Empire or stability? The case for Soviet dissolution.

This article argues that it is only through the breakup of the Soviet empire that lasting stability can come to Eastern Europe. It suggests that, notwithstanding Mikhail Gorbachev's recent cease-fire with nine republics, the Soviet Union's collapse is not a preference but an inevitability; that protracted collapse is far more dangerous than rapid collapse; and that stability and security can be enhanced by accelerating Soviet collapse and skillfully managing the post-Soviet order. Because Soviet perceptions of the relative costs and benefits of crackdown and empire will depend so heavily on the West in general and Washington in particular, the U.S. ability to formulate an appropriate policy will be of critical importance. The U.S. and its allies must at last realize that the road to stability goes through the republics, not through Moscow. if the West does not act to stabilize Eastern Europe, the consequences of this inactivity will be tragic. Since the contradiction between perestroika and the disintegrative forces it spawned cannot be reconciled within the framework of any kind of Soviet Union, sooner or later Moscow will have to abandon perestroika and try to smother the republics. And when a superpower becomes embroiled in a civil war that it cannot win, only one conclusion appears certain: everybody--Moscow, the republics, Central Europe, and the West--will be the losers.