Endgame and German Unification (A Review Essay)

Home , Eduard Shevardnadze, Helmut Kohl, Kiron Skinner, Ostpolitik

The Cold Wm’s Thomas Risse Endgame and German Unification (A Review Essay)

Frank Elbe and Richard Kiessler, A Round Table with Sharp Corners: The Diplomatic Path to German Unity. Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos, 1996

Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995

The negotiations that settled the international aspects of German unifica In-the “Two plus Four talks’’-constituted the Cold War’s endgame. These talks also set the founda- tion for the post-Cold War security order in Europe. They took place at a time of extraordinary, mostly peaceful turmoil in Europe, after the Soviet Union had given up its grip over Eastern Europe, people’s power had toppled Communist regimes, and the Berlin Wall had come down. Nevertheless, when the “Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany” was signed in Moscow on September 12, 1990, there were ”no winners and no losers.”’ The Soviet leadership agreed to German unification within NATO, while NATO gave up its anti-Soviet posture, and Germany accepted various restrictions on its military status.

Tlzovias Risse has been Professor of Internationa/ Politics at the University of Konstanz, Grrrnany, and is now International Relations Chair af thP Eiiropzn Unizwsity rnstitute, Florence, Ita2y. He is the author of Cooperation among Democracies: The European Influence on US. Foreign Policy (Princeton, N.1.: Princeton University Press, 1995) and the editor of Bringing Transnational Relations Back In (Cam- bridge, U.K.: Cambridge Uni7wsity Press, 2995).

For critical and insightful comments on the draft of this article I thank Tanja Borzel, Hans-Peter Schmitz, and Cornelia Ulbert. I also thank Christian Hacke and Kiron Skinner for insightful suggestions relating to the endgame of the Cold War.

1. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, quoted in Zelikow and Rice, p. 363

lritrrrintioitnl Security, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Spring 1YY7), pp. 159-185 0 1997 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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The story of the Two plus Four talks contributes significantly to the scholarly debate on how the Cold War ended.2 This debate has centered around issues such as the strategies that ended the Cold War (eg, ”peace through strength”) and the relationship between structural conditions (e.g., the decline of Soviet power) on the one hand, and the policies of individual decision makers (e.g., Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, George Bush) on the other, in transforming the East-West relationship. This article draws on two books that offer the best diplomatic histories available so far of the talks among the two Germanys and the four Allied Powers (the United States, the Soviet Union, France, Great Britain) from late 1989 to September 1990. The two studies contribute to the historiography of the Cold War‘s end in a most important way, thereby pro- viding additional answers to the issues mentioned above. The books are written by authors who were ”present at the creation” of the post-Cold War order on both sides of the Atlantic. Philip Zelikow, a career diplomat now teaching at Harvard University, was assigned to Robert Blackwill, the director for European and Soviet affairs in the Bush administration’s National Security Council (NSC). Condoleezza Rice, now provost of Stanford University, served as the top Soviet expert in the NSC. Their book is the most comprehensive and detailed account of the negotiations available. It is written in a scholarly way throughout and draws on mostly classified U.S. sources, but also German and Soviet documents in addition to extensive interviews with all major players. The sources are thoroughly documented. Zelikow and Rice show in a superb way how-within less than a year-extraordinarily skillful diplomacy on both sides of the Atlantic managed to settle the difficult questions concerning the international aspects of German unification and, at the same time, started creating the post-Cold War security order in Europe. European readers in particular learn that one has to give credit to the Bush administration’s efforts in order to explain Gorbachev’s agreement to German unification within NATO. The United States not only supported the German government throughout, but-according to Zelikow and Rice-was actively involved in reassuring not just the Soviets, but also the nervous British and French governments, that they could support German unity without en-

2. See, for example, Pierre Allan and Kjell Goldmann, eds., The Emf of the Cold War: ELldilfftiJig T/zeovies of lriterriatioml Rrlotions (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1992);John Lewis Gaddis, The United States orid the Etid of tlzr Cold War (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1992); Michael J. Hogan, ed., Tlie End of the Cold War: Its Meming mid Implications (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Richard N. Lebow and Thomas Risse-Kappen, eds., Iriterizatiorzal Relations Theory and the Ei7d of tl7e Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995).

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dangering their own security. While Zelikow and Rice do not hide their admi- ration for the Bush administration’s approach (particularly the NSC’s, as one can imagine), they provide a fair account of the story so that readers can reach their own conclusions. This is also true for their insightful analysis of the Soviet approach. As to their evaluation of German policies, they are less balanced. Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his foreign policy adviser Horst Teltschik are portrayed in most positive terms, while Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Gen- scher comes across as a somewhat suspicious character whose motives remain unclear. Genscher, however, provided the ”grand design” of the post-Cold War security architecture. This at least is the message of the second book under review here, the account by Elbe and Kie~sler.~It is less scholarly and more journalistic, but nevertheless insightful, particularly on the German view of the situation. Frank Elbe, now the German ambassador to India, was the head of Genscher’s private office at the time, while Richard Kiessler is a journalist with the German weekly Der Spiegel. Their account represents the German foreign office version of the story that counterbalances somewhat and, thus, complements the Zelikow and Rice book. In fact, since the German version of the Elbe and Kiessler book was published first in 1993, Zelikow and Rice sometimes comment on it directly and mostly in critical terms. Thus, the two books together make for quite interesting reading on one of this century’s most extraordinary diplomatic negotiations. The two books offer a fairly comprehensive picture as a result of which the Cold War’s endgame is now very well d~cumented.~But the books also share a major weakness.

~. 3. This is the English translation of Richard Kiessler and Frank Elbe, Ein runder Tisch mit scharfen Ecken (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1993). Quotes and references from the two books under review will be cited in the main text, while other sources will be quoted in the footnotes. 4. In addition, there is an increasing memoir literature. See, for example, James A. Baker 111, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989-1992 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995); Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Erinnerungen (Berlin: Siedler, 1995); Mikhail Gorbachev, Erinnerungen (Berlin: Siedler, 1995); Julij A. Kwizinskij, Vor dem Sturm: Erinnerungen cines Diplomafcn (Berlin: Siedler, 1993); Eduard Shevardnadze, Die Zukunft gehehb‘rtder Freiheit (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1991); Horst Teltschik, 329 Tage: lnnenansichten der Einigung (Berlin: Siedler, 1991); Valentin Falin, Politische Erinnerungen (Munchen: Droemer-Knaur, 1993). For other scholarly accounts see Ulrich Albrecht, Die Abwicklung der DDR. Die ”2+4~Verhulzdlullgen”(Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1992); Timothy Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name: Germany and the Divided Continent (New York: Random House, 1993); Michael R. Beschloss and Strobe Talbott, At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1993); Christian Hacke, Weltmacht wider Willen. Die Aussenpolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschhd (Frankfurt/Main: Ullstein, 1993), chap. 9; Karl Kaiser, Deutschlands Vereinigung. Die internationalen Aspekte (Bergisch Gladbach: Gustav Lubbe Verlag, 7991); Elizabeth Pond, Beyond the Wall: Germany’s Rond to Unification (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1993); Stephen Szabo, The Diplomacy of German Unification (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992).

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Neither Elbe nor Kiessler pretend to be scholars: Zelikow is a trained lawyer, and Rice is a political scientist. Yet the books are entirely descriptive and make no attempt at explaining the events they report. Rather, as Zelikow and Rice put it, they want to ”tell the German story and the Soviet story and the American story, and then study how they interacted to produce the results all could see” (p. x). We are left with excellent accounts of historical details, but rarely an attempt to put the story into an analytical perspective. Since it is rarely the case that scholars actively participate in diplomatic negotiations, their particular perspective could have provided a good starting point to explain the events that they report and, thereby, to contribute to the scholarly debate on the end of the Cold War. As a result, scholars will have to come to their own theoretical conclusions concerning the Cold War‘s endgame, which I plan to do in the following essay. I draw on the empirical stories of the two books and ask what insights we gain on how the Cold War ended. I make three claims. First, I argue that the Cold War’s endgame is largely a story of reassurance rather than compellence or even coercion. The West tried to accommodate the Soviet Union and, at the same time, to integrate it in the new European security order. Both books provide new details about how the Bush administration and the Kohl government worked hand in hand to achieve this goal. Second, the negotiations show a process of communication, argumentation, and persuasion rather than traditional power-based bargaining. Significant U.S.-Soviet and German-Soviet meetings resembled communication and deliberation processes more than the exchange of fixed preferences. Finally, I claim that the Two plus Four talks confirm evidence that NATO constitutes a ”pluralistic security community”6 rather than a traditional military alliance. As both Zelikow and Rice and Elbe and Kiessler show, the American-German relationship worked extremely smoothly toward a common goal based on a collective identity. This also explains in part why NATO survived the end of the Cold War more or less intact. In sum, the lessons I draw from these books confirm arguments developed by authors working in the liberal and institutionalist traditions of international relation^.^ The diplomatic history of the end of the Cold War is also compatible

5. See also Gunther Hellmann, ”Der Prasident, der Kanzler, sein Adenminister und die Ver- einigung, oder: Staatskunst als Heuemte,” Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Vol 37, No. 2 (June 1996), pp. 357-363, esp. p. 361, on this point. 6. See Karl W. Deutsch et al., Political Community and fhe North Atlantic Area (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957). 7. On liberalism, see Michael W. Doyle, ”Liberalism and the End of the Cold War,” in Lebow and Risse-Kappen, International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War, pp. 85108; Andrew

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with a social constructivist perspective that emphasizes how actors construct social structures, including international structures, through their interactions, and that these normative structures shape their identities and preferences. Leaders on both sides worked hard to construct a post-Cold War peace order and to prevent Europe from lapsing into anarchy.

The Challenge to Structuralist Accounts

The Zelikow and Rice book confirms that the endgame of the Cold War constitutes a ”study in statecraft” leading to the “most peaceful change of this magnitude in European history.”’ To argue that diplomacy made a crucial difference implies, however, that structural accounts of the end of the Cold War do not tell the whole story.” Why bother about statecraft if Mikhail Gorbachev had no choice but to accept German unification on Western terms? One could argue, for example, that Moscow had already lost its Eastern European empire by early 1990, when the negotiations started. It was almost impossible for Moscow to turn back the clock short of instigating a major and suicidal war with the West. Moreover, the Soviet economy was in a deep crisis in 1989-90 and depended on crucial Western aid and credits. When the Two plus Four talks started in March 1990, the Soviet Union had already lost the Cold War, leaving it with no alternative but, according to a structuralist argument, to cut

Moravcsik, “Liberalism and International Relations Theory,” 2d ed., Working Paper Series (Cam- bridge, Mass.: Center for International Affairs, Harvard University 1993); Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993). On institutionalism see, for example, Robert 0. Keohane, International Institutions and State Power (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1989); Harald Miiller, Die Chance der Kooperation (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1993); Volker Rittberger, ed., Regime Theory and International Relations (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1993). 8. Important texts on social constructivism are Peter Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in WorId Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); Friedrich Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Alexander Wendt, ”Anarchy is What States Make of It,” International Organizntion, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Spring 1992), pp. 391425; Alexander Wendt, “Constructing International Politics,” International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995), pp. 71-81. 9. The second phrase is quoted in Pond, Beyond the Wall, p. 224. 10. For sophisticated structural and realist accounts see Kenneth A. Oye, “Explaining the End of the Cold War: Morphological and Behavioral Adaptation to the Nuclear Peace?” in Lebow and Risse-Kappen, International Relations Theory nnd the End of tlze Cold War, pp. 57-83; William C. Wohlforth, ”Realism and the End of the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Winter 1994/95), pp. 91-129. Of course, sophisticated realists have never argued that structural constraints explain an individual state’s foreign policy. However, the following arguments are frequently made in the political discourses on both sides of the Atlantic. They reflect a less sophisticated reading of the realist viewpoint.

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its losses and to bite the bullet of German unification including continued NATO membership. That Soviet power was considerably weakened in 1989-90, and that this weakness placed severe constraints on Gorbachev’s range of options, however, does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that he had no choice. Each decision by Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze was extremely controversial in Mos- cow. First, as Zelikow and Rice argue (p. 1961, Moscow could have forced the German people to choose between unification and NATO membership, ”chan- neling the surging tide for unity against the supporters of the alliance.” One has to keep in mind the domestic situation in both Germanys in early 1990, with elections coming up in East Germany in March and in West Germany later in the year. It is unclear whether Chancellor Kohl would have been able to consistently support a united Germany’s membership in NATO if he had been faced with stiff Soviet opposition throughout the summer and fall of 1990. What if the Soviet Union had continued much longer than until the summer of 1990 to present the Germans with a choice between unification and NATO membership? How would this have affected the German domestic debate on unification? And what if the Social Democrats had won elections in the German Democratic Republic in March 1990? As Zelikow and Rice document, leading Social Democrats only reluctantly supported Germany’s continuing membership in the western alliance.” Second, while the use of military force was probably not an option for Moscow to prevent German unity, the Soviet Union could have provoked a major international crisis and confrontation with Bonn and Washington by fully insisting on its legal rights over East Germany and Germany as a whole as an Allied Power (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 196-197). This option was also discussed in Moscow at the time.” NATO, the United States, and Germany would certainly have survived such a crisis. But the price for such a confrontation would have been to start another Cold War just as the first one was about to end peacefully. A major international East-West crisis in 1990 was certainly not in NATO’s interest, nor Germany’s. Last but not least, what would have happened to the 300,000 Soviet troops deployed in East Germany if there had been no Two plus Four agreement? Would they have remained there until today?

11. See also Pond, Beyond the Wall, p. 174. 12. See, for example, the Soviet draft treaty tabled at the Two plus Four talks on June 22, 1990, which was prepared by Yuli Kvitsinsky. See Kvitsinsky, Vor dem Sturrn, pp. 40-46.

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Third, arguments about inevitability and lack of choice on Moscow’s part overlook the fact that Mikhail Gorbachev himself had made crucial decisions in autumn of 1989 that enabled the possibility of German unification in the first place. It was his choice not to interfere with domestic events in Eastern Europe, thereby creating a window of opportunity through which the dissidents in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia jumped. It was Gor- bachev who warned the East German Politburo on October 7, 1989, that “life punishes those who fall behind.” While Gorbachev did not actively encourage ”people’s power” in Eastern Europe, he did nothing to prevent it from hap- pening. Fourth, the structural conditions that the Soviet leadership faced at the time were counterbalanced by another constraining factor, domestic politics in Mos- cow. As Shevardnadze put it, ”the conviction was too deeply rooted in the consciousness of our people that the existence of two German states provided a reliable guarantee for the security of our country and the whole continent- the conviction that an enormous price had been paid for this and that it would be inadmissible to forget it.”I3 The 27 million Russian deaths that Nazi Ger- many had inflicted upon the Soviet Union during World War I1 could not be forgotten easily. Moreover, NATO was widely regarded as a hostile alliance and a genuine threat-this was not just communist propaganda. It was not surpris- ing, then, that German unification within NATO was extremely hard to swal- low for the Soviet public, not just for the leadership. Given the public mood, opposition to Gorbachev and Shevardnadze in the Politburo and the Soviet bureaucracy ran high, as both books extensively do~ument.’~ In sum, while the Soviet Union faced severe structural constraints in 1989-90, it was by no means inevitable that Moscow would agree to German unification within NATO. Structural accounts of the end of the Cold War, including realism, show how international systemic and domestic economic factors create a set of conditions that enable as well as constrain specific choices by decision makers. But these accounts are of little help in explaining these particular choices, as sophisticated realists themselves admit.I5 The question then be- comes why Gorbachev changed his mind and not only accepted rapid German

13. Shevardnadze, Die Zlrkunft gehdrt der Freihrit, p. 234 (my translation). 14. See Zelikow and Rice, pp. 150-151, 162, 225-226, 240-246, 261-262, 273, 277-278, 295-297, 328-330, 334; Elbe and Kiessler, pp. 120, 143, 151-157. 15. See, for example, Kenneth Waltz, “Reflections on Theory of International Politics: A Response to My Critics,” in Robert Keohane, ed., Neorealisrn and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 322-345, 331.

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unification, but also continued German membership in NATO. In other words, the puzzle remains why the Soviet leadership changed its preferences on the future of Germany within a very short period of time. The books by Zelikow and Rice as well as Elbe and Kiessler show how Western statecraft contributed to this outcome.

Did ”Peace Through Strength” End the Cold War?

If statecraft mattered during the Cold War’s endgame, we need to look at the bargaining process leading to the Soviet acceptance of German unification within NATO. There are two conventional explanations for this outcome; first, Western firmness eventually paid off. The end of the Cold War resulted from coercive bargaining: ”peace through strength.”I6 Second, it is sometimes argued that Gorbachev’s acceptance of German unification and membership in NATO resulted from bribery (the Kohl government agreed to pay roughly DM 20 billion in exchange for unification within NATO). The Zelikow and Rice account-in contrast to the version by Elbe and Kiessler-contains some evidence that NSC officials, in particular, thought in “peace through strength” terms. As President Bush put it in a conversation with Chancellor Kohl in late February 1990, ”we prevailed and they didn’t. We can’t let the‘soviets clutch victory from the jaws of defeat” (Zelikow and Rice, p. 215). Zelikow and Rice sometimes seem to agree with that view, for example, when they describe the Western bargaining strategy as an attempt to keep the Soviet Union ”off balance, facing one unpalatable choice after another, ultimately accepting unity on Western terms as the least unfavorable solution” (p. 251). Indeed, the United States played hardball with the Soviet leadership on several occasions. The most significant incident of coercive bargaining occurred in June 1990 when Secretary of State Baker told his Soviet counterpart Shevard- nadze that the Western allies might unilaterally agree to full German sover- eignty, i.e., terminate their Allied Power rights, if the Soviets did not go along (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 300-301). This threat was based on contingency plans within the NSC, although there was no firm U.S. decision whether to go ahead unilaterally (ibid., pp. 254-255).

16. See my earlier article on this point: Thomas Risse-Kappen, ”Did ’Peace Through Strength End the Cold War? Lessons from INF,” Internationnl Security, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Summer 1991), pp. 162-188.

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Zelikow and Rice appear to weigh the evidence slightly in favor of a “peace through strength” argument. But I read their own story and the evidence they present differently. Coercive bargaining proved to be the exception to the general approach of ”friendly persuasion,” as Zelikow and Rice entitle chap- ter 7 of their book. Reassurance rather than compellence was the name of the Cold War‘s endgame. If there was any attempt at coercion, it was usually framed within a ”carrots and sticks” approach, with the emphasis on incentives rather than on threats. West German and American diplomats confronted the Soviet leadership with a choice: either accept German unification within NATO in exchange for a whole package of reassurances meeting Soviet security concerns, or become increasingly isolated diplomatically (Zelikow and Rice, p. 246). In sum, Zelikow and Rice appear to give a “peace through strength account more credit than it deserves according to their own evidence. As to Soviet agreement to German unification within NATO in exchange for cash, both books make it clear that bribery was only one modest part of the Western incentives for the Soviets to accept German unification within NATO. The question of economic assistance came up during a conversation between Kohl and Shevardnadze in early May 1990, when the Soviet foreign minister asked for a loan guarantee of a hard currency credit. The Soviets demanded a DM 20 billion credit, but the Germans were prepared to guarantee only DM 5 billion. At the same time, Chancellor Kohl started lobbying Western allies to follow suit. His efforts failed, since the United States and Great Britain refused loan guarantees in the absence of Soviet economic reforms. Moscow pocketed the German loan guarantee, but did not insist much on further Western economic assistance (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 247, 258-259, 265,269, 276).17 There is no evidence that the German loan guarantee was crucial in the Soviet decision to accept rapid unification within NATO. Some Soviet diplomats even consid- ered the Soviet demand for help counterproductive, since it weakened Mos- cow’s bargaining position rather than strengthening it.” But the Soviet leadership played hardball with the Germans toward the very end of the bargaining process, when the financial arrangements for the Soviet troop withdrawal from East Germany were negotiated (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 351-352). In September 1990, Gorbachev issued a quasi ultimatum to Kohl arguing that the final document of the Two plus Four talks could not be signed before the two sides had agreed on how much Germany would pay for housing

17. See also Teltschik, 329 Tage, pp. 221, 23&234, 243-244. 18. See Kvitsinsky, Vor dem Sturm, pp. 2.528.

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and infrastructure costs of the returning Red Army troops. The West German government finally caved in. The ultimate price tag on Soviet agreement to German unification within NATO was DM 20 billion. These negotiations occurred, however, when the major decisions had already been made and Gorbachev had long since agreed to rapid German unification within NATO. While German financial bribery was part of the ”incentive package” for Soviet agreement, the evidence provided by the two books suggests that this was not decisive. It constituted an additional ”sweetener,” but it was not the core of the Western bargaining strategy to reassure Moscow. If neither ”peace through strength” nor attempts at bribery offer convincing explanations for the Soviet turnaround, how then did the West influence Moscow’s decisions? The evidence presented in both books suggests that reassurance addressing Soviet security concerns as well as communicative processes of persuasion and argumentation did the trick. This is certainly true for the story that Elbe and Kiessler tell, while Zelikow and Rice appear to lean a little more toward a ”peace through strength” argument. The difference in the two accounts partly reflects a difference in emphasis by the US. administration as compared to the West German government. However, the empirical evidence presented by Zelikow and Rice seems entirely compatible with the following interpretation.

Reassuring the Soviets (and Germany’s Neighbors)

When the Bush administration assumed power in early 1989, it was not obvi- ous that the Western allies would accommodate Soviet concerns about Euro- pean security. While the departing Reagan administration had essentially declared the Cold War over, the initial approach of the new president was more cautious (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 20-27). The Bush administration originally managed alliance and East-West relations in a way that nearly jeopardized everything that followed. In early 1989, the United States engaged in an unnecessary conflict with the West Germans on the modernization of short- range nuclear forces. While Zelikow and Rice (pp. 29-30) do not devote much attention to the issue, Elbe and Kiessler correctly point to its significance in leading to a re-orientation of US. foreign policy (pp. 16-22). It was Bonn’s Foreign Minister Genscher who almost single-handedly ”killed” the nuclear modernization program, first by forcing a German cabinet decision without prior allied consultation and then by convincing his American counterpart, Secretary of State James Baker, that modernizing short-range missiles would

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send the wrong signal to Mosc~w.’~With the nuclear modernization issue settled, U.S.-German relations improved considerably and led to extremely close cooperation in the months and years to come. The United States joined in the reassurance game toward Moscow from then on. Zelikow and Rice (p. 66) argue somewhat mistakenly that the Kohl government turned away from Ostpolitik (the West German version of detente) in August 1989 and adopted a more dynamic approach. They overlook the fact that West German Ostpolitik had always been Janus-faced. On the one hand, it was based on the recognition of the territorial and political status quo in Europe, and thus on the division of Europe. On the other hand, there had always been a dynamic component to it emphasizing that detente was to be used to alter the European status quo and to overcome the European (and German) divisions. Back in 1963, Egon Bahr, a Social Democrat and a leading architect of West German Ostpolitik, had called this dynamic element “change through rapprochement.”20The revisionist component of Ostpolitik was emphasized by Kohl’s conservative government, and became further accentuated in 1989 when the old order in Eastern Europe started to unravel. But it was clear to the Bonn government that German unification was almost impossible without the consent of Germany’s neighbors and of the Soviet Union. Here I agree with Zelikow and Rice (p. 196) that the ”road to unification still led through Moscow.” Whatever the initial quarrels over Ostpolitik and American ”post-contain- ment” strategy, both books document extensively the view that Washington and Bonn pursued extremely well coordinated policies from the summer of 1989 on. The joint policy combined, on the one hand, the determination to let the Germans themselves decide over unification and to keep a united Germany within NATO with, on the other hand, a strategy of reassurance toward the Soviet Union and the German neighbors, which dealt with Moscow’s legitimate security concerns and laid the groundwork for the post-Cold War security architecture in Europe. This strategy was not motivated by some altruistic considerations but by a combination of two concerns. First, whether weakened or not, the Soviet Union remained a great power with nuclear weapons whose interests had to be accommodated. Second, the West had a stake in Gorbachev’s policies of perestroika and glasnost. His failure and his overturn by conservative

19. For details see Genscher, Erinnerungen, pp. 587421. 20. Bahr’s speech in Tutzing is quoted in Ash, In Europe’s Name, p. 66. Ash also overemphasizes the component of Ostpolitik that stabilized the political status quo in Europe.

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hard-liners not only risked chaos in the Soviet Union, but also ruin for the improvements in East-West relations. The second motive provided the Soviet leadership with bargaining leverage. As Zelikow and Rice put it, since ”Gorbachev himself was the key to the outcome of German unification . . . the United States and the FRG were ex- ceedingly careful to conduct the unification process in a way that would not make the Soviet Union look like the great loser. Humiliating the Soviet government could boost the right-wing reaction that American officials feared was already gathering strength. Gorbachev was in a delicate position, and the West could not afford to lose him” (pp. 190-191). Gorbachev and Shevardnadze then successfully used potential domestic opposition as a bargaining tool.2’ At one point, Gorbachev told Secretary of State Baker that a unified Germany in NATO meant the “end of perestroika“ (Zelikow and Rice, p. 265). The Western response consisted of a strategy of reassurance that contained four components apart from economic assistance: First, avoid humiliating the Soviet Union by gloating over the events. Second, seek German unification within the existing borders and respect ”the principles adopted in the Helsinki Final Act recognizing the inviolability of frontiers in Europe.”22Third, accept restrictions on united Germany’s military posture and on NATO’s activities in former East Germany. Fourth, agree to transform NATO from an anti-Soviet alliance to a post-Cold War security organization, inviting its former Eastern European enemies to a new partner~hip.~~

REASSURING LANGUAGE Both books document the agreement between Chancellor Kohl and President Bush that public expressions of euphoria with regard to the unfolding events had to be avoided in order to prevent upsetting the Soviet tolerance for change. Bush told Kohl, “we will not exacerbate the problem by having the President

21. In the language of “two-level games,” they played a strategy of “tied hands.” See Robert Putnam, ”Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” International Organi- zation, Vol. 42, No. 3 (1988), pp. 427460, 440; Andrew Moravcsik, “Introduction: Integrating International and Domestic Theories of International Bargaining,” in Peter B. Evans et al., eds., Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics (Berkeley: University of Cali- fornia Press, 1993), pp. 342, 28. 22. Paper by Denis Ross and Francis Fukuyama for James Baker “How to Approach the Unity Issue, November 13, 1989, quoted in Zelikow and Rice, p 113. 23. See the nine-point ”incentives” package that Robert Zoeilick, Baker’s senior aide, drafted, which was presented to the Soviets in May 1990 by both American and German officials including Foreign Ministers Baker and Genscher (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 263-265; Elbe and Kiessler, pp. 141- 145).

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of the United States posturing on the Berlin Wall” (Zelikow and Rice, p. 112). Both leaders reassured Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze time and again that they had no interest in further destabilizing an already tense domestic situation in the Soviet Union (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 108, 123, 131, 147). Reassuring language was also necessary toward Germany’s neighbors, including its most important European allies, France and Great Britain. Particularly in late 1989 and early 1990, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President Franqois Mitterrand were almost as concerned about German unification as Mikhail Gorbachev was. One might dismiss reassuring language as sheer rhetoric covering up tough- minded national interests. But avoiding aggravating language in a tense nego- tiating situation serves a communicative purpose. It acknowledges empathy for the concerns of one’s bargaining partner and communicates that its demands are legitimate even if one disagrees. Moreover, reassurance was indeed in the Western national interest. However, more was to be done than issuing comforting declarations to ease the Soviet pain. Reassuring words had to be matched by deeds. This is what the United States and Germany did.

THE BORDER ISSUE The United States made it quite clear to the Germans that unification had to take place within the existing frontiers of East and West Germany and, in particular, that there should be no fiddling with the German-Polish Oder- Neisse border (Baker to Kohl on December 12,1989, according to Zelikow and Rice, p. 145). The border question became a major issue in early 1990, when Chancellor Kohl refused to make binding commitments on the German-Polish border prior to unification, and justified this in legalistic terms. In an election year, he was faced with right-wing pressure from expellee organizations in his own party; he disregarded potential damage to Germany’s international repu- tation for respecting the security concerns of its neighb01-s.~~ In the end, a combination of international and domestic pressures solved the problem. On February 21, the Polish government-later joined by France- demanded a German-Polish treaty recognizing the existing border. This led to the most severe crisis in the Bonn coalition government during the unification process. Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who was also the leader of the Free Demo- cratic Party, put pressure on Kohl and the Christian Democrats. In early March, the West German Bundestag issued a declaration confirming the inviolability of

24. See Pond, Beyond the Wall, pp. 192-196.

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the German-Polish border (see Elbe and Kiessler, pp. 112-113, 234-235). Presi- dent Bush then mediated between the Poles and the West Germans. According to them, Bush convinced Kohl that the relevant text of a German-Polish treaty could be worked out in private in advance and prior to unification. It could then be adopted by the two German parliaments before being incorporated in an interstate treaty to be signed after unification. Bush then talked to Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, assuring him of US. support on the border question and persuading him to trust Kohl’s sincerity. This essentially settled the issue (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 219-222).25

LIMITS ON NATO EXTENSION IN EAST GERMANY The third component in the U.S.-German reassurance strategy concerned restrictions on the German military posture and on NATO’s extension into East Germany. The NATO question quickly turned out to be the most complicated. If the Soviet Union were to accept united Germany’s continued membership in NATO, which meant the extension of alliance territory into the former Eastern bloc, restrictions had to be placed on the future NATO posture in former East Germany. The question was how to preserve NATO as a function- ing military alliance without posing a new threat to the East. West German Foreign Minister Genscher made the initial proposal that foreshadowed the later agreement in the Two plus Four negotiations. As Elbe and Kiessler aptly put it, in those weeks ”Genscher moved with the caution of a giant insect that carefully inches forward examining its surroundings with its feelers, ready to jerk back at the slightest resistance and extend its feelers anew at another spot” (p. 77). Following several weeks of internal deliberations in his foreign office, he gave a speech in late January 1990 arguing, on the one hand, that a neutralized united Germany was out of the question, but that, on the other hand, former East Germany should not be incorporated in NATO’s military structures (Elbe and Kiessler, pp. 78-79; text of the speech pp. 230- 231). Probably the most serious flaw in the Zelikow and Rice book is that the authors misunderstand that Genscher was merely testing the waters and not proposing a definite solution to the problem. Genscher convinced Secretary of State Baker of his approach; he then introduced the idea to Shevardnadze and Gorbachev in early February (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 180-182). An anti- Genscher/Baker coalition then formed in Bonn and in Washington that included the chancellery, the NSC staff, and the two defense ministries. This

25. See also Teltschik, 329 Tag, pp. 166-174, 183.

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coalition argued that the special military status for former East Germany should only apply to the stationing of forces, not to the extension of NATO security guarantees to the new German states (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 184, 187, 203-204, 211, 215-216, 427; Elbe and Kiessler, p. 80). Gorbachev agreed during the German-Soviet summit in mid-July 1990. The German-Soviet understanding contained Genscher’s proposal that NATO structures should not be extended to the former GDR as long as Soviet troops were still there. It also specified that NATO’s security guarantees would be extended to the former East Germany from the beginningz6 The treaty concluding the Two plus Four talks codified the agreement. Genscher’s strategy finally carried the day. Zelikow and Rice should have given more credit to the German foreign minister for stubbornly insisting on an extremely important component of the Western reassurance strategy to satisfy Moscow’s security needs. The Elbe and Kiessler book, however, perhaps not surprisingly, appears to overplay Genscher’s role in the events.

TRANSFORMATION OF NATO At least equally significant to Soviet acceptance of united Germany’s NATO membership was the need to transform the North Atlantic alliance. While the German foreign office was the main advocate of military restrictions on NATO’s posture in former East Germany, it was predominantly the U.S. leadership that succeeded in changing NATO from an anti-Soviet alliance to a security institution offering cooperation and partnership to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. This part of the story is extensively documented in the Zelikow and Rice volume. In early May 1990, President Bush announced an ambitious agenda for the upcoming NATO summit (Zelikow and Rice, p. 240). Shevard- nadze immediately replied that united Germany’s membership in NATO would be viewed more favorably in Moscow if the alliance changed its character and became less threatening (Elbe and Kiessler, pp. 120-121). NATO delivered on these promises, first through a symbolic declaration at the Turnberry Ministerial meeting in early June, extending “to the Soviet Union and to all other European countries the hand of friendship and cooperation” (quoted from Elbe and Kiessler, p. 233). At the same time, U.S. officials were working hard to prepare a declaration for the NATO summit that would announce the end of the Cold War; invite the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to establish permanent liaison missions with NATO; announce a restructuring

26. See Teltschik, 329 Tage, pp. 340-341. See also Genscher’s comment in Erinnerungen, p. 840.

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of NATO’s conventional force posture together with new initiatives for the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) negotiations; and change NATO’s nuclear strategy to make nuclear forces ”truly weapons of last resort,” and to announce unilateral reductions of NATO’s theater nuclear forces stockpile. After some infighting among the various U.S. agencies in charge of foreign and defense policy, a draft declaration was approved and sent out to selected heads of NATO governments. The United States circumvented the NATO bureaucracy in order to prevent the declaration from being watered down. The strategy worked. The NATO London summit adopted the declaration in early July with only minor changes (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 304-324). As Zelikow and Rice point out, this was a major achievement of U.S. diplomacy.27The NATO declaration was not just rhetoric. It started a process that led to a restructuring of the alliance’s conventional and nuclear force postures. It also constituted the first step toward establishing institutionalized ties to the former Warsaw Pact countries which later led to the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) and the Partnership for Peace. The message was not lost on the Soviet leadership, which was in the midst of a domestic battle over the future of perestroika at the 28th Communist Party Congress. Eduard Shevardnadze, who had told Western leaders time and again how important the NATO summit was, now used the declaration to overcome domestic opposition. He and Gorbachev now argued that the Western Alliance no longer constituted a threat (Elbe and Kiessler, pp. 154-156). As Shevard- nadze told a German journal later, “German membership in NATO would have been unacceptable for us without the decisions which were made at the NATO Council in London.”28He and Gorbachev settled the German issue once and for all (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 329-332). They finally agreed to NATO membership for united Germany when Kohl and Genscher visited them in mid-July. It is clear from the evidence presented in the Zelikow and Rice book that the NATO summit announcement served as the final catalyst for Moscow’s decision.

27. There is a friendly rivalry in the two books over who was more in charge of changing Western policies toward the Soviet Union, the foreign office in Bonn or the US. government in Washington. The ”Message from Turnberry” was drafted by a senior official from the West German foreign office. See Elbe and hessler, pp. 144-146; also Genscher, Erinnerungen, pp. 802-803. While Zelikow and Rice play down the Turnberry message as “unremarkable” (p. 307), Elbe and hessler empha- size it a lot more (as does Genscher’s memoirs). In contrast, the NATO summit declaration is only mentioned in passing in the German book, while Zelikow and Rice call it the “final offer for settlement of the German question” (p. 325). In this case, I agree with the American account. 28. Quoted from Shevardnadze, Die Zukunft gehort der Freiheit, p. 257. See also ibid., 248, 251; Kvitsinsky, Vor dem Sturm, pp. 50-51.

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“Friendly Persuasion”: Communication and the End of the Cold War

The two books provide detailed evidence that the Cold War‘s endgame was largely based on the successful implementation of a Western strategy of reassurance-”friendly persuasion”-combining comforting and restrained language with concrete deeds to alleviate Soviet security concerns (and those of Germany’s neighbors). Perhaps the most remarkable lesson to learn from the accounts of Elbe and Kiessler and Zelikow and Rice is that the Cold War’s endgame was not just a “game” in the sense of rational choice bargaining theory. Game theory models bargaining processes as if negotiators enter the talks with fixed prefences and a set of strategies. Bargaining is then conceptu- alized as the exchange of strategic moves based on such preferences. Commu- nication matters insofar as information about each other’s preferences is exchanged. Cooperation can then be achieved through the mutual adjustment of bargaining moves.29 A different interpretation of negotiations, such as the Two plus Four talks, emphasizes processes of argumentation, deliberation, and persuasion. Nego- tiators not only exchange bargaining moves on the basis of fixed preferences, but sometimes genuinely communicate and argue with each other in order to gain a better understanding of each other’s interests, to reach a common definition of the situation, and to agree on shared principles and norms to achieve cooperation. In such circumstances, actors give justifications about why they prefer a certain course of action, and these justifications are subject to challenges. Communicative rather than pure instrumental rationality prevails whenever actors genuinely try to convince each other, which assumes that preferences might actually change during the interaction process itself. Com- municative processes to establish collective understandings (rather than just empathy for each other’s reasoning process) necessitate that at least one of the actors (or the audience) listens carefully and is open to per~uasion.~’The

29. A good introduction to game theory is James D. Morrow, Game Theory for Political Scientists (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994). On efforts to integrate communication into game theory, see Morrow, “Modeling the Forms of International Cooperation: Distribution versus Infor- mation,” International Organization, Vol. 48, No. 3 (1994), pp. 387423. 30. The theoretical background of this argument is provided by Jurgen Habermas’s theory of communicative action. See Habermas, Theorie des kornrnunikativen Handelns, 2 vols. (Frank- furt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1981); Habermas, Faktizitut und Grltung (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1992). For an application to international relations, see Harald Muller, “Internationale Beziehungen als kommunikatives Handeln,” Zeitschrift fur Internationale Beziehungen, Vol. I, No. 1 (1994), pp. 1544.

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empirical evidence presented in the two books suggests that such communicative processes indeed became a crucial part of the Two plus Four talks. I do not deny, of course, that traditional bargaining played a significant role in the Two plus Four talks and the numerous bilateral meetings between Western and Soviet leaders. But there were some significant occasions, mostly in bilateral contexts, where actors did not pursue instrumentally defined goals, but communicated in order to learn more about each other and to genuinely convince each other. The two books contain evidence that at least two of the three main actors did not hold fixed preferences during the negotiations settling the Cold War. First and most important, the Soviet leadership changed its preferences not only over policies, but also over outcomes in the course of the talks. As Zelikow and Rice convincingly argue (pp. 32-33), the Soviet leaders remained opposed to German unification prior to 1989, even though they sometimes engaged in speculative talk about what might happen in the future. When events in Germany unfolded, Gorbachev and Shevardnadze gradually changed their minds. They come across in both books as lacking fixed preferences and as being open to persuasion and communication. US. and German officials frequently concluded from their conversations that “the Soviet government did not seem to know where it was going,” that Gorbachev and Shevard- nadze were ”malleable on the German question,” and that they “seem to be genuinely wrestling with these problems, but [hadl yet to fashion a coherent or confident response” (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 130,232; see pp. 108-109, 131). Gorbachev appears as an ”uncommitted thinker and motivated learner,” as Janice Gross Stein put it:’ and thus as someone who could be convinced. U.S. and German leaders embarked upon a process of friendly persuasion and engaged in almost continuous conversations with Shevardnadze and Gorbachev. As for the German government, its preferences over outcomes seemed to be fixed from about mid-1989 on, when Kohl determined to push for unification. But Bonn’s preferences over policies to attain this goal appear to have been influenced by events and by talks with various world leaders. The strategy toward unification changed several times as events unfolded, including its form, its speed, and the settlement of its international consequences. The only actors whose performance can be modeled as if their preferences over out-

31. See Janice Gross Stein, “Political Learning by Doing: Gorbachev as Uncommitted Thinker and Motivated Learner,” in Lebow and Risse-Kappen, International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War, pp. 223-258.

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comes and policies became fixed early on are U.S. leaders. Once the Bush administration had decided to push for rapid German unification within NATO, it held this course steadily. It was clear that Soviet security concerns had to be accommodated somehow and that some restrictions had to placed on NATO forces in the former East Germany. But there is not much evidence that U.S. negotiators were open to persuasive processes during their talks with German or Soviet leaders. Several conclusions emerge from this variation in the extent to which preferences appear to have been fixed during the Two plus Four talks. In general, the discursive practices leading to the international settlement of the German question did not resemble what Jurgen Habermas calls an "ideal speech situation" where nothing but the better argument counts, while power considerations and material interests remain completely outside of the communicative process. Some actors, particularly the United States, engaged in rhetorical action, i.e., in efforts at argumentation and persuasion that pursue one's own interests in order to convince somebody else.32 But rhetorical action as a tool to reach one's goals can only be effective if the other listens and remains open to persuasion. The Soviet leadership listened indeed. Two examples taken from the Zelikow and Rice book illustrate my point. First, in early February 1990, Baker undertook to sell Genscher's formula regarding restrictions on NATO expansion in East Germany to the Soviets, and to persuade Gorbachev that a neutral Germany would pose a greater threat to Soviet security than one firmly integrated in NATO (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 183-184). Gorbachev had already acknowledged that there was nothing terrifying about German unification. Baker then asked the Soviet leader whether he preferred an independent Germany outside NATO and without U.S. troops on its territory, or a united Germany in NATO with the assurance "that there would be no extension of NATO's current jurisdiction eastward." Gorbachev remained noncommittal at first and maintained that any extension of the zone of NATO was unacceptable. Baker agreed. Gorbachev now seemed to think openly. He argued that he could see advantages of having U.S. troops in Germany. He then continued that we "don't really want to see a replay of Versailles, where the Germans were able to arm themselves. . . . The best way to constrain that process is to ensure that Germany is contained within Euro-

32. On rhetorical action in international relations. see Frank Schimmelfennie, Debatten zwischen Staaten: Eine Argurnentationstkeorie in ternationaler 'Systernkonflikte (Opladen: Leske and Budrich, 1995).

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pean structures.” He promised that the Soviet side would think about it, but he could not give a firm answer right away. While Baker held a firm line in this conversation, Gorbachev appeared to be genuinely impressed by the argument~.~~In contrast to other Soviet officials with whom U.S. negotiators met at the time, he appeared to be ”truly flexible on the German question,” as Zelikow and Rice put it (p. 184). The second example was even more important, since it led to Gorbachev’s principal agreement that a united Germany could remain in NATO if it chose to do so. During the U.S.-Soviet summit at the end of May, Bush and Gorbachev chaired a meeting of both delegations. According to Gorbachev’s account, the beginning of the conversation was rather polemical, with both sides accusing each other of fearing Germany and German attempts to threaten peace in Europe once again.34 According to the U.S. record, Gorbachev then accepted that the US. presence in Europe was stabilizing and linked to NATO, but that NATO needed to be changed. Baker repeated the nine-point ”incentives package” described above. President Bush now changed the argument, linking German membership in NATO to the question of self-determination and the principles of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), according to which Germany should have the right to decide for itself which alliance it would join. Gorbachev agreed.35The two leaders then settled on a formula according to which the United States would advocate Germany’s membership in NATO, but if Germany made a different choice, would respect that choice. If the Zelikow and Rice account is correct-and there is no reason to doubt it-Gorbachev had agreed to NATO membership for united Germany on the spot. His delegation was completely stunned, and some conservatives started infighting in front of US. officials. There was “a palpable feeling . . . among Gorbachev’s advisers of almost physically distancing themselves from their leader’s words” (Zelikow and Rice, p. 278). Zelikow and Rice conclude that Gorbachev changed his mind at the table. If so, the incident probably constituted one of the most extraordinary cases of communicative action in interna-

33. See also Gorbachev’s account of the meeting in Erinnerungen, pp. 715-716. 34. See Gorbachev, Erinnerungen, pp. 722-723. For the U.S. version, see Ze!ikow and Rice, pp. 276- 279. 35. Gorbachev’s account of the conversation puts a different spin on it. According to his version, it was Bush who agreed that Germany was free to leave NATO if it wanted to. A comparison of the US.version and Gorbachev’s account appears to indicate that the Soviet leader quotes quite selectively from the Soviet records. Compare Gorbachev, Erinnerungen, pp. 722-723, with Zelikow and Rice, pp. 276-278.

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tional negotiations. The two leaders were engaged in a discourse about norms. Bush apparently persuaded Gorbachev by framing the NATO issue in a different way. He linked it to self-determination and to the CSCE principles, two norms in which Gorbachev deeply believed. Persuasion worked when the U.S. president justified united Germany’s membership in NATO on the basis of two principled beliefs that fit the core of Gorbachev’s conviction^.^^ Thus, the normative claims implied in the idea of ”self-determination” appear to have finally persuaded the Soviet leadership that it should accept rapid German unification within NATO. In a sense then, the principle of self-determination served as the main and most effective legitimizer of Western demands, up to the final international settlement of the German question. Note that self- determination had originally motivated the peaceful revolution in the GDR and the demands for German unity, from ”we are the people!” to ”we are one people!“ I am not suggesting that the Two plus Four talks and the bilateral meetings in conjunction with them represented “ideal speech situations.” However, I do claim that we cannot explain the cooperative outcome of these negotiations without acknowledging that communicative rather than instrumental rationality prevailed during some crucial phases. The evidence presented in the two books under review here strongly suggests that both sides not only tried to genuinely understand each other’s concerns, but also engaged in discourses challenging the respective normative claims of each other’s preferences. As a result, the Soviet leadership changed its views.

Alliance Relations: The Inner Workings of a Security Community

The endgame of the Cold War is not only remarkable in terms of how the East-West rivalry ended and gave way to a new partnership among the former Cold Warriors. Both books also provide significant insights in the inner workings of the North Atlantic alliance. Three aspects have to be mentioned here: the degree of U.S. leadership; the extent of U.S.-German partnership; and the smooth adaptation of NATO to the post-Cold War situation. As for US. leadership, the Zelikow and Rice book is not only a detailed document of the Two plus Four talks, but also provides an in-depth analysis of U.S. foreign policy during this crucial period. It shows an unusually high

36. See Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: Nau Thinking fov Our Country and the World (New York: Harper & Row, 1987).

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degree of cohesion in the U.S. decision-making process and an even more significant U.S. leadership role in the transition to the post-Cold War environment. Zelikow and Rice convincingly refute the argument, which is often made on both sides of the Atlantic, that the Bush administration passively followed events rather than actively pushing its agenda. While there was some infighting among the various agencies, particularly the NSC and the State Department, the overall consensus on U.S. preferences in the administration was apparently overwhelming. The Bush administration knew what it wanted and pushed its preferred outcome steadily: rapid German unification within NATO, final settlement of the border issues, and integration of the Soviet Union in the post- Cold War order. Due to this internal cohesion, the U.S. role in the endgame of the Cold War was crucial, as Zelikow and Rice convincingly demonstrate. Their account sometimes exaggerates the U.S. role and underestimates both Soviet and Ger- man influences on some substantive issues that were dealt with in the Two plus Four talks. The Elbe and Kiessler volume counterbalances the picture to some extent, by emphasizing the significance of West German foreign policy, but this complements rather than challenges the overall picture of US. leadership in settling the Cold War in Europe. One can summarize Washington's role in 1989-90 in three points. First, the Bush administration decided early on that the pace and details of German unification should be left to the Germans, on the condition that the border question was settled and that united Germany would remain in NATO. Washington trusted the Bonn government more than any other Western or Eastern government did. The United States essentially backed Kohl's moves and provided a useful cover for German foreign policy. Second, the Bush administration reassured the Soviet leadership that it would not exploit Soviet weakness, and that Moscow had a legitimate role in the post-Cold War environment. While German reassurances were significant, too, only the United States as a superpower could provide an environment in which the Soviet leadership felt accepted and treated as equal. The U.S. role also included specific negotiations on the details of the international settlement of German unification. Washington sometimes even negotiated on Germany's behalf. Last but not least, the Bush administration did its best to push Britain and France toward accepting German unification. As Zelikow and Rice show, neither Prime Minister Thatcher nor President Mitterrand supported German unity at first, and both were extremely suspicious of Chancellor Kohl's motives (pp. 115-116, 137,155,165,206-207). This led to Anglo-French-Soviet collusion and would have resulted in Four Power talks without Germany. The United

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States prevented Paris and London from interfering with the process of Ger- man unification in a way harmful to Bonn’s interests. The Federal Republic alone would not have been able to do this. Washington exerted its leadership role through what Joseph Nye calls ”co- optive power,” i.e., argumentation, persuasion, and skillful diplomacy.37It was leadership by consensual rule, not by coercive bargaining. As a result, the United States established its role in post-Cold War Europe as an accepted leader rather than a superpower grudgingly tolerated for lack of alternatives. The second aspect of alliance relations concerns the degree of German- American partnership in 1989-90, which both the Zelikow and Rice and the Elbe and Kiessler volumes extensively document.38The Kohl government and the Bush administration were in harmony over the goals to pursue, while they temporarily disagreed over the means. Both sides followed their policies in an atmosphere of very close consultation. U.S.-German interactions cannot be properly understood if they are treated as simple interstate relations whereby both governments behave as unitary actors with given preferences. Rather, transgovernmental coalition-building among subunits of the two national governments frequently prevailed. Two such coalitions emerged before and during the Two plus Four talks. First, there was a very close transgovernmental alliance between NSC officials and the chancellery in Bonn, including Helmut Kohl’s foreign policy adviser, Horst Teltschik. Teltschik viewed himself the German national security adviser who fought an almost constant bureaucratic battle with Foreign Minister Gen~cher.~’ Some NSC officials-including apparently Zelikow and Rice-shared his dis- trust of Genscher, a remnant of the time when “Genscherism” was invective during the Reagan administration. A second transgovernmental alliance formed between Genscher’s foreign office and James Baker’s State Department. This latter coalition is well documented by Elbe and Kiessler.

37. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lend: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990). 38. The following builds upon arguments developed in Thomas Risse-Kappen, Cooperation ninong Democmcies: The European Influence 011 U.S. Fore@ Policy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995). 39. Teltschiks memoirs contain frequent snipes against Genscher, while Genscher returns the favor in his own book. Compare Teltschik, 329 Tage, with Genscher, Erinnerungen. It should be noted that the bureaucratic infighting in Bonn appears to have been more extensive than the infighting in Washington at the time. As a result, disputes that originated in Bonn between the foreign office and the chancellery were sometimes settled in Washington, since the NSC and the State Depart- ment got along better than their West German counterparts. This is another interesting detail to be found in the Zelikow and Rice book.

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While the two transgovernmental coalitions shared the goal of German unification within NATO, they sometimes disagreed over the means to achieve it. The coalition between the German foreign office and the U.S. State Depart- ment won a dispute against the NSC-chancellery alliance over the Two plus Four formula. The NSC had originally favored an approach whereby the Germans would quickly negotiate unification among themselves and the Four Powers would later ”bless” the outcome. The Two plus Four formula proposed by the State Department and the German foreign office implied simultaneous proceedings on the international and the inter-German levels (Zelikow and Rice, p. 167). When the four Allied Powers and the two Germanys were about to issue their agreement on the Two plus Four talks during the Ottawa meeting in mid-February 1990, U.S. National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft started a last-minute attempt to lull the approach. He tried to instrumentalize Chan- cellor Kohl to voice his alleged opposition so that President Bush had a pretext to oppose it, too. Kohl, however, immediately stated his support for Genscher, and the Two plus Four negotiations went ahead (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 191- 194; Elbe and Kiessler, pp. 97-99).40 As for Genscher’s proposal in January 1990 that the former East Germany should not be incorporated into NATO’s military structures descibed above, the outcome was more mixed. First, Genscher convinced Baker that the West should have ”no intention to [seek to] extend the NATO area of defense and security towards the East” (quoted in Zelikow and Rice, p. 176; see also Elbe and Kiessler, pp. 84-87). Second, however, Teltschik in Bonn tried using Presi- dent Bush to convince Helmut Kohl to move away from Genscher’s formula, which appeared to mean that NATO’s security guarantee would not apply to the new German states. At the same time, Robert Blackwill at the NSC wanted to use the German chancellor to persuade Baker to distance himself from the Genscher formula (see Zelikow and Rice, p. 211). In the end, Bush and Kohl agreed during their meeting in late February that there would be limits on NATO forces in former East Germany, while NATO ”jurisdiction” would extend to all of united Germany (Zelikow and Rice, pp. 214-215). In other words, the NSC-chancellery coalition had successfully changed Genscher ’s proposal. There is nothing unusual about transgovernmental coalition-building in a highly institutionalized setting such as the U.S.-German relationship within

40. See Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy, pp. 213-215; Genscher, Erinnerungen, pp. 726-727. While Baker puts the blame on Scowcroft, Genscher blames Teltschik for the episode.

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NATO. The Zelikow and Rice book confirms that transnational and transgovernmental networks are causally consequential in the policymaking process. NATO provided a framework of close consultation among the allies to coordinate policies in the Cold War‘s endgame, but the alliance was also profoundly transformed during the process. The London summit declaration set in motion a process whereby NATO adapted to the post-Cold War era. The alliance declared the Cold War over, and began to change its military posture in both the conventional and nuclear realms. NATO began making regular contacts with its former enemies in the Warsaw Pact; these were institutionalized in the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) and Iater the Partner- ship for Peace. As a result, and contrary to what some neo-realists predicted in 1990:’ NATO survived the end of the Cold War quite well and even today shows no signs of disintegrating. The irony is that Mikhail Gorbachev may have saved NATO from moving toward oblivion, since he forced the alliance to adjust quickly to the new environment, by insisting upon a transformed NATO before he would agree to German membership in an altered Western alliance. The role of NATO and of the transatlantic relationship during the crucial transition period of 1989-90 cannot be adequately understood if it is concep- tualized in terms of a traditional security alliance in a ”balance of power” framework. Rather, the transatlantic interaction patterns can be better ex- plained if the alliance is regarded as a ”pluralistic security community” based on a collective identity of democratic states4’ The rules and decision-making procedures of such a community reflect its underlying values and its orientation toward consensus- and compromise-building based on a habit of consultation. This is precisely what happened in the U.S.-German relationship during the Two plus Four talks.

Conclusions

The two books under review together offer the most comprehensive diplomatic history of the Cold War’s endgame yet published. I argue that their evidence confirms that Western success in the Two plus Four talks resulted from the

41. See, for example, John Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Summer 1990), pp. 5-56. 42. On pluralistic security communities see Deutsch, Political COmJNI4,iity nnd the North Atlantic Arm. For an interpretation of NATO as a security community, see Risse-Kappen, Cooperntio~iornorig Democracies.

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skillful use of a strategy of reassurance, which tried to accommodate Soviet security concerns, while enabling rapid German unification within NATO. ”Friendly persuasion” was crucial, in that communicative rather than instrumental rationality prevailed in important instances of the negotiations. The Two plus Four talks then created the groundwork for a peaceful post-Cold War security structure in Europe and, during the process, ensured the survival of the transatlantic security community. Three points need to be further emphasized. First, the differences between the origins and the end of the Cold War are striking. As John Lewis Gaddis put it with regard to the origins: ”the post-World War I1 system of international relations, which nobody designed or even thought could last for very long, which was based not upon the dictates of morality and justice but rather an arbitrary and strikingly artificial division of the world into spheres of influence, and which incorporated within it some of the most bitter and persistent an- tagonisms short of war in modern history, has now survived twice as long as the far more carefully designed World War I ~ettlement.”~~While we do not know yet how long the post-Cold War settlement in Europe will last, it was a cooperative settlement designed carefully by leaders in East and West. The post-Cold War settlement was ultimately possible because both sides were able to agree on a common definition of the situation and to develop a collective understanding regarding the principles that should guide international relations in Europe, particularly the norm of self-determination. In this sense, morality mattered this time, and the collective understanding came about partly through a moral discourse. Second, the Cold War’s endgame is not only a story of skillful design and diplomacy, but also of sheer luck. The peculiar domestic situation in Moscow provided a unique window of opportunity for German unification within NATO. The new thinking in foreign policy and the renunciation of the Brezh- nev doctrine enabled the peaceful revolutions in Eastern Europe in the first place. But the Soviet political system was still centralized and authoritarian despite glasnost and perestroika. As a result, Gorbachev and Shevardnadze could agree to German unification within NATO without letting their domestic opposition dominate the agenda. The ”window of opportunity” thus resulted from a combination of new thinking and glasnost together with a still authoritarian domestic political structure. When the Soviet Union had ceased to exist two years later and the political system had further democratized, with the

43. John Lewis Gaddis, Tlze Lmg Pence (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 216.

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central Russian state losing much of its autonomy vis-li-vis society, Boris Yeltsin might not have been able to overcome domestic opposition and agree to German unification within NATO. Last but not least, while the Cold War's endgame cannot really serve as a test of competing international relations theories in the strict sense, I submit that the story resonates with arguments developed recently by social construc- tivists, namely that "anarchy is what states make of it."44 U.S., German, and Soviet leaders did not resign themselves to the perpetual anarchy of a self-help system, but actively tried to build a cooperative European security order based on collective understandings about what constitutes a stable and just international order. These efforts helped to overcome the legacy of forty years of East-West antagonism in a very short period of time.

44. See Wendt, "Anarchy is What States Make of It." See also the recent debate in this journal between John Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions," International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Winter 1994/95); and Robert 0. Keohane and Lisa L. Martin, "The Promise of Institutionalist Theory," Infernationnl Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995), pp. 39-51, and Wendt, "Constructing International Politics."

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