Volume 27, Number 3 · March 6, 1980
Reflections on the Present Danger
By Stanley Hoffmann
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was not a trivial event, and it has serious implications, even if one does not agree with President Carter's belief that they 'could pose the most serious threat to peace since the Second World War.' From the viewpoint of power politics and of the superpower rivalry, the Soviet move is qualitatively different from previous Soviet actions. In the past thirty-five years the Soviet Union has used force outside its own borders only in order to maintain the empire carved out by the Red Army in Eastern Europe—an empire whose legitimacy was never endorsed by the United States, but which we have accepted de facto, and failed to challenge even when we had overwhelming nuclear superiority.
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