Although democracy and freedom have to a large extent been regained, Europe must recognize with some bitterness that it still cannot look to the future without apprehension. Beneath the apparent harmony of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit burns the disillusion of the countries of the East, threatened by a dangerous syndrome of abandonment.
The anxiety about adhesion shared by Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Lithuanians and other ex-Soviet states-fed by the rising “great-Russian” nationalism and “Black Tsar” (Vladimir) Zhirinovsky’s neo-imperialist temptations-has clashed with (Boris) Yeltsin’s hard stance.
For the Kremlin, enlarging NATO is an “act of hostility.” If the frontiers of NATO were to enlarge as far east to coincide with those of Russia, a new Iron Curtain may be raised. Nothing could then prevent the triumph of the neo-fascists and the end of the fragile Russian democracy, while Europe would become the ideal ground for a renewal of the old war games that lashed it so many times before.
Only an alliance that encompasses all the one-time enemies would be capable of guaranteeing absolute peace. In the meantime, supporting Yeltsin buys time for Russia to resolve its grave internal problems and avoids choices in already inflamed areas. But who can guarantee that frustration and rancor will not trigger off in the fragile democracies of Central Europe the same degenerating processes seen after the collapse of the USSR?
