Peaceful Co- existence

Co-existence between states can take many forms. Divergent political, economic and social systems may confront each other in a posture of hostility without resorting to arms. The post-war pattern of international relations, bristling with tensions on all levels of contact, is a vivid example of such coexistence. The states can also live side by side and ignore each other, as was the case in the inter-war period between the Soviet Union and most of the Western countries when they refused to take notice of each other and tried to live in mutual isolation. 1 Or, there may be active co-operation on various aspects of inter-state activity between states whose political and economic institutions are not widely dissimilar and who share a common ideological and cultural heritage. The co-operation between members of the Atlantic Community may be cited as an example, par excellence , of peaceful co-existence. In the case of these states, the theory of harmony of interests has been fully vindicated. Finally, there can be peaceful co-existence between states with different, even diametrically opposed, ideologies, political and economic institutions. Apart from the alliance between Russia and the West during the Second World War, which was a special phenomenon, brought about by the need to fight a common enemy and not a will to cultivate and establish closer contacts, mention can be made of the relations between Finland and the Soviet Union and Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. In both these instances it is not a case of states living side by side in isolation or in a state of intense hostility but of friendly, peaceful cooperation in the economic, trade and cultural spheres. The International political spectrum thus reflects various modalities of co-existence, ranging from attitudes of acute hostility to expanding voluntary collaboration in many spheres of state activity.