Europe in the Global Strategic Game

In: Alternatives: global, local, political, Band 5, Heft 1, S. 97-125

Abstract

As part of a study of the anatomy of militarization, this paper examines the role that Europe has played, and continues to play, in the ongoing strategic game. The globalization of the war system in the nuclear era (but with the nuclear monopoly in the hands of the US and the Soviet Union) has enabled the two superpowers to reserve exclusively to themselves the power to decide the question of war and peace. The war system fuels the insensate arms race regardless of the demands of ideological rivalry or security requirements. Since the arms policies of the superpowers cannot be understood in exclusively military terms, the paper analyzes the dynamics of the arms race in the broader context of the pressure of technology and interdependence, power politics, self-assertion of nations, and social change, of which technology-interdependence pressure and the thrust for social change are likely to play a more decisive role in the coming decades. It is in this context that the paper projects the scenario of the future. If the scenario fails to materialize, the result will be nuclear escalation to the point of no return.