If the Soviets Invade Poland,

Once again, there is in Europe a smell of gunpowder in the air. This time the crisis spot is Poland. The Poles remain optimistic that Soviet military intervention can be avoided. As a Polish intellectual noted recently, The Soviets analytic ability must not be underestimated. They know Poland well. Certainly, the Soviet leadership has tolerated developments in Poland that it has not tolerated elsewhere in Eastern Europe or in the USSR itself. Yet, the Soviets will not permit dismantling of Communist rule in Poland, for that would constitute a fatal weakening of the Warsaw Pact and a fatal blow both to the Soviet empire and to the legitimacy of the Soviet system itself. The fundamental problem for the USSR is not the existence of independent trade unions, easing of censorship, or other reform measures. The issue for Moscow is whether or not the Polish Communist leadership remains in control of events. If the Soviet leadership concludes that the erosion of Party control has reached the point of no return, it will intervene with military force, but only as a last resort, for it has some understanding of the costs. We, too, need to be clear about those costs in thinking about how the United States and its allies should respond if the Soviets invade Poland. author