Essay: Roadblocks en Route to a Superpower Summit

"It takes two to tango." That is how Ronald Reagan once described the condition necessary for cooperation with the Soviet Union. The tango is just the right metaphor for diplomacy. It is performed in the formal setting of a ballroom, to the vigorous but stately measure of 4/4 time, with a good deal of melodramatic posturing and a great variety of steps. But for the past few years, any kind of dance has been just the wrong metaphor for Soviet-American relations. The two superpowers have been circling each other warily, sometimes menacingly. If...

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