Europe Between the Superpowers

For some time now, the new world order that emerged after World War II has been profoundly shaken. America no longer is the unchallenged Number One. Yet that conviction seems to die hard in this country—just as the trend of isolationism still has a way of popping up when things don’t go our way abroad. Indeed, the Reagan sweep owed much to the frustrations caused by the last decade’s successful challenges to United States power—from the defeat in Vietnam to the hostages held in Iran.

In Europe, the de facto dividing line established at Yalta and Potsdam between the two superpowers’ zones of influence has long been fortified by the military alliance systems, and was again more recently officially recognized in...