ABSTRACT
This chapter deals first with the relationship of Europeans with the Soviet Union; then discusses Central Europe; then turns to Germany and Western Europe; and finally considers the relationship between the United States and the newly-emerging European commonwealth: the new shape, in fact, of the West. The Soviets appear to have divested themselves of their Empire in the West as completely as the British divested themselves, 40 years ago, of their Empire in the East. The remaking of Europe is at last possible. A distinction is made between Central Europe and Eastern Europe. ‘Central Europe’ consists of those lands which once formed part of Western Christendom; the old lands of the Habsburg Empire, Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, together with Poland and the eastern marches of Germany. A more flexible, less obtrusive and less costly deployment of American forces in Europe could provide sufficient ‘linkage’ while satisfying critics of the Alliance on both sides of the Atlantic.
