The Peace Offensive and the Job Ahead

Abstract

The current Soviet-bloc peace offensive, by far the largest yet undertaken, was clearly carefully planned and is being executed with masterly diplomatic skill. Its aims, we believe, are extremely far-reaching and ambitious. Relaxation of international tensions, of course; reduction of the immediate war danger-these we can take for granted. But the longer-range goal is not only and probably not even primarily a general East-West settlement; it is rather a complete change in the international balance of forces, the creation of a new diplomatic-military situation in which the Soviet bloc will no longer be confronted by a solid American-led coalition, but instead by a capitalist world divided and absorbed by its own inner contradictions and conflicts.

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