“Hollanditis&rdquo
To the Editor:
At last Walter Laqueur [“Hollanditis,” August 1981] has found a word . . . to replace the unfortunate term “Finlandization” as a description of what is, or might be, happening to Western Europe. “Hollanditis” is a crisis of the spirit afflicting nations which have the material means of defending their vital interests but choose instead to support unilateral disarmament or ignore defense issues altogether. While the nations of Western Europe grapple with this spreading paralysis of will, Finland endures as a parliamentary democracy, a market economy, a nation which takes defense of its territory very seriously. If a nation of five million people must occasionally accommodate its foreign policy to the interests of a superpower neighbor, that is hardly a fatal breach of national sovereignty.
Hollanditis is a specter that is haunting Western Europe, but Finlandization is a prospect that tantalizes the nations of Eastern Europe.
Joseph J. Kruzel
Duke University
Durham, North Carolina
_____________
To the Editor:
Walter Laqueur’s analysis of the new stage in European neutralism is too important to suffer the appellation “Hollanditis,” which . . . would seem to indicate a condition found only in Holland. . . . What Mr. Laqueur desribes is not a specific Dutch disease, but an infestation to be found throughout Europe. . . .
E. F. Schmerl
Piedmont, California
