1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe, Mary Elise Sarotte, c. 2009.

1989: The Struggle to  Create Post-Cold War Europe, Mary Elise Sarotte, c. 2009. 940.55SAR.

Author: professor of international relations at the University of Southern California (DBA USC). 

Adults in the room:

• President George Herbert Walker Bush
• Chief of Staff John Sunnunu
• SecState: James A Baker III
  
• NSA Brent Scowwcroft
• VP Dan Quayle
• SecDef: Dick Cheney
• NSC Adviser: Robert Gates
• Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: Colin Powell
• OMB and Budget Director: Richard Darman
• Condoleezza Rice
  

I just cannot imaging a better group of folks to be in charge at this time. Americans were able to rest easy. I can't imagine Donald Trump or Joe Biden being president during something so momentous.

We were stationed in Europe when "the wall" came down. It was perhaps one of the most exciting moments in my life. I still have a piece of the Berlin Wall.

France: President Fançois Mitterrand
UK: Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

 Soviet Union: Mikhail Gorbachev

West Germany: Chancellor Helmut Kohl
East Germany: Minister President Hans Modrow

Introduction

model, format, organization of the book: architectural
politicians and archhitects: both want the same thing -- permission to fabricate the future
once the foundation is laid according to the new blueprints, it is hard to remove -- can last centuuries
"path dependent" -- the phrase that describes:
gleam in one's eye --> blueprints --> foundation --> construction --> final result (p. 6)

Here: competition between two superpowers to define what "modernity" will look like 
the Soviet Union's vision; or,
the vision of the US

The US version / definition of modernity won out, p. 6.

Models: four major variants, listed in the chronological order in which they appeared -

1) the restoration model, USSR, late 1989 -- to restore the old quadripartite mechanism of four-power control exactly as it was in 1945
2) the revivalist model, Germany / Kohl, late 1989 -- a revival or aadaptive reuse of a confederation of German states -- multiple states but one confederative, national roof -- for of like one big holding company

3) the heroic model, Gorbachev's response to (1), early 1990 -- multinationalism -- build a vast new edifice from the Atlantic to the Urals -- the EU on steroids -- EU+ --> EU plus eastern Europe + Ukraine + western Russia and the satellites

4) the prefab model, the West / Kohl's response to the preceding, 1990 -- take the West's pre-fabricated institutions, both for domestic order and international economic and military cooperation, and simply extending them eastward --> status quo

 --> sort of where we now are in 2023.

The prefab model: simply harmonize both domestic and international institutions in Eastern Europe to pre-set Western standards.

Using the architectural model: simply re-furbish the existing structures in East Germany and associated structures.

Howard Baker, observed in his memoirs: "Almost every achievement contains within its success the seeds of a future problem." He was right; the problem in this case was that no clear place was carved out for Russia, while a window of potential cooperation between Russia and the West was open. Before long, it closed, and the opportunity was lost, p. 9.

Huge complication, p. 9.
headline story: the Berlin Wall had fallen:
the stories on the back page: the East European states and the Soviet Union itself were all on the verge of collapse