ABSTRACT
The European peninsula of the Eurasian landmass is also the most highly militarized region in the world. The alternate means of seeking Mutual Strategic Security—namely, through the proliferation of mobile strategic systems—is less desirable both militarily and in terms of cost. In Europe, the United States should encourage the development of a politically and militarily integrated Western Europe, less dependent on the United States but still tied to it by a strategic alliance. In southwest Asia, the most important priority for the United States is to step up the political and military pressure on the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The Soviet objective in Eastern Europe is to dominate its satellites militarily and ideologically and to integrate them into a kind of economic commonwealth. Once Soviet military power is checked, the Soviet Union ceases to be a historically threatening rival.
