Vendor
	C.H.BECK Jonathan Beck
Original language
German
Categories
Russia NATO Geopolitics Military & defence strategy The Cold War
Weblink
www.chbeck.de

Russian Roulette

Horst Teltschik

From Cold War to Cold Peace

As foreign policy advisor of Helmut Kohl and long-term president of the Munich Security Conference, Horst Teltschik has a grasp on the last decades’ international politics matched by few. In this book, he shows how in 1989/90, the opportunity for a stable international peace order was missed, and why the current confrontation between NATO and Russia must be defused by a new policy of détente.

NATO and Russia are trapped in an escalating spiral of threats that evoke the games of stubborn children. Troops are ordered to borders, military manoeuvres are executed to intimidate the opponent, rearmament is taking place and there is no sign of the former mutual trust. When Teltschik takes us back to 1989/90, he explains the reasons for the missed opportunity. He goes on to demonstrate that since then, there could have been more room for self-criticism by NATO, and that Russian actions are at least partially reactions to Western ones. The book proposes that, without defence or praise of recent Russian aggression, it is nonetheless urgently necessary to supplement NATO’s current politics of confrontation with willingness to compromise and offers for negotiation. Otherwise, we run the risk of lurching from cold peace to hot confrontation. It is the great achievement of Teltschik’s new book to recall this lesson of the Cold War.

‘Everywhere needs more active people of Horst Teltchik’s calibre’

Michael Lüders