Soviet Military Might

"In Europe it is the Soviet burden that is heavy, while the American burden is relatively light, and far easier to remove altogether. In Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union only maintains regimes allied to its own by sheer military force. In four cases it has had to send tanks against the people of these supposedly independent countries to prevent them from changing their government.

"The same assymetry applies to any propective expansion by either of the superpowers of their spheres of influence in Europe. The USA would certainly like to see Eastern Europe opened up to American capital, and undertakes various kinds of subversion in support of anti-Soviet tendencies in the various East European countries that might be favourable to a rapprochment with the Western camp (though with with far less vigour now than it did in the 1950s).

"The Soviet Union, however has far less opportunity for 'peaceful' expansion to the West, at least so long as the Atlantic Alliance remains united. Already dependent on its military force to hold down Eastern Europe, it would have to expand in the same terms."