1995/01/01 by Richard Holbrooke · 2 citations
Social Sciences · #International Relations and Foreign Policy
paper · doi:10.2307/20047041
necessary component of the continental balance for half a century. Conversely, an unstable Europe would still threaten essential national security interests of the United States. This is as true after as it was during the Cold War. I do not intend, of course, to suggest that nothing has changed. The end of the Cold War, which can best be dated to that symbolic moment at midnight on December 25,1991, when the Soviet flag came down over the Kremlin for the last time, began an era of change of historic proportions. Local conflicts, internal political and economic instability, and the return of historical grievances have now replaced Soviet expansionism as the greatest threat to peace in Europe. West ern Europe and America must jointly ensure that tolerant democra cies become rooted throughout all of Europe and that the seething, angry, unresolved legacies of the past are contained and solved.