also The Times, 23 July 1984. See, for example, Guardian, 1 December 1982, 19 February 1983; Financial Times, 4 May 1983; International Herald Tribune, 15 April 1983. International Herald Tribune, 23 May 1983. International Herald Tribune, 29 June 1983. Hanson, Western Economic Statecraft, op. cit., p. 47. Nicholas Andrews, ‘The effectiveness of US sanctions against Poland’, in Paul Marer and Wlodzimierz Siwinski (eds), Creditworthiness and Reform in Poland: Western and Polish Perspectives (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988), pp. 323–33. For a discussion of the degree of vulnerability of states to economic sanctions, see Margaret P. Doxey, International Sanctions in Contemporary Perspective (London: Macmillan, 1996), especially pp. 95–110. For a negative assessment of sanctions, see John Edwin Mroz, ‘Aider la Pologne’, Politique Internationale, 26:1 (1983), pp. 129–55. See also Yves Laulan, ‘L’Occident peut-il utiliser l’arme économique et financière? L’example polonais’, Commentaire, 17:5 (1982), pp. 38–43. Laulan argues that the sanctions against Poland were mostly symbolic and had little impact on policy. M. S. Daoudi and M. S. Dajani, ‘Poland: the politactics of sanctions’, The Polish Review, 30:2 (1985), pp. 149–66. Polish imports from the United States fell by 33 per cent in 1981–82, while exports fell by 84 per cent. The respective figures for West Germany were -13 per cent and -18 per cent; France, +6 per cent and -30 per cent, Britain, +4 per cent and -21 per cent. Hufbauer et al., Economic Sanctions, op. cit., p. 200. See also International Herald Tribune, 24 June 1982. Financial Times, 15 September 1983. There was, however, a question of interdependence here. Poland needed the discussions to be reopened because this was the only way to obtain new Western trade and commodity credits. International Herald Tribune, 4 November 1982. It must be added, however, that by 1983 the Polish debt looked small in comparison with those of Mexico, Chile, Peru and Yugoslavia. Furthermore, because of the high value of the US dollar at the time the portion of the Polish debt that had been taken out in European currencies had depreciated considerably, thus easing the burden. See Financial Times, 21 March 1983. The Times, 7 December 1983. An agreement to reschedule the 1983 debt was reached in August 1983. See Financial Times, 19 August 1983. For some time before the pope’s visit to Poland, Cardinal Glemp had advocated the creation of a foundation to channel money to Polish farmers. In other words the Church, and the Pope had agreed to enter into a dialogue with the Polish regime. The foundation would be mainly funded by private Western aid, through Western Catholic Churches, and would be controlled

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 172

172 Notes

117.

118.

119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124.

125. 126. 127.

128. 129. 130.

by the Polish Church. However, this project was eventually abandoned. See International Herald Tribune, 29 June 1983, 6 August 1983; Guardian, 28 September 1983. Interestingly, the United States did not propose a link between Poland and the IMF negotiations. Before martial law, Reagan had hinted that the possibility of such a linkage could not be ignored. ‘Interview with President-elect, Ronald Reagan, 19 January 1981’, Survival, 23:3 (1981), p. 131. See, for example, Reagan’s speech to Eureka College, May 1982. ‘Documentation. Nuclear weapons and arms control’, Survival, 24 (Sept.– Oct. 1982), pp. 229–230. West Germany, France, the United States, Britain, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Italy, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. Le Monde, 31 July 1983, 1 August 1983. Guardian, 11 January 1984. Financial Times, 3 November 1983. Financial Times, 23 December 1983. Amounting to $140 million per year, 1.4 per cent of Soviet exports to the EC had been covered by the sanctions. Financial Times, 3 August 1984. The first West European high-level visit to Poland was by British Minister of State Malcolm Rifkind, whose job at the Foreign Office was to oversee East–West relations. His visit took place on 4 November and was expected to be followed by visits by German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Italian Foreign Minister Andreotti before the end of 1984. International Herald Tribune, 12 October 1984; Financial Times, 9 October 1984. For the official Polish position, see Hufbauer et al., Economic Sanctions, op. cit., pp. 197–8. Financial Times, 9 December 1983. International Herald Tribune, 14 December 1983; Financial Times, 9 December 1983. The speech was delivered by Walesa’s wife as he was not allowed to leave Poland. Financial Times, 15 December 1984. Hufbauer et al., Economic Sanctions, op. cit., p. 195. John Mearsheimer, ‘Back to the Future: instability in Europe after the Cold War’, International Security, 15:1 (1990), pp. 5–56.

5 The United States 1. Arthur Rachwald, In Search of Poland: The Superpowers’ Response to Solidarity (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1990), p. 64. 2. Schmidt confirms that the Americans were correct in this assumption. Helmut Schmidt, Men and Power: A Political Retrospective (London: Jonathan Cape, 1990), p. 258. 3. Jerry Hough, The Polish Crisis: American Policy Options (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1982), particularly pp. 64–9; Vojtech Mastny, ‘The Soviet non-invasion of Poland in 1980–81 and the end of the Cold War’, Cold War International History Project, Working Paper no. 23

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 173

Notes 173

4.

5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10.

11.

12. 13. 14. 15.

16.

(Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1998). See also the IISS annual conference papers in Robert O’Neill (ed.), The Conduct of East–West Relations in the 1980s (London: Macmillan, 1985). Michael Smith, ‘The Reagan presidency and foreign policy’, in Joseph Hogan (ed.), The Reagan Years (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1990), p. 265. For the importance of domestic constraints on US foreign policy, see John Peterson, Europe and America: Prospects for Partnership (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 79–105. Fred Halliday, The Making of the Second Cold War, 2nd edn (London: Verso, 1989), p. 180. Hough, The Polish Crisis, op. cit., p. 64. Stephen Gill (ed.), Atlantic Relations (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), p. 31. Discussing the different US approaches to dealing with the Soviet Union, Garthoff argues that Reagan belonged to ‘the “essentialist” school of policy, which became dominant in the United States in the early 1980s for the first time since the 1950s’. Raymond Garthoff, The Great Transition: American–Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1994), p. 767. Edwin Meese III, With Reagan: The Inside Story (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1992), p. 168. Reagan’s speech about the evil empire was delivered at a meeting of Christian evangelists in Florida in March 1983. Quotation from Robert Dallek, Ronald Reagan: The Politics of Symbolism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 192. Constantine C. Menges, The Twilight Struggle: The Soviet Union v. The United States Today (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 1990). Menges was the President’s special assistant for national security affairs from 1983 to 1986. He was also foreign policy adviser to Ronald Reagan during the 1980 presidential campaign. He proposed a ‘strategy to counter Soviet-supported subversive aggression and terrorism’ for the planning of Reagan’s first term of office. Ibid., p. 15. Ibid., p. 7. Dallek, Ronald Reagan, op. cit., pp. 129–30. ‘The Holy Alliance’, Time Magazine, 24 February 1992, pp. 10–19; Carl Bernstein and Morco Politi, His Holiness. John Paul II and the hidden history of our time (London: Bantam, 1996). The existence of a US–Vatican alliance has since been confirmed by the following: Meese, With Reagan, op. cit.; Garthoff, The Great Transition, op. cit., p. 31; Bennett Kovrig, Of Walls and Bridges: The United States and Eastern Europe (New York: New York University Press, 1991), p. 182; Richard Pipes, ‘Misinterpreting the Cold War: the hardliners had it right’, Foreign Affairs, 74:1 (Jan.–Feb. 1995) pp. 154–60. Meese, Garthoff and Kovrig all base their comments on the information in Bernstein and Politi’s book. Pipes was himself a participant in the operation. Bernstein and Politi do not indicate which trade unions took part (apart from the American AFL-CIO) or whether their link with the CIA was explicit. Bernstein and Politi, His Holiness, op. cit.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 174

174 Notes 17. Bernstein and Politi’s findings are based on interviews with the main participants in this operation. 18. Interview, London, December 1994. 19. Ronald Reagan, An American Life (London: Hutchinson, 1990), p. 320; Meese, With Reagan, op. cit., p. 65. 20. See Alan Palmer, The Lands Between: A History of East-Central Europe since the Congress of Vienna (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1970), pp. 120–49. 21. Fred Northedge, The Troubled Giant (London: Bell & Sons, 1966), p. 33. 22. Coker argues that ‘At Versailles in 1919, President Wilson had insisted on an outdated nineteenth-century understanding of self-determination, which had condemned Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland to become economic satellites of either Germany or the Soviet Union.’ Christopher Coker, Reflections on American Foreign Policy since 1945 (London: Pinter, 1989), p. 42. 23. Ibid., p. 44. 24. Lynn Davis, The Cold War Begins: Soviet–American Conflict Over Eastern Europe (Princeton and London: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 378. 25. Erik Oddvar Eriksen, ‘Why a Charter of fundamental human rights?’, in Erik Oddvar Eriksen, John Erik Fossum and Agustín José Menéndez, The Chartering of Europe: The Charter of Fundamental Rights in Context (Oslo: Arena, 2001), pp. 29–52. 26. National Security Council, ‘United States Policy Toward the Soviet Satellite States in Eastern Europe’, NSC 58, 14 September 1949. The quotes are from Thomas Etzold and John Lewis Gaddis (eds), Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy, 1945–1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), pp. 211–23. 27. Ibid., p. 212. 28. Ibid., p. 219. 29. Ibid., p. 220. 30. George Kennan, ‘The sources of Soviet conduct’, Foreign Affairs, July 1947, pp. 566–82. It must be noted that Kennan himself, although he was considered to be the father of the concept, never approved of the policy of containment. He argued in retrospect that its aim should not have been to perpetuate conflict with the Soviet Union, but to encourage negotiation. Coker, Reflections, op. cit., pp. 56–63; Anton DePorte, Europe Between the Superpowers: The Enduring Balance (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986), p. 127. 31. According to Kovrig it is the only time that Eastern Europe has been a subject of discussion during US presidential elections. Kovrig, Of Walls and Bridges, op. cit., p. 48. 32. Council on Foreign Relations, Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1952 (New York: Harper, 1953), pp. 80–3, quoted in Kovrig, Of Walls and Bridges, op. cit., p. 47. See also Stephen Garrett, From Potsdam to Poland (New York: Praeger, 1986). 33. According to Garrett, it is the potential for military involvement that distinguishes liberation theory from containment. p. 181. 34. Kovrig, of Walls and Bridges, op. cit., pp. 89–102. 35. See ibid., pp. 99–100. See also ‘Report of the special study mission to Europe on policy toward the satellite nations’, Committee of Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, 85th Congress, June 1957, p. 14; Jiri Valenta,

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 175

Notes 175

36. 37. 38.

39.

40. 41.

42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47. 48.

49.

‘Soviet decision making and the Hungarian revolution’, Bennett Kovrig, ‘Rolling back liberation: the United States and the Hungarian revolution’, and Brian McCauley, ‘Hungary and Suez, 1956: the limits of Soviet and American power’, in Béla K. Király, Barbara Lotze and Nándor F. Dreisziger (eds), The first war between socialist states: the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and its impact (New York: Brooklyn College Press, 1984), pp. 265–78, 279–90, 291–315. Zbigniew Brzezinski and William Griffith, ‘Peaceful Engagement in Eastern Europe’, Foreign Affairs, 39:4 (1961), p. 644. Bennett Kovrig, The Myth of Liberation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), p. 285. Lincoln Gordon, ‘Interests and Policies in Eastern Europe: The View from Washington’, in Lincoln Gordon (ed.), Eroding Empire: Werstern Relations with Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1987), p. 74. Raymond Garthoff, ‘Eastern Europe in the context of US–Soviet relations’, in Sarah Meiklejohn Terry (ed.), Soviet Policy in Eastern Europe (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984), p. 323. Quotes taken from ‘United States security policy vis-a-vis Eastern Europe (The “Sonnenfeldt Doctrine”)’, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Security and Scientific Affairs of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, 94th Congress, second session, 12 April 1976 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1976). Meese, With Reagan, op. cit., p. 170; Reagan, An American Life, op. cit., pp. 265–8. See Richard Pipes, Survival Is Not Enough: Soviet Realities and America’s Future (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984); Richard Pipes, ‘Can the Soviet Union reform?’, Foreign Affairs, 63 (Fall 1984), pp. 47–61. Pipes was director of East European and Soviet Affairs at the National Security Council during the Polish crisis. Gordon, ‘Interests and Policies’, op. cit. p. 123. Jürgen Habermas ‘Bestiality and humanity: a war on the border between legality and morality’, Constellations, 6: 3 (1999), pp. 263–72. Geir Lundestad, The American ‘Empire’ (Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1990), p. 41. Daniel Yergin, Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State (London: André Deutsch, 1978), p. 13. For the most explicit exposé of this perspective, see Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: The politics of conservatism in a revolutionary age (New York: The Universal Library, Grosset & Dunlap, 1964). Ibid. Axel Honneth, ‘Is universalism a moral trap? The presuppositions and limits of a politics of human rights’, in James Bohman and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (eds), Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), pp. 155–78. For a discussion of the United States’ aims, see Henry Nau, The Myth of America’s Decline (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). Nau was on the National Security Council at the White House between 1981 and 1983. See also Robert Putnam and Nicholas Bayne, Hanging Together: Cooperation and Conflict in the Seven-Power Summits (London: Sage,

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 176

176 Notes

50.

51. 52.

53. 54.

55. 56. 57.

58. 59.

1987); Michael Mastanduno, Economic Containment: Cocom and the Politics of East–West Trade (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992); Bruce Jentleson, Pipeline Politics: The Complex Political Economy of East–West Energy Trade (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986); William G. Hyland, ‘US–Soviet relations: the long road back’, Foreign Affairs, 60:3 (1982), pp. 525–51. As noted in Chapter 4, the first stage was Reagan’s declaration of sanctions against the Soviet Union on 29 December 1981. The sanctions on the pipeline involved the suspension of licences on oil and gas equipment, including pipelayers. These sanctions were retroactive and so covered not only future contracts but also existing ones. The third stage came after the G7 summit with the imposition of the clause of extraterritoriality, which prevented European companies from using US parts or technologies on the pipeline project. Reagan, An American Life, op. cit., p. 306. Buckley argued that he had two main objectives: ‘i) to work with the allies to achieve restrictions in official credit guarantees to the Soviet Union; ii) to express concern over the potential for an excessive dependence of Western Europe on Soviet natural gas.’ He argues that his objective was not ‘to cut off trade with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; to address the Polish debt question; to seek an imposition or extension of sanctions against Poland and the Soviet Union; to block the Yamal pipeline.’ See ‘Polish Debt Crisis’, US Congress, Senate Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, 97th Congress, second session, 21 April 1982, pp. 209–10. Alexander Haig, Caveat: Realism, Reagan and Foreign Policy (New York: Macmillan, 1984), p. 254. Nau, The Myth, op. cit., p. 309. The coexistence of conflicting US foreign policy goals during this phase is also noted by Mastanduno: ‘Clearly the pipeline dispute threatened to have broader alliance ramifications. For multilateralists in both the United States and Western Europe it became imperative to search for a solution that would both placate US hard-liners and enable West Europeans to act in accordance with their own conceptions of their vital interests. Haig sought such a compromise in March 1982 by shifting the focus of US pressure on the allies from the pipeline to export credits.’ Mastanduno, Economic Containment, op. cit., p. 252. Nau, The Myth, op. cit., p. 308. Haig, Caveat, op. cit., p. 309. See also Putnam and Bayne, Hanging Together, op. cit., p. 138. Garthoff, The Great Transition, op. cit., p. 549. Garthoff quotes a member of the White House staff. The European position he refers to concerned a change in the US policy on interest rates. Nau, The Myth, op. cit., p. 315. In this context it is interesting to note that Nau, when looking at the economic aspects of the Reagan administration’s initiatives in the early 1980s, describes the US leadership as a messy but ultimately successful attempt to change the overall Western approach to East–West trade. In other words, the consequences for alliance relations were considered less important. Consequently, he also implies that the change in Western trade policies would not have been achieved without unilateral US initiatives. Ibid., p. 321.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 177

Notes 177 60. Pierre Mélandri, Une Incertaine Alliance: Les Etats-Unis et l’Europe. 1973–1983 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1988), pp. 284–8; Gill, Atlantic Relations, op. cit., p. 30. 61. In the words of one of the ‘President’s men’, Reagan governed by round tables of officials from different areas and this did not suit Secretary of State Haig. Meese, With Reagan, op. cit., p. 65. When Shultz took over, although the policy remained the same, allied relations improved. 62. Barry Rubin, Secrets of State: The State Department and the Struggle over US Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 211–12.

6 The Europeans 1. Schmidt states in his memoirs that what he really meant was that he was concerned that Jaruzelski had considered it necessary to impose martial law in order to prevent a Soviet intervention. See Helmut Schmidt, Die Deutschen und ihre Nachbarn: Menschen und Mächte II (Berlin: Siedler, 1990), p. 85. 2. The considerable space devoted to the Polish crisis in both volumes of Schmidt’s memoirs is a sign of the West German government’s concern about the events in Poland, and perhaps also reflects a desire to explain and justify an aspect of West Germany’s foreign policy that has been severely criticised. For criticism of the West German position, see Timothy Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name: Germany and the Divided Continent (London: Vintage, 1994); Pierre Hassner, ‘The shifting foundation’, Foreign Policy, 48 (Fall 1982), pp. 3–20. 3. Helmut Schmidt, Men and Power: A Political Retrospective (London: Jonathan Cape, 1990), pp. 260–1. 4. Schmidt, Die Deutschen, op. cit., p. 505. 5. Schmidt, Men and Power, op. cit., p. 252. 6. Garton Ash, In Europe’s name, op. cit., p. 292. 7. Renata Fritsch-Bournazel, ‘The French View’, in Edwina Moreton (ed.), Germany Between East and West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 74. 8. Reinhard Rummel, ‘Germany’s role in the CFSP: “Normalitat” or “Sonderweg”?’, in Christopher Hill (ed.), The Actors in Europe’s Foreign Policy (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 42. 9. David Marsh, Germany and Europe: The Crisis of Unity (London: Mandarin, 1994), p. 32. 10. According to Hanrieder, ‘There was always the question of whether Ostpolitik was merely a remnant of the former efforts at reunification or the beginning of an evolutionary process.’ Wolfram Hanrieder, Germany, America, Europe (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 20. 11. According to Joffe, reunification was still the main objective of Ostpolitik – what had changed was the way in which West Germany went about achieving this aim. Josef Joffe, ‘The view from Bonn: the tacit Alliance’, in Lincoln Gordon (ed.), Eroding Empire: Western Relations With Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1987), pp. 149–50. Hassner takes a slightly different view: ‘Ostpolitik meant adjustment to realities,

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 178

178 Notes

12. 13. 14.

15.

16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22.

23. 24.

25.

including that of détente policies of other Western powers, and carried no expectations either of national reunification or ideological convergence with the East.’ Pierre Hassner, ‘Western European perceptions of the USSR’, Daedalus, 108:1 (1979), p. 126. William Griffith, The Ostpolitik of the Federal Republic of Germany (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978), pp. 43–8. Philip Windsor, Germany and the Western Alliance: Lessons from the 1980 Crises, Adelphi papers no. 170 (London: IISS, Autumn 1981), p. 15. Roger Morgan, ‘West Germany’s foreign and security interests’, in Edwina Moreton (ed.), Germany Between East and West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 105. Their findings are presented in Michael Kubina, ‘New Evidence from the SED Archives on the Polish crisis in 1980–81’, introductory statement at the Fifth World Congress for Central and East European Studies, Warsaw, 6–11 August 1995; Michael Kubina and Manfred Wilke, ‘Verantwortungsgemeinschaften in Deutschland oder das ‘Mosaiksteinchen’ Polen 1980/81’, in Herrn Professor Doktor Michal Ciésla zu seinem 88. Geburtstag. Studien zur Deutschkunde XI. Band (Universytets Warszavsi Insytut Germanistyki, 1995), pp. 145–64. According to Kubina, the following four archives are particularly important with regard to the crisis in Poland and the SED’s reaction to it: the former SED Central Party Archive (Zentrales Parteiarchiv, ZPA) and the so-called internal archive of the Politburo and the Central Committee (CC); files of the Ministry of National Defence (MfNV); files of the State Security Ministry (MfS or Stasi); and files of the Foreign Ministry (MfAA). To be clear, this is based on records in the archives of the former GDR. Ideally these records should be compared with those from West Germany, but the latter are not publicly available. What we know is what the West German authorities conveyed to the East German authorities about their views on Poland. The reliability of these sources is discussed in Kubina and Wilke, ‘Verantwortungsgemeinschaften’, op. cit. Ibid. His German title was Oberkonisistorialrat und Sekretär des Bundes der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR. Kubina and Wilke, ‘Verantwortungsgemeinschaften’, op. cit. Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name, op. cit., p. 28. William Griffith and Wolfgang Berner, ‘West German policy toward Central and Eastern Europe’, in William Griffith (ed.) Central and Eastern Europe: The Opening Curtain? (Boulder, San Francisco and London: Westview Press, 1989), p. 339. For a study of this period in German history, see Michael Burleigh, Germany Turns Eastward: a Study of Ostforschung in the Third Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Wladislaw Kulski, ‘German–Polish Relations since World War Two’, The Polish Review, 24:1 (1979), pp. 64–69. Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name, op. cit., pp. 219–20; Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland in Two Volumes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), pp. 563–4. Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name, op. cit., p. 218.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 179

Notes 179 26. Karen Dawisha, Eastern Europe, Gorbachev and Reform: The Great Challenge (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 69–70. Davies argues that it was a deliberate Soviet policy at the end of the Second World War to insist that Poland be awarded former German territories ‘beyond anything the Poles considered Polish’. The Soviets expected that this would guarantee postwar German revanchism and a long-term need for Soviet protection against Germany. Norman Davies, Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 32. 27. Wolfram Hanrieder and Graeme Auton, The Foreign Policies of West Germany, France and Britain (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1980), p. 51. 28. Hanrieder, Germany, op. cit., p. 148. 29. The treaty between the Soviet Union and West Germany was signed in August 1970, the Warsaw Treaty with Poland in December 1970, the quadripartite treaty on Berlin in 1972 and the Basic Treaty between the West and East Germany in 1972. A treaty with Czechoslovakia was signed in 1973. Griffith, The Ostpolitik, op. cit. For the two Germanies’ relations with the Soviet Union, see Renata Fritsch-Bournazel, L’Union Soviétique et les Deux Allemagnes (Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1979). 30. Helga Haftendorn, Security and Detente: Conflicting Priorities in German Foreign Policy (New York: Praeger, 1985), p. 204. 31. Ibid., p. 203. 32. In the 1970 Warsaw Treaty with Poland and the Moscow Treaty of the same year, West Germany recognised the Oder–Neisse line as Poland’s Western border with Germany. However, it argued that the border would not be binding on a future unified Germany. After German reunification, Chancellor Kohl delayed confirming the inviolability of Poland’s western border until March 1990. According to Garton Ash, the delay was a tactical move aimed at curbing the nationalist right’s opposition to recognition of the border. Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name, op. cit., p. 230. 33. Schmidt, Die Deutschen, op. cit., p. 256. According to Valenta, Polish generals signed a document stating that if East German troops crossed the Polish border this would be viewed as an act of war. Jiri Valenta, ‘Soviet options in Poland’, Survival, 23:2 (1981), p. 58. 34. Schmidt, Men and Power, op. cit., p. 260. 35. Hans-Peter Schwarz, ‘Das Deutsche Dilemma’, in Karl Kaiser and Hanns W. Maull (eds), Deutschlands neue Aussenpolitik Band I, Grundlagen (1994, Oldenburg: Munich), pp. 81–99. 36. Schmidt, Men and Power, op. cit., pp. 254–5. 37. Jürgen Habermas, ‘On the pragmatic, the ethical, and the moral employments of practical reason’, in Justification and Application. Remarks on discourse ethics (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 1993), p. 6. 38. Kubina and Wilke, ‘Verantwortungsgemeinschaften’, op. cit. 39. Axel Honneth, ‘Is universalism a moral trap? The presuppositions and limits of a politics of human rights’, in James Bohman and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (eds), Perpetual Peace. Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), p. 176. 40. Windsor, Germany, op. cit., pp. 18–20; Hassner, ‘Western perceptions’, op. cit., pp. 19–20.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 180

180 Notes 41. Josef Joffe, ‘European–American relations: the enduring crisis’, Foreign Affairs, 59:4 (1981), p. 845. 42. Schmidt resigned when the FDP withdrew from the SDP–FDP coalition after a disagreement about budgetary issues. Still, Griffith argues that ‘It was unlikely that he [Schmidt] could have maintained support for INF deployment and therefore would have fallen on that issue eventually.’ William Griffith, ‘The American view’, in Edwina Moreton (ed.), Germany between East and West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 56. 43. Ibid., p. 57. It should perhaps be noted that this discussion was by no means limited to West Germany. See, for example, Martin Sæter, Europa mellom supermaktene (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1984), in which the author advocates an ‘all-European peace solution’ for Europe. 44. For Kohl’s position on martial law, see Bundestag Plenarprotokolle, 9/74, pp. 4294–301, 18 December 1981. Once in power, however, Kohl did not in any way change West German policy on the issue, nor on East–West relations in general. In a statement to the Bundestag on 13 October 1982, when describing the main elements of his foreign policy, he confirmed that trade with the Soviet Union was an important part of West Germany’s East–West relations, while at the same time expressing his sympathy for the situation in Poland. ‘Documentation. West Germany’s foreign and security policy. Chancellor Kohl’s policy statement’, Survival, 25:1 (1983), pp. 35–6. 45. Morgan, ‘West Germany’s foreign and security interests’, op. cit., p. 100. 46. Kubina and Wilke, ‘Verantwortungsgemeinschaften’, op. cit., pp. 156–7. 47. See Mark Kramer, ‘Poland, 1980–81. Soviet policy during the Polish crisis’, in Cold War International History Project. Bulletin, 5 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Spring 1995), pp. 116–39, in particular Honecker’s letter to Brezhnev, p. 124. 48. Ibid., particularly p. 120. The article reviews archive material and memoirs from Russia, Poland, Germany and Czechoslovakia that were made public after 1989. 49. Kubina and Wilke, ‘Verantwortungsgemeinschaften’, op. cit. 50. Michael Kubina, ‘Moscow’s man in the SED Politburo and the crisis in Poland in Autumn of 1980’, Cold War International History Project. Bulletin, 11 (Winter 1998), pp. 90–5. 51. Ibid. 52. Kubina and Wilke, ‘Verantwortungsgemeinschaften’, op. cit. 53. Cold War International History Project. Bulletin, 11 (Winter 1998), pp. 125–31. 54. Kubina and Wilke, ‘Verantwortungsgemeinschaften’, op. cit. 55. Schmidt, Die Deutschen, op. cit., p. 87. 56. Hassner, ‘Western perceptions’, op. cit. Referring to Schmidt’s statement that he felt Honecker shared his hopes for an agreement in Poland, Hassner argues that ‘This is a serious blemish on the record of one of the few Western statesmen who deserve respect and support, particularly since he made the statement during a visit to East Germany’ (ibid., p. 13). See also the debate in the Bundestag, Bundestag Plenarprotokolle, op. cit. 57. Anne-Marie Le Gloannec, ‘Les réactions allemandes à la crise polonaise’, Documents. Revue des Questions Allemandes, 1 (March 1982), pp. 3–13.

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 181

Notes 181 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

68. 69.

70. 71.

72.

73.

74.

75. 76.

Schmidt, Men and Power, op. cit., p. 260. Kubina and Wilke, ‘Verantwortungsgemeinschaften’, op. cit. Ibid. Ibid.; Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung 15 March 1993, 14, 18, 25 and 28 October 1993, 11 November 1993. Kubina and Wilke, ‘Verantwortungsgemeinschaften’, op. cit. The importance of the economic dimension for Mitterrand’s foreign policy is also stressed in a more general sense by Michael Harrison in ‘Mitterrand’s France in the Atlantic system: a foreign policy of accommodation’, Political Science Quarterly, 99:2 (1984), pp. 219–46. Pierre Hassner, ‘The View from Paris’, in Lincoln Gordon (ed.), Eroding Empire: Western Relations With Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1987), p. 204. Jadwiga Castagne, ‘Les Relations Franco-Polonaises (1945–97)’, Notes et Études Documentaires, 3922 (25 September 1972), p. 5 (my translation). See also Zbigniew Mazur, ‘Les Relations Polono-Françaises dans la Période d’Après-Guerre’, La Pologne et les Affaires Occidentales, 12:1 (1977). On de Gaulle’s visit to Poland, see Jean Parandowski, ‘Les Polonais et de Gaulle’, and G. Boud’hors, ‘Le voyage du général de Gaulle en Pologne. 6 au 12 Septembre 1967’, in Espoir. Revue de l’Institut Charles de Gaulle, 14 (1976), pp. 30–3, 34–45. Couve de Murville, Une Politique Étrangère, 1958–1969 (Plon, 1971), p. 222, quoted in Thomas Schreiber, ‘Les Relations de la France avec les pays de l’Est (1944–1980)’, La Documentation Française, 30 April, 1980, p. 62 (my translation). Edward Kolodziej, French International Policy Under de Gaulle and Pompidou (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1974), p. 320. See Michel Tatu, ‘Valéry Giscard d’Estaing et la Détente’, in Samy Cohen and Marie-Claude Smouts (eds), La Politique Extérieure de Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1985), pp. 196–218. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Le Pouvoir et la Vie (Paris: Compagnie 12, 1988), p. 169. For an overview of the different factions inside the French socialist party, see Vincent Wright, The Government and Politics of France (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 218–32. Jacques Attali, Verbatim. Tome 1: Chronique des Années 1981–86 (Paris: Librarie Arthème, Fayard, 1993), p. 145 (my translation). Although the exact details are difficult to verify, these lines reveal the tension within the French administration on the question of how to react to martial law. For a criticism of Mitterrand’s policy under martial law by one of Giscard’s former associates, see Gabriel Robin, La Diplomatie de Mitterrand (Paris: Éditions la Bièvre, 1985), pp. 34–40. See Bernard-Henry Lévy, La Barbarie à Visage Humain (Paris: Grasset, 1977); André Glucksmann, La cuisinière et le mangeur d’hommes (Paris: Seuil, 1975); André Glucksmann, Cynisme et passion (Paris: Grasset, 1981); Pierre Clastres, La société Contre l’État (Paris: Minuit, 1975). Attali, Verbatim, op. cit., p. 145 (my translation). Débats Parlementaires de l’Assemblée Nationale, première session ex-

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 182

182 Notes

77.

78. 79. 80.

81. 82. 83.

84. 85.

86. 87.

88.

traordinaire de 1981–82, troisième séance, 23 décembre 1981, Journal Officiel, 24 December 1981, p. 5403 (my translation). See also Le Monde, 25 December 1981. Le Monde, 14 January 1982 (my translation). Cheysson’s statement and the reaction of Charles Fiterman (the communist minister) is also referred to by Attali in Verbatim, op. cit., p. 153. It is ironic that one month earlier the same foreign minister had been rebuked by Mitterrand for his ‘naturally we shall do nothing’ remark on martial law. For a discussion of Giscard’s motivation for the Warsaw meeting, see Tatu, ‘Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’, op. cit., especially pp. 209–14. Dominique Moisi, ‘Mitterrand’s foreign policy: the limits of continuity’, Foreign Affairs, 60:2 (1981), pp. 348–9. See, for example, Bruno Racine. ‘La France et les FNI’, Politique Étrangère, 1 (1988), pp. 79–91; Pierre Mélandri, Une Incertaine Alliance: Les Etats-Unis et l’Europe. 1973–1983 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1988), p. 373. For the text of Mitterrand’s speech, see François Mitterrand, Réflexions sur la Politique Extérieure de la France (Paris: Fayard, 1986), pp. 183–208. See also Jolyon Howorth, ‘Foreign and defence policy: from independence to interdependence’, in Peter A. Hall, Jack Hayward and Howard Machin (eds), Developments in French Politics (London: Macmillan, 1994), pp. 201–17. For reference to Mitterrand’s position on the Euromissiles, see Howorth, ibid., p. 208. Neil Winn, ‘The limits of European influence in American crisis policymaking’, PhD dissertation, European University Institute, Florence, 1995. Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (London: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 251. For a general discussion of the ‘special relationship’, see Donald Watt, Succeeding John Bull: America in Britain’s Special Place, 1900–1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); John Baylis, Anglo-American Defence Relations, 1939–1989 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981); Henry Kissinger, ‘Reflections on a partnership: British and American attitudes to postwar foreign policy’, International Affairs, 58:4 (1982), pp. 571–87. Christopher Hill, Cabinet Decisions on Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 18–47. Newman argues that ‘the appeasers were anxious to maintain the balance of power in Europe in 1938–9. The reasons given were traditional: . . . it has always been the tradition of his Majesty’s government to prevent one power from attaining a predominant position on the continent.’ Simon Newman, March 1939: The British Guarantee to Poland (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), p. 218. See also his outline of the traditionalist assumptions on the Polish guarantee, ibid., pp. 1–7. Anita Prazmowska, Britain, Poland and the Eastern Front (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 2. A similar perspective is taken by Barker: ‘the decision to accept the entanglement in the Balkans was not the outcome of serious political or military planning. It was a hastily improvised reaction . . . and followed on the heels of the equally improvised decision to guarantee Poland.’ Elisabeth Barker, British Policy in South-East Europe in the Second World War (London: Macmillan, 1976), pp. 3–4. Prazmowska, Britain, op. cit. p. 56. The first point is contradicted by Hill,

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 183

Notes 183

89.

90.

91.

92. 93.

94. 95.

96. 97.

98. 99.

100. 101. 102.

who shows that neither the British Cabinet nor Chamberlain himself considered reneging on the Polish guarantee. Christopher Hill, Cabinet Decisions on Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 85–99. It might, of course, still be true that in the minds of policy-makers, the guarantee was not expected to lead to war, but that as a result of subsequent events, British perceptions changed to such an extent that by September there was a commitment to use force that had not previously existed. Zbigniew Brzezinski, ‘The future of Yalta’, Foreign Affairs, 63:2 (1984–5), pp. 279–80, 294–302. Reprinted in Robbin Laird and Erik Hoffmann (eds), Soviet Foreign Policy in a Changing World (New York: Aldine, 1975), pp. 949–56. For the debate on Yalta and Britain’s role in the divison of Europe at the end of the Second World War, see John Lukacs, Decline and Rise of Europe (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1965); Elisabeth Barker, ‘British policy toward Rumania, Bulgaria and Hungary’, in Martin McCauley (ed.), Communist Power in Europe, 1944–49 (London: Macmillan, 1977), pp. 201–19; Nikolai Tolstoy, Stalin’s Secret War (London: Jonathan Cape, 1981), p. 323. See also Tolstoy’s reference to Churchill’s reaction to the massacre of Polish officers in Katyn: ibid., p. 179; and Nicolas Bethell, The Last Secret (London: André Deutsch, 1974). Wilfried Loth, ‘Which Yalta? Reflections on the division of Europe’, Atlantic Quarterly, 2:4 (1984), pp. 419–33, especially p. 432. See also Anne Deighton (ed.), Britain and the First Cold War (London: Macmillan, 1990), for a discussion of British policy on East–West relations in the early postwar years. Brian White, Detente and Changing East–West Relations (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 48. For a general discussion of British foreign policy under Thatcher, see Peter Byrd (ed.), British Foreign Policy under Thatcher (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988); Peter Riddell, The Thatcher Government (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), ch. 10. Michael Clarke, ‘The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe’, in Byrd, British Foreign Policy, op. cit., p. 60. Julian Bullard, ‘Perceptions of the Soviet threat: Britain in the 1980s’, in Carl-Christoph Schweitzer (ed.), The Changing Western Analysis of the Soviet Threat (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1989), p. 143. Clarke, ‘The Soviet Union’, op. cit., p. 64. Richard Ullmann, ‘America, Britain, and the Soviet threat’, in Roger Louis and Hedley Bull, The ‘Special Relationship’: Anglo-American Relations since 1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 108. Interview, London, September 1994. David Dimbleby and David Reynolds, An Ocean Apart: The Relationship Between Britain and America in the Twentieth Century (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1988), p. 309. Sir Anthony Parsons, ‘Britain and the world’, in D. Kavanagh and A. Seldon, The Thatcher Effect (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 161. Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, op. cit., pp. 252–3. Nau points out that in the summer of 1982, the United States authorised a one-year renewal of a long-term grain agreement with the Soviet Union that expired in September 1982. In August 1983, a new long-term agreement was signed between the United States and the Soviet Union. Henry Nau, The Myth of America’s Decline (New York and Oxford: Oxford

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 184

184 Notes

103.

104. 105. 106. 107.

108.

109. 110.

University Press, 1990), p. 314. For a European perspective on the pipeline sanctions, see ‘Soviet pipeline sanctions: the European perspective’, US Congress, Hearings before the Joint Economic Committee, 97th Congress, 22 September, 1982 (André Fontaine, Thierry de Montbrial, Andrew Knight). In fact, as noted earlier, US exports to the Soviet Union were so limited that in practice a US embargo would have no chance of succeeding. Hence, in order to implement its policy, the United States needed Western Europe, whose exports to the Eastern bloc were far more important the those of the US. A different view is presented by Nau, who argues that American firms suffered more than European firms for the US sanctions. Nau, The Myth, op. cit., p. 307. Attali, Verbatim, op. cit., pp. 252–3; Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, op. cit., p. 256. Nicholas Henderson, Mandarin: The Diaries of an Ambassador. 1969–1982 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1994), p. 479. Attali, Verbatim, op. cit., p. 156 (my translation); see also p. 188. Robert Putnam and Nicholas Bayne, Hanging Together: Cooperation and Conflict in the Seven-Power Summits (London: Sage, 1987), p. 137; Michael Mastanduno, Economic Containment: Cocom and the Politics of East–West Trade (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 255. See, for example, Stanley Hoffmann, ‘Mitterrand’s foreign policy, or Gaullism by any other name’, in George Ross, Stanley Hoffmann and Sylvia Malzacher (eds), The Mitterrand Experiment: Continuity and Change in Modern France (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987), pp. 294–305; Harrison, ‘Mitterrand’s France’, op. cit., particularly pp. 219–26. Christopher Hill, ‘Reagan and Thatcher: The Sentimental Alliance’, World Outlook, Winter 1986, p. 11. David Watt, ‘Introduction: the Anglo-American relationship’, in Louis and Bull, The ‘Special Relationship’, op. cit., p. 4.

7 Conclusion 1. Robert Putnam and Nicholas Bayne, Hanging Together: Cooperation and Conflict in the Seven-Power Summits (London: Sage, 1987). 2. It was only in the late 1990s that the EU’s integration in security and defence was speeded up. 3. There were of course also differences between the Soviet and American interpretations of détente. See Raymond Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American–Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1994), particularly pp. 27–57. 4. ‘Discussion sur la déclaration du gouvernement sur sa politique étrangère’, Débats Parlementaires de l’Assemblée Nationale, troisième session extraordinaire de 1981–2, 6 juillet 1982, Journal Officiel, 7 July 1982 (my translation). 5. For the Nixon–Kissinger strategy on détente, see Robert S. Litwak, Détente and the Nixon Doctrine: American Foreign Policy and the Pursuit of Stability. 1969–1976 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

0333_740661_09_note.qxd

10/31/2002

10:12 AM

Page 185

Notes 185 6. Erik Oddvar Eriksen, ‘Why a Charter of Fundamental Human Rights?’, in Erik Oddvar Eriksen, John Erik Fossum and Agustín Menéndez, The Chartering of Europe, The Charter of Fundamental Rights in Context (Oslo: Arena, 2001), pp. 29–52. 7. Jürgen Habermas, ‘Bestiality and Humanity: a war on the border between legality and morality’, Constellations, 6:3 (1999), pp. 263–72. 8. Portes called for an overall economic plan to reschedule or restructure Poland’s debt, and expected this to rally Solidarity behind a programme of economic reform. Richard Portes, The Polish Crisis: Western Economic Policy Options (London: RIIA, 1981). 9. Thomas Cynkin, Soviet and American Signalling in the Polish Crisis (London: Macmillan, 1988), pp. 38, 221. 10. Claude Lefort, ‘Sagt rett fra leveren’ (Speaking one’s mind), Kontinent Skandinavia, (1982), K/S/82, pp. 20–2. 11. John Edwin Mroz, ‘Aider la Pologne’, Politique Internationale, 26:1 (1983), pp. 129–55. 12. Vojtech Mastny, ‘The Soviet non-invasion of Poland in 1980–81 and the end of the Cold War’, Cold War International History Project, Working Paper no. 23, September 1998 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars), p. 29. 13. Cynkin, Soviet and American Signalling, op. cit. 14. One might add that it is far from certain that further economic aid would have stabilised Poland and prevented the imposition of martial law. The protest movement in Poland quickly moved from economic issues to politics, and economic aid would probably not have been enough to prevent this escalation. Also, previous chapters have shown that there was a greater effort by Western states to respond to the Polish crisis and greater concern about the significance and consequences of this crisis than the Czech crisis in 1968 and the Hungarian crisis in 1956. 15. Erik Oddvar Eriksen and Jarle Weigård, ‘Conceptualising politics: strategic or communicative action?’, Scandinavian Political Studies, 20:3 (1997), pp. 224–5.

0333_740661_10_bibl.qxd

10/31/2002

10:13 AM

Page 186

Bibliography Adler, Emmanuel and Michael Barnett (eds) (1998) Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Allin, Dana H. (1989) Cold War Illusions: America, Europe and Soviet Power 1969–1989 (London: Macmillan). Alperovitz, Gar (1970) Cold War Essays (New York: Doubleday). Anderson, Richard D. (1982) ‘Soviet decision-making and Poland’, Problems of Communism, March–April, pp. 22–36. Andrews, Nicholas (1988) ‘The effectiveness of US sanctions against Poland’, in Paul Marer and Wlodzimierz Siwinski (eds), Creditworthiness and Reform in Poland: Western and Polish Perspectives (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press), pp. 323–33. Ascherson, Neil (1982) The Polish August: The Self-Limiting Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin). Attali, Jacques (1993) Verbatim. Tome 1: Chronique des Années 1981–86 (Paris: Librarie Arthème, Fayard). Avery D. H. and J. K. Federowicz (1982) The Poles in Canada (Ontario: University of West Ontario). Barker, Elisabeth (1976) British Policy in South-East Europe in the Second World War (London: Macmillan). Barker, Elisabeth (1977) ‘British policy toward Rumania, Bulgaria and Hungary’, in Martin McCauley (ed.), Communist Power in Europe, 1944–49 (London: Macmillan), pp. 201–19. Baylis, John (1981) Anglo-American Defence Relations, 1939–1989 (New York: St. Martin’s Press). Bernstein, Carl and Marco Politi (1996) His Holiness. John Paul II and the hidden history of our time (London: Bantam). Bethell, Nicholas (1974) The Last Secret (London: André Deutsch). Blan, Thomas and Joseph Kircheimer (1981) ‘European dependence and Soviet leverage: the Yamal pipeline’, Survival, 23:5, pp. 209–14. Blinken, Antony J. (1987) Ally Versus Ally: America, Europe and the Siberian Pipeline Crisis (New York: Praeger). Boud’hors, G. (1976) ‘Le voyage du général de Gaulle en Pologne. 6 au 12 Septembre 1967’, Espoir. Revue de l’Institut Charles de Gaulle 14 (March), pp. 34–45. Bromke, Adam, Harald Von Riekhoff, Jacques Levesque and J. K. Federowicz (1982) Canada’s Response to the Polish Crisis (Toronto: Canadian Institute for International Affairs). Brzezinski, Zbigniew (1983) Power and Principle: Memoirs of a National Security Adviser (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Brzezinski, Zbigniew (1984–5) ‘The future of Yalta’, Foreign Affairs, 63:2, pp. 279–80, 294–302. Brzezinski, Zbigniew (1988) ‘White House Diary, 1980.’, Orbis, 32:1, p. 32. Brzezinski, Zbigniew and William Griffith (1961) ‘Peaceful Engagement in Eastern Europe’, Foreign Affairs, 39:4, pp. 642–54. 186

0333_740661_10_bibl.qxd

10/31/2002

10:13 AM

Page 187

Bibliography 187 Bullard, Julian (1989) ‘Perceptions of the Soviet threat: Britain in the 1980s’, in Carl-Christoph Schweitzer (ed.), The Changing Western Analysis of the Soviet Threat (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft), pp. 136–50. Bullard, Julian (1991) ‘European Political Cooperation 1970–1990: A Tale of Two Decades’, Power and Plenty? From the Internal Market to Political and Security Cooperation in Europe, (Florence: The European Policy Unit at the European University Institute), pp. 31–44. Burleigh, Michael (1988) Germany Turns Eastward: a Study of Ostforschung in the Third Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Byrd, Peter (ed.) (1988) British Foreign Policy under Thatcher (New York: St. Martin’s Press). Carrère d’Encausse, Hélène (1986) Ni Paix Ni Guerre (Paris: Flammarion). Carter, Jimmy (1982) Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (London: Collins). Castagne, Jadwiga (1972) ‘Les Relations Franco-Polonaises (1945–97)’, Notes et Études Documentaires, 3922 (25 September). Clarke, Michael (1988) ‘The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe’, in Peter Byrd (ed.), British Foreign Policy under Thatcher (New York: St. Martin’s Press). Clarke, Michael (1989) ‘The debate on European security in the United Kingdom’, in Ole Waever, Pierre Lemaitre and Elzbieta Tromer (eds), European Polyphony: Perspectives Beyond East–West Confrontation (London: Macmillan), pp. 21–141. Clastres, Pierre (1975) La Société Contre l’État (Paris: Minuit). Cohen, Samy (1986) La Monarchie Nucléaire (Paris: Hachette). Coker, Christopher (1989) Reflections on American Foreign Policy since 1945 (London: Pinter). Coker, Christopher (1994) War and the 20th Century (London: Brasseys). Cole, Alistair (1994) François Mitterrand: A Study in Political Leadership (London and New York: Routledge). Couve de Murville, Maurice (1971) Une Politique Étrangère, 1958–1969 (Paris: Plon). Cynkin, Thomas (1988) Soviet and American Signalling in the Polish Crisis (London: Macmillan). Dallek, Robert (1984) Ronald Reagan: The Politics of Symbolism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Daoudi, M. S. and M. S. Dajani (1985) ‘Poland. The politactics of sanctions’, The Polish Review, 30:2, pp. 149–66. Davies, Norman (1981) God’s Playground: A History of Poland in Two Volumes (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Davies, Norman (1984) Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Davis, Lynn (1974) The Cold War Begins: Soviet–American Conflict Over Eastern Europe (Princeton and London: Princeton University Press). Dawisha, Karen (1990) Eastern Europe, Gorbachev and Reform: The Great Challenge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Defarges, Philippe Moreau (1987) Les Relations Internationales dans le Monde d’Aujourd’hui (Paris: Editions STH). Deighton, Anne (ed.) (1990) Britain and the First Cold War (London: Macmillan). de la Serre, Françoise (1988) ‘The scope of national adaptation to European Political Cooperation’, in A. Pijpers, E. Regelsberger and W. Wessels (eds), European

0333_740661_10_bibl.qxd

10/31/2002

10:13 AM

Page 188

188 Bibliography Political Cooperation in the 1980s: a Common Foreign Policy for Western Europe? (London: Martinus Nijhoff). pp. 194–210. DePorte, Anton (1986) Europe Between the Superpowers: The Enduring Balance (New Haven and London: Yale University Press). Deutsch, Karl, S. A. Burrel, et al. (1957) Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Dimbleby, David and David Reynolds (1988) An Ocean Apart: The Relationship Between Britain and America in the Twentieth Century (London: Hodder & Stoughton). Doxey, Margaret (1996) International Sanctions in Contemporary Perspective (London: Macmillan). Doyle, Michael (1983) ‘Kant, liberal legacies, and foreign affairs’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 12:3, pp. 204–35, and 12:4, pp. 323–53. Duke, Simon (1996) ‘The Second Death (or the Second Coming?) of the WEU’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 34:2, pp. 167–90. Eriksen, Erik Oddvar (1999) ‘Towards a logic of justification. On the possibility of post-national solidarity’, in Morten Egeberg and Per Lægreid (eds), Organizing Political Institutions. Essays for Johan P. Olsen (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press), 215–44. Eriksen, Erik Oddvar (2001) ‘Why a Charter of Fundamental Human Rights?’, in Erik Oddvar Eriksen, John Erik Fossum and Agustín Menéndez, The Chartering of Europe, The Charter of Fundamental Rights in Context (Oslo: Arena), pp. 29–52. Eriksen, Erik Oddvar and Jarle Weigård (1997) ‘Conceptualising politics: strategic or communicative action?’, Scandinavian Political Studies, 20:3, pp. 219–41. Etzold, Thomas and John Lewis Gaddis (eds) (1978) Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy. 1945–1950 (New York: Columbia University Press). Fontaine, André (1981) Un Seul Lit Pour Deux Rêves: Histoire de la Détente (Paris: Fayard). Fritsch-Bournazel, Renata (1979) L’Union Soviétique et les Deux Allemagnes (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques). Fritsch-Bournazel, Renata (1987) ‘The French View’, in Edwina Moreton (ed.), Germany Between East and West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 64–82. Gaddis, John Lewis (1983) ‘The emerging post-revisionist synthesis on the origins of the Cold War’, Diplomatic History, 7 (Summer), pp. 171–90. Gaddis, John Lewis (1997) We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Garrett, Stephen (1978) ‘East European ethnic groups and American foreign policy’, Political Science Quarterly, 93:3, pp. 301–27. Garrett, Stephen (1986) From Potsdam to Poland (New York: Praeger). Garthoff, Raymond (1984) ‘Eastern Europe in the context of US–Soviet relations’, in Sarah Meiklejohn Terry (ed.), Soviet Policy in Eastern Europe (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), pp. 315–48. Garthoff, Raymond (1994) Détente and Confrontation: American–Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan, revd edn (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution). Garthoff, Raymond (1994) The Great Transition: American–Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution). Garton Ash, Timothy (1991) The Polish Revolution: Solidarity 1980–81 (London: Granta).

0333_740661_10_bibl.qxd

10/31/2002

10:13 AM

Page 189

Bibliography 189 Garton Ash, Timothy (1994) In Europe’s Name: Germany and the Divided Continent (London: Vintage). Gati, Charles (1982) ‘Polish futures, Western options’, Foreign Affairs, 61:2, pp. 292–309. Genscher, Hans-Dietrich (1995) Erinnerungen (Berlin: Siedler Verlag). Gerbet, Pierre (1983) La Construction de l’Europe (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale). Gerrits, André (1988) ‘Limits of Influence: The Kremlin and the Polish Crisis 1980–81’, Bulletin of Peace Proposals, 19:2, pp. 231–9. Gill, Stephen (ed.) (1989) Atlantic Relations (New York: St. Martin’s Press). Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry (1988) Le Pouvoir et la Vie (Paris: Compagnie 12). Giscard d’Estaing Valéry (1991) Le Pouvoir et la Vie. II: L’affrontement (Paris: Compagnie 12). Glucksmann, André (1975) La cuisinière et le mangeur d’hommes (Paris: Seuil). Glucksman, André (1981) Cynisme et passion (Paris: Grasset). Goldman, Minton F. (1986) ‘Soviet policy toward the turmoil in Poland during the fall of 1980’, East European Quarterly, 20:3, pp. 335–57. Gordon, Lincoln (1987) ‘Interests and Policies in Eastern Europe: the View from Washington’, in Lincoln Gordon (ed.), Eroding Empire: Western Relations with Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution), pp. 67– 128. Griffith, William (1978) The Ostpolitik of the Federal Republic of Germany (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Griffith, William (1980) ‘Superpower relations after Afghanistan’, Survival, 22:4, pp. 146–51. Griffith, William (1987) ‘The American view’, in Edwina Moreton (ed.), Germany Between East and West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 49–63. Griffith, William and Wolfgang Berner (1989) ‘West German policy toward Central and Eastern Europe’, in William Griffith (ed.), Central and Eastern Europe: The Opening Curtain? (Boulder, San Francisco and London: Westview Press), pp. 338–52. Grosser, Alfred (1978) Les Occidentaux: Les Pays d’Europe et les Etats Unis Depuis la Guerre (Paris: Editions Fayard). Habermas, Jürgen (1993) ‘On the pragmatic, the ethical and the moral employment of practical reason’, in Justification and Application: Remarks on discourse ethics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Habermas, Jürgen (1999) ‘Bestiality and Humanity: a war on the border between legality and morality’, Constellations, 6:3, pp. 263–72. Haftendorn, Helga (1985) Security and Detente: Conflicting Priorities in German Foreign Policy (New York: Praeger). Haig, Alexander (1984) Caveat: Realism, Reagan and Foreign Policy (New York: Macmillan). Hajda, Joseph (1980) ‘The Soviet grain embargo’, Survival, 22:6. Halliday, Fred (1989) The Making of the Second Cold War, 2nd edn (London: Verso). Halliday, Fred (1994) Rethinking International Relations (London: Macmillan). Hanrieder, Wolfram (1989) Germany, America, Europe (New Haven and London: Yale University Press). Hanrieder, Wolfram and Graeme Auton (1980) The Foreign Policies of West Germany, France and Britain (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall).

0333_740661_10_bibl.qxd

10/31/2002

10:13 AM

Page 190

190 Bibliography Hanson, Philip (1988) Western Economic Statecraft in East–West Relations (London: Routledge). Harrison, Michael (1984) ‘Mitterrand’s France in the Atlantic system: a foreign policy of accommodation’, Political Science Quarterly, 99:2, pp. 219–46. Hassner, Pierre (1979) ‘Western European perceptions of the USSR’, Daedalus, 108:1, pp. 113–50. Hassner, Pierre (1982) ‘Le Deuil sied à l’Europe’, Esprit, April, pp. 11–25. Hassner, Pierre (1982) ‘The shifting foundation’, Foreign Policy, 48, pp. 3–20. Hassner, Pierre (1985) ‘Les mots et les choses’, in Samy Cohen and Marie-Claude Smouts (eds), La Politique Extérieure de Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques), pp. 232–41. Hassner, Pierre (1987) ‘The View from Paris’, in Lincoln Gordon (ed.), Eroding Empire: Western Relations with Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution), pp. 188–231. Hayward, J. E. S. (1983) Governing France: The One and Indivisible Republic (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Henderson, Nicholas (1994) Mandarin: The Diaries of an Ambassador, 1969–1982 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Hesping, Dale and Ivan Volgyes (1980) ‘How reliable are East European armies?’, Survival, 22:5, pp. 208–18. Hill, Christopher (1983) ‘Britain: a convenient schizophrenia’, in Christopher Hill (ed.), National Foreign Policies and European Political Cooperation (London: George Allan & Unwin), pp. 19–33. Hill, Christopher (1986) ‘Reagan and Thatcher: the Sentimental Alliance’, World Outlook, Winter, pp. 2–18. Hill, Christopher (1991) Cabinet Decisions on Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Hill, Christopher (ed.) (1996) The Actors in Europe’s Foreign Policy (London: Routledge). Hill, Christopher and James Mayall (1983) ‘The Sanctions Problem: International and European perspectives’, EUI Working Paper no. 59 (Florence: EUI, July). Hoffmann, Stanley (1987) ‘Mitterrand’s foreign policy, or Gaullism by any other name’, in George Ross, Stanley Hoffmann and Sylvia Malzacher (eds), The Mitterrand Experiment: Continuity and Change in Modern France (Cambridge: Polity Press), pp. 294–305. Honneth, Axel (1997) ‘Is universalism a moral trap? The presuppositions and limits of a politics of human rights’, in James Bohman and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (eds), Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), pp. 155–78. Hough, Jerry (1982) The Polish Crisis: American Policy Options (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution). Howard, Michael (1986) ‘Afterword: the “Special Relationship” ’, in Hedley Bull and Roger Louis (eds), The ‘Special Relationship’: Anglo-American Relations since 1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 387–92. Howorth, Jolyon (1994) ‘Foreign and defence policy: from independence to interdependence’, in Peter A. Hall, Jack Hayward and Howard Machin (eds), Developments in French Politics (London: Macmillan), pp. 201–17. Hufbauer, Gary Clyde, Jeffrey J. Schott and Kimberley Ann Elliott (1990) Eco-

0333_740661_10_bibl.qxd

10/31/2002

10:13 AM

Page 191

Bibliography 191 nomic Sanctions Reconsidered: History and Current Policy (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics). Hunter, Allen (ed.) (1998) Re-thinking the Cold War (Philadelphia: Temple University Press). Hunter, David William (1988) ‘Western Trade Pressure on the Soviet Union: an interdependence perspective on sanctions’, PhD dissertation, London School of Economics. Hyland, William G. (1982) ‘US–Soviet relations: the long road back’, Foreign Affairs, 60:3, pp. 525–51. Jaruzelski, Wojciech (1998) ‘Commentary’, Cold War International History Project. Bulletin, 11 (Winter), pp. 32–9. Jentleson, Bruce (1986) Pipeline Politics: the Complex Political Economy of East–West Energy Trade (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Jervis, Robert (1994) ‘Symposium: the end of the Cold War and theories of international relations’, International Organization, 48:2. Jervis, Robert (2001) ‘Was the Cold War a security dilemma?’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 3:1, Winter, pp. 36–60. Joffe, Josef (1981) ‘European–American relations: the enduring crisis’, Foreign Affairs, 59:4, pp. 835–52. Joffe, Josef (1987) ‘The view from Bonn: the tacit Alliance’, in Lincoln Gordon (ed.), Eroding Empire: Western Relations With Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution), pp. 129–88. Joffe, Josef (1987) The Limited Partnership: Europe, the United States and the Burdens of Alliance (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger). Johnstone, Diana (1984) The Politics of Euromissiles (London: Verso). Katzenstein, Peter J. (1996) The Culture of National Security: norms and identity in world politics (New York: Columbia University Press). Kavanagh, D. and A. Seldon (1989) The Thatcher Effect (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Kennan, George (1947) ‘The sources of Soviet conduct’, Foreign Affairs, July, pp. 566–82. Ketterer, Constanze (1994) ‘German liberalism and Foreign Policy: the FDP’s Ostpolitik under Hans-Dietrich Genscher, 1974–1990,’ PhD dissertation, London School of Economics. Khalilzad, Zalmay (1980) ‘Afghanistan and the crisis in American Foreign Policy’, Survival, 22:4, pp. 146–51, 151–9. Kissinger, Henry (1964) A World Restored: The politics of conservatism in a revolutionary age (New York: Grosset & Dunlap). Kissinger, Henry (1982) Years of Upheaval (Boston, IL: Little, Brown & Company). Kissinger, Henry (1982) ‘Reflections on a partnership: British and American attitudes to postwar foreign policy’, International Affairs, 58:4, pp. 571–87. Kolodziej, Edward (1974) French International Policy under de Gaulle and Pompidou (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press). Kovacs, Imre (ed.) (1959) Facts About Hungary: The Fight for Freedom (New York: The Hungarian Committee). Kovrig, Bennett (1973) The Myth of Liberation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press). Kovrig, Bennett (1984) ‘Rolling back liberation: the United States and the Hungarian revolution’, in Béla K. Király, Barbara Lotze and Nándor F. Dreisziger

0333_740661_10_bibl.qxd

10/31/2002

10:13 AM

Page 192

192 Bibliography (eds), The first war between socialist states: the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and its impact (New York: Brooklyn College Press), pp. 279–90. Kovrig, Bennett (1991) Of Walls and Bridges: The United States and Eastern Europe (New York: New York University Press). Kramer, Mark (1995) ‘Poland, 1980–81: Soviet policy during the Polish crisis’, Cold War International History Project. Bulletin, issue 5 (Spring), (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars), pp. 1, 116–39. Kramer, Mark (1998) ‘Jaruzelski, the Soviet Union, and the imposition of martial law in Poland: new light on the mystery of December 1981’, Cold War International History Project. Bulletin, 11 (Winter), pp. 5–31. Kramer, Mark (1998) ‘Colonel Kuklinski and the Polish Crisis, 1980–81’, Cold War International History Project. Bulletin, issue 11 (Winter), pp. 60–9. Kramer, Mark (1999) ‘Soviet deliberations during the Polish crisis, 1980–81’, Special Working Paper no. 1 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars). Kramer, Mark (1999) ‘Ideology and the Cold War’, Review of International Studies, 25: 4, pp. 539–76. Kubina, Michael (1998) ‘Moscow’s man in the SED Politburo and the crisis in Poland in Autumn of 1980’, Cold War International History Project. Bulletin, issue 11 (Winter). Kubina, Michael and Manfred Wilke (1995) ‘Verantwortungsgemeinschaften in Deutschland oder das “Mosaiksteinchen” Polen 1980/81’, in Herrn Professor Doktor Michal Ciésla zu seinem 88. Geburtstag. Studien zur Deutschkunde XI. Band (Warsaw: Universytets Warszavsi Insytut Germanistyki). Kulski, Wladislaw (1979) ‘German–Polish relations since World War Two’, The Polish Review, 24:1, pp. 64–9. Kundera, Milan (1984) ‘The tragedy of Central Europe’, New York Review of Books, 31:1. LaFeber, Walter (1972) America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945–71 (New York: Wiley). Larsen, Henrik (1993) ‘Discourse Analysis and Foreign Policy: The Impact of the Concepts of Europe, Nation-State, Security and the Nature of International Relations on French and British Policy toward Europe in the 1980s’, PhD dissertation, London School of Economics. Laulan, Yves (1982) ‘L’Occident peut-il utiliser l’arme économique et financière? L’example polonais’, Commentaire, 17:5, pp. 38–43. Lefort, Claude (1982) ‘Sagt rett fra leveren’ (Speaking one’s mind), Kontinent Skandinavia, K/S/82, pp. 20–2. Le Gloannec, Anne-Marie (1982) ‘Les rèactions allemandes à la crise polonaise’, Documents. Revue des Questions Allemandes, 1 (March), pp. 3–13. Lévy, Bernard-Henry (1977) La Barbarie à Visage Humain (Paris: Grasset). Light, Margot (1990) ‘Anglo-Soviet relations: political and diplomatic’, in Alex Pravda and Peter Duncan (eds), Soviet–British Relations since the 1970s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) pp. 120–46. Lindblom, Charles (1959) ‘The science of muddling through’, Public Administration Review, 19 (Spring), pp. 79–88. Litwak, Robert (1984) Détente and the Nixon Doctrine: American Foreign Policy and the Pursuit of Stability, 1969–1976 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

0333_740661_10_bibl.qxd

10/31/2002

10:13 AM

Page 193

Bibliography 193 Loth, Wilfried (1984) ‘Which Yalta? Reflections on the division of Europe’, Atlantic Quarterly, 2:4, pp. 419–33. Lukacs, John (1965) Decline and Rise of Europe (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press). Lundestad, Geir (1990) The American ‘Empire’ (Oslo: Norwegian University Press). Lundestad, Geir (2000) ‘How (not) to study the origins of the Cold War’, in Odd Arne Westad (ed.), Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory (London: Frank Cass), pp. 64–80. Maier, Charles S. (1970) ‘Revisionism and the interpretation of Cold War origins’, Perspectives in American History, 4, pp. 313–47. Mannheim, Karl (1936) Ideology and Utopia, trans. L. Wirth and E. Shild (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). Marer, Paul and Wlodzimierz Siwinski (eds), (1988) Creditworthiness and Reform in Poland: Western and Polish Perspectives (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press). Marsh, David (1994) Germany and Europe: The Crisis of Unity (London: Mandarin). Mastanduno, Michael (1992) Economic Containment: Cocom and the Politics of East–West Trade (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press). Mastny, Vojtech (ed.) (1995) Italy and East Central Europe (Boulder, CO: Westview Press). Mastny, Vojtech (1996) The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity: the Stalin years (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Mastny, Vojtech (1998) ‘The Soviet non-invasion of Poland in 1980–81 and the end of the Cold War’, Cold War International History Project, Working Paper no. 23, (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars). Mazur, Zbigniew (1977) ‘Les relations Polono-Françaises dans la Période d’Après-Guerre’, La Pologne et les Affaires Occidentales, 12:1. McCauley, Brian (1984) ‘Hungary and Suez, 1956: the limits of Soviet and American power’, in Béla K. Király, Barbara Lotze and Nándor F. Dreisziger (eds), The first war between socialist states: the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and its impact (New York: Brooklyn College Press), pp. 291–315. Mearsheimer, John (1990) ‘Back to the Future: instability in Europe after the Cold War’, International Security, 15:1, pp. 5–56. Meese, Edwin III (1992) With Reagan: The Inside Story (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway). Mélandri, Pierre (1988) Une Incertaine Alliance: Les Etats-Unis et l’Europe. 1973–1983 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne). Menges, Constantine C. (1990) The Twilight Struggle: The Soviety Union v. The United States Today (Washington, DC: AEI Press). Mitterrand, François (1980) Ici et Maintenant: Conversations avec Guy Clarisse (Paris: Fayard). Mitterrand, François (1986) Réflexions sur la Politique Extérieure de la France (Paris: Fayard). Moisi, Dominique (1981) ‘Mitterrand’s foreign policy: the limits of continuity’, Foreign Affairs, 60:2, pp. 347–58. Moravscik, Andrew (1999) The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht (London: UCL Press). Moreton, Edwina (1987) ‘The view from London’, in Lincoln Gordon (ed.), Eroding Empire: Western Relations With Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution), pp. 232–69.

0333_740661_10_bibl.qxd

10/31/2002

10:13 AM

Page 194

194 Bibliography Morgan, Roger (1987) ‘West Germany’s foreign and security interests’, in Edwina Moreton (ed.), Germany Between East and West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 97–107. Mroz, John Edwin (1983) ‘Aider la Pologne’, Politique Internationale, 26:1, pp. 129–55. Nau, Henry (1990) The Myth of America’s Decline (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press). Neustadt, Richard (1970) Alliance Politics (New York and London: Columbia University Press). Newman, Simon (1976) March 1939: The British Guarantee to Poland (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Northedge, Fred (1966) The Troubled Giant (London: Bell & Sons). Nuttall, Simon (1987) ‘Interaction between European Political Cooperation and the European Community’, Yearbook of European Law, no. 7 (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 211–49. Nuttall, Simon (1992) European Political Cooperation (Oxford: Clarendon Press). O’Neill, Robert (ed.) (1985) The Conduct of East–West Relations in the 1980s (London: Macmillan). Palmer, Alan (1970) The Lands Between: A History of East-Central Europe since the Congress of Vienna (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson). Parandowski, Jean (1976) ‘Les Polonais et de Gaulle’, Espoir. Revue de l’Institut Charles de Gaulle, 14 (March), pp. 30–3. Parsons, Anthony (1989) ‘Britain and the world’, in D. Kavanagh and A. Seldon, The Thatcher Effect (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 154–65. Peterson, John (1996) Europe and America: The Prospects for Partnership (London: Routledge). Pipes, Richard (1984) Survival is Not Enough: Soviet Realities and America’s Future (New York: Simon & Schuster). Pipes, Richard (1984) ‘Can the Soviet Union reform?’, Foreign Affairs, 63 (Fall), pp. 47–61. Pipes, Richard (1995) ‘Misinterpreting the Cold War: the hardliners had it right’, Foreign Affairs, 74:1, pp. 154–60. Pisar, Samuel (1970) Coexistence and Commerce: Guidelines for Transactions Between East and West (London: Allen Lane/Penguin). Portes, Richard (1981) The Polish Crisis: Western Economic Policy Options (London: RIIA). Prazmowska, Anita (1987) Britain, Poland and the Eastern Front (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Putnam, Robert and Nicholas Bayne (1987) Hanging Together: Cooperation and Conflict in the Seven-Power Summits (London: Sage). Rachwald, Arthur (1990) In Search of Poland: The Superpowers’ Response to Solidarity (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press). Racine, Bruno (1988) ‘La France et les FNI’, Politique Étrangère, 1, pp. 79–91. Reagan, Ronald (1990) An American Life (London: Hutchinson). Reynolds, David (1995–86) ‘A “special relationship”? America, Britain and the international order since the Second World War’, International Affairs, 62:1, pp. 1–20. Riddell, Peter (1985) The Thatcher Government (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).

0333_740661_10_bibl.qxd

10/31/2002

10:13 AM

Page 195

Bibliography 195 Risse-Kappen, Thomas (1995) ‘Democratic Peace – warlike democracies? A social constructivist interpretation of the liberal argument’, European Journal of International Relations, special issue on democracy and peace, 1:4, pp. 491–517. Risse-Kappen, Thomas (1996) ‘Collective identity in a democratic community: the case of NATO’ in Peter J. Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security: norms and identity in world politics (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 357–99. Roberts, J. M. (1985) The Triumph of the West (London: BBC). Robin, Gabriel (1985) La Diplomatie de Mitterrand (France: Éditions la Bièvre). Rose, Clive (1983) ‘Political consultation in the Alliance’, NATO Review, 31:1, pp. 1–5. Ruane, Kevin (1982) The Polish Challenge (London: BBC). Rubin, Barry (1985) Secrets of State: The State Department and the Struggle over US Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Rummel, Reinhardt (1980) ‘Coordination of the West’s Crisis Diplomacy’, Aussenpolitik, 31:2, pp. 123–33. Rummel, Reinhard (1996) ‘Germany’s role in the CFSP: “Normalitat” or “Sonderweg”?’, in Christopher Hill (ed.), The Actors in Europe’s Foreign Policy (London: Routledge), pp. 40–67. Sæter, Martin (1984) Europa mellom supermaktene (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget). Schmidt, Helmut (1990) Die Deutschen und ihre Nachbarn: Menschen und Mächte II (Berlin: Siedler). Schmidt, Helmut (1990) Men and Power: A Political Retrospective (London: Jonathan Cape). Schopflin, George (1979) ‘Poland: A Society in Crisis’, Conflict Studies, 112 (October). Schopflin, George (1993) Politics in Eastern Europe (Oxford: Blackwell). Schreiber, Thomas (1980) ‘Les Relations de la France avec les pays de l’Est (1944–1980)’, La Documentation Française, 30 April. Schwartz, Hans-Peter (1994) ‘Das Deutsche Dilemma’, in Karl Kaiser and Hanns W. Maull (eds) Deutschlands Neue Aussenpolitik Band I, Grundlagen (Oldenburg: Munich). Schweitzer, Carl-Christoph (ed.) (1990) The Changing Western Analysis of the Soviet Threat (London: Pinter). Skjervheim, Hans (1973) Ideologianalyse, dialektikk, sosiologi (Oslo: Pax forlag). Sloan, Stanley (1986) NATO’s Future: Toward a Transatlantic Bargain (London: Macmillan). Smith, Michael (1984) ‘Atlanticism and North Atlantic Interdependence: The Widening Gap?’, in Barry Jones and Peter Willetts, Interdependence on Trial (London: Frances Pinter), pp. 167–229. Smith, Michael (1990) ‘The Reagan presidency and foreign policy’, in Joseph Hogan (ed.), The Reagan Years (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press), pp. 259–85. Spengler, Oswald (1938) The Decline of the West (London: Allen & Unwin). Stent, Angela (1981) From Embargo to Ostpolitik (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Tatu, Michel (1985) ‘Valéry Giscard d’Estaing et la Détente’, in Samy Cohen and Marie-Claude Smouts (eds), La Politique Extérieure de Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques).

0333_740661_10_bibl.qxd

10/31/2002

10:13 AM

Page 196

196 Bibliography Tessmer, Arnold Lee (1988) Politics of Compromise: NATO and AWACS (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press). Thatcher, Margaret (1993) The Downing Street Years (London: HarperCollins). Tolstoy, Nikolai (1981) Stalin’s Secret War (London: Jonathan Cape). Ullmann, Richard (1986) ‘America, Britain, and the Soviet threat’, in Roger Louis and Hedley Bull, The ‘Special Relationship’: Anglo-American Relations since 1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 103–14. Valenta, Jiri (1981) ‘Soviet options in Poland’, Survival, 23:2, pp. 50–9. Valenta, Jiri (1984) ‘Soviet decision making and the Hungarian revolution’, in Béla K. Király, Barbara Lotze and Nándor F. Dreisziger (eds), The first war between socialist states: the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and its impact (New York: Brooklyn College Press), pp. 265–78. Van Der Beugel, Ernst (1980) ‘After Afghanistan’, Survival, 22:6, pp. 242–7. Wallace, William (1983) ‘Introduction: cooperation and convergence in European foreign policy’, in Christopher Hill (ed.), National Foreign Policies and European Political Cooperation (London: George Allen & Unwin for the RIIA), pp. 1–15. Wassermann, Sherri (1983) The Neutron Bomb Controversy: A Study in Alliance Politics (New York: Praeger). Watt, David (1986) ‘Introduction: the Anglo-American relationship’, in Hedley Bull and Roger Louis (eds), The ‘Special Relationship’: Anglo-American Relations since 1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 1–14. Watt, Donald (1984) Succeeding John Bull: America in Britain’s Special Place, 1900–1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Weber, Max (1978) Economy and Society, ed. by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkley, CA: University of California Press). Weitz, Richard (1988) ‘Soviet Decision-Making and the Polish Crisis’, East European Quarterly, 22:2, pp. 191–212, Wessels, Wolfgang (1991) ‘EPC After the Single European Act: Towards a European Foreign Policy via Treaty Obligations?’, in Martin Holland (ed.), The Future of European Political Cooperation (London: Macmillan), pp. 143–60. Westad, Odd Arne (1994) ‘Symposium: the end of the Cold War and theories of international relations’, International Organization, 48:2, pp. 155–278. Westad, Odd Arne (ed.) (1997) The Fall of Détente: Soviet American Relations during the Carter Years (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press). Westad, Odd Arne (ed.) (2000) Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory (London: Frank Cass). White, Brian (1992) Detente and Changing East–West Relations (London and New York: Routledge). Wieck, H.-G. (1981) ‘The future of East–West relations’, NATO Review, 6 (December). Williams, William (1962) The Tragegy of American Diplomacy (New York: Dell). Windsor, Philip (1981) Germany and the Western Alliance: Lessons from the 1980 Crises, Adelphi Papers, no. 170 (London: IISS). Winn, Neil (1994) ‘European crisis management in the 1980s’, paper presented to the BISA Conference, York, December. Winn, Neil (1985) ‘The limits of European influence in American crisis policymaking’, PhD dissertation, European University Institute, Florence.

0333_740661_10_bibl.qxd

10/31/2002

10:13 AM

Page 197

Bibliography 197 Woods, Stan (1983) ‘Pipeline Politics: The Allies at Odds’, Centrepieces, 5 (Spring) (Aberdeen: Centre for Defence Studies). Woolcock, Stephen (1982) Western Policies on East–West Trade (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul). Wright, Vincent (1992) The Government and Politics of France (London: Routledge). Yergin, Daniel (1978) Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State (London: André Deutsch). Zubok, Vladislav M. (2000) ‘Why did the Cold War end in 1989? Explanations of “the turn” ’, in Odd Arne Westad (ed.), Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory (London: Frank Cass). Zubok, Vladislav and Constantine Pleshakov (1996) Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: from Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

0333_740661_11_ind.qxd

10/31/2002

10:14 AM

Page 198

Index Afghanistan see Second Cold War, détente Atlantic alliance see NATO, Western alliance Brandt, Willy 108–9, 112–13 Britain 1, 126, 69, 72–3 and EPC 46–7, 38 and Polish guarantee 126–7 special relationship 129–30, 131–2 see also United States, Poland, Carrington, Thatcher, East–West trade, trade unions, sanctions Brzezinski, Zbigniew 31, 39, 100–1 see also United States, Carter, Soviet Union Buckley, James mission to Europe 79, 104–6 see also pipeline, sanctions, East– West trade, United States, Reagan Carrington, Lord 26, 38, 43, 128 see also Thatcher, Britain, European Political Cooperation Carter, Jimmy 3, 32, 34, 48–9, 51, 101 letter to the allies 38, 42 reaction to the Gdansk agreement 25, 36–7 see also détente, Second Cold War, United States, Brzezinski Casey, William 96–7 Christopher, Warren 26 CIA 16, 47, 48, 97 see also Vatican, United States Cold War 29, 88–9 nature of 9–11, 92, 133 and norms 11 origins 4–6 see also containment, liberation, détente, Second Cold War Cold War International History Project 12, 16

Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) see Helsinki Act Containment 99–102, 128 see also Cold War Criticism of Western policies 139– 41 Cynkin, Thomas 141–2 de Gaulle, Charles 121–2 ‘Document on the European Identity’ 9 Democracy 2, 61, 87 cooperation 141–5 see also norms Détente 3, 40, 135–39, 53 consequences for East–West relations 29–30 and Poland 25–6, 21, 43, 64 transatlantic differences on 32–5 see also Second Cold War, Cold War, human rights Eagleburger, Lawrence 69–71 East Germany 38, 48, 117–18 see also West Germany, Schmidt, Warsaw Pact, Soviet Union East–West trade 28–29, 36, 131 see also Poland, NATO, pipeline, sanctions Enlargement 145–6 European Community 7–8, 26, 31, 51, 60–2, 72–3 see also ‘ Document on the European Identity’, Poland (economic aid), NATO, European Political Cooperation European Political Cooperation (EPC) 8, 41–2, 75, 87, 126, 134–5 see also European Community, NATO France 1, 25, 36, 52, 59, 69, 71, 119, 129–32 198

0333_740661_11_ind.qxd

10/31/2002

10:14 AM

Page 199

Index 199 domestic political reaction to martial law 123 Communist Party 124–5 Franco–German summit 46 history of Franco–Polish relations 120–2 see also Mitterrand, Poland (economic aid), Giscard, détente, sanctions, Nato, trade unions, gas pipeline G7, meeting in Versailles June 1982 76, 80–2 see also East–West trade, sanctions, gas pipeline Garton Ash, Timothy 22, 108 Gas pipeline 77–82, 106 see also sanctions, United States, Reagan, G7, Thatcher, NATO Gdansk agreement 1, 23–4, 151 Gierek, Edward economic policy 27 reform policy 22–3 relations with the West 30, 122 See also Poland Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry 34, 46, 122, 124, 125 see also France, détente, Carter, Gierek Gomulka, Wladyslaw 22, 101 Grain embargo 80, 154, 169 Gymnich agreement 35 Haig, Alexander 45, 55, 94, 104–6 see also United States, Reagan Helsinki Act 33, 46 see also human rights, détente, Poland Honecker, Erich 17 see also East Germany, Schmidt, Warsaw Pact Human rights 2, 95 and foreign policy 87, 137–9 détente 40, 102–4, 137 and power politics 102–4 see also norms, USA Hungary, crisis of 1956 10, 100, 117 Ideology 10–11 see also norms

Jaruzelski, General 66–7, 118, 124 see also martial law Kissinger, Henry, and the year of Europe 9 KOR (Committee for the Defence of Western) 24, 83 Kuklinski, Ryrzard 49, 159 see also martial law Lack of information 41 Liberation 65, 99–100, 127, 128 see also Cold War, United States Martial law 1, 6, 15 imposition of 63 lifting of 82–3 Western preparedness for 41, 55, 63 Soviet responsibility for 65, 107, 118 Western response to 64, 67–9 see also Jaruzelski, Kuklinski, Poland, Soviet Union Mauroy, Pierre 71 see also France Methodology 15–17 Military intervention, risk of 27 Mitterrand, François 80, 67, 119, 124–5 see also France National Security Archives 17 NATO 6–9, 43–5, 50–1, 55, 74–5, 92, 108, 112–14, 119–21, 128, 132, 134–6, 93–4 see also Western alliance, European Community, EPC, United States Norms 2–3, 11, 106, 133 alliance norms 129–32, 141–5 ethical-political 6, 12, 18, 40, 114–15 ethical-political norms in German foreign policy 110 moral 13, 18–19, 21, 40, 98, 102 moral norms in US foreign policy 95–6, 97, 98–9, 101, 102 power of 145–6 pragmatic see rationality

0333_740661_11_ind.qxd

10/31/2002

10:14 AM

Page 200

200 Index Ostpolitik 110–13 see also Brandt, Schmidt, West Germany Poland economic aid to 37, 58–62 debt 27–8, 37, 56–60, 85–6 default 52, 76–8 dilemmas for Western governments 26, 30, 40, 55 domestic origins of crisis in 21 immigrants in the West 31, 38 roundtable negotiations 5 significance of 2, 5–6 see also sanctions, East–West trade, détente, Gierek, martial law, pipeline, Jaruzelski ‘Quad’

15, 39, 54, 131

Rachwald, Arthur 93 Rationality 13 instrumental 11–13, 41, 95, 133, 139, 141–2 instrumental in French foreign policy 123–4 instrumental in German foreign policy 108 Reagan, Ronald 3, 45, 51–2, 73–4, 84, 95–7,105 see also USA Rocard, Michel 123 SALT II 3 Sanctions 69–70, 76–82, 93–5, 104–6, 118 lifting of 82–7 see also pipeline, G7, East–West trade, Poland, USA, NATO Schmidt, Helmut 17, 34, 38, 68, 73–4, 107, 118–19 see also West Germany, East Germany Second Cold War 3, 5, 32–6 United States in 94–6 see also détente, Cold War Social science 15 Solidarity 1, 5, 6, 25, 31, 39, 50, 63, 64, 83, 96, 108, 115, 117

see also martial law, Jaruzelski, Gdansk agreement Sonnenfeldt doctrine 101 Sources, interpreting 16–17 Soviet Union risk of invasion 27, 42–3, 47–51, 117–8 Western perceptions of 5, 32,140–1 Western warnings 36, 42, 54–5 see NATO, EU, sanctions, East–West trade, Poland, martial law, Jaruzelski Thatcher, Margaret 77, 129, 130 view on East–West relations 127–9 see also pipeline, Carrington, Britain Trade unions, support to Poland 31–2 Transatlantic relations see NATO, EU Umbrella theory 27 United States 1–2, 106 aims in Poland 50, 93–4 covert action in Poland 96–7 and Europe 105–6 and human rights 137–8, 102–4 policy towards Eastern Europe 97–101 and power politics 94–6,102 role in the Cold War 6 tension in the administration 104–6 see also Brzezinski, Carter, Reagan, Sonnenfeldt, NATO, East–West trade, debt, Eagleburger, Buckley, pipeline, G7, Vatican, Wilson, trade unions, European Community, EPC Vatican 85, 96–7 visit of the Pope to Poland Walesa, Leck 68, 86 see also Gdansk agreements, Solidarity

22

0333_740661_11_ind.qxd

10/31/2002

10:14 AM

Page 201

Index 201 Warsaw Pact meeting of 5 December 1980 10, 25, 40, 47–8, 117–18 see also Soviet Union, East Germany West Germany 1, 39, 71–2, 87, 89, 111–14, 116–9 domestic political reaction to martial law 115–16 relations with East Germany 108 relations with Poland and East Europe 110 view on martial law 106–9

see also Schmidt, East Germany, détente, sanctions, debt, Ostpolitik, East–West trade, Nato, Western alliance, Poland Western alliance definition of 6 effectivness of crisis mechanisms 35, 87–9 see also NATO, European Community, EPC Wilson, Woodrow 97–8 Yalta

29, 127

0333_740661_11_ind.qxd

10/31/2002

10:14 AM

Page 202