East-West Turning Point? Not Yet : U.S. Trial-and-Error Arms Policy Leaves Allies Perplexed

There is a whiff of optimism in the air. Moscow and Washington may be nearing a possible “turning point,” as President Reagan put it in his Glassboro speech. And many in Europe who used to criticize the Reagan Administration for not moving more forcefully toward arms control with the Soviet Union now wonder whether they have been wrong. The President has always claimed that, once America was strong again, the Soviets would want to deal. Is his strategy finally working out?

The answer, unfortunately, remains negative. There still is no one strategy in the Administration worthy of the name. Among the President’s closest advisers, there are those who are fundamentally opposed to arms control and those who seriously want to give it a try. The Administration is divided not only on practicalities but also on principles.

The President himself has consistently encouraged these divisions in his team. All along he has talked with forked tongue about the basic issues of arms control:

--The SALT II treaty was condemned as fatally flawed but nevertheless observed for five years. A month ago it was declared dead. Now it is being resurrected to some kind of half-life. (As evidence of the confusion surrounding this issue, the Soviet Union has asked for a special session of the Standing Consultive Commission, a joint U.S.-Soviet panel that considers disputes about adherence to strategic arms treaties, to discuss Reagan’s decision not to abide by SALT II.)

--The Soviet-American anti-ballistic-missile treaty was at first interpreted as banning tests for space-based defenses, then reinterpreted--with the President’s blessing--to remove any such restriction. Nevertheless, the Administration said last October that it would for the time being still apply the first interpretation, which it believes to be legally incorrect.

--The Strategic Defense Initiative, Reagan’s vision of a space-based missile shield, was at first supposed to replace the doctrine of mutual assured destruction. Then, at the insistence of European leaders like Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, it was declared a way of enhancing deterrence. Now it seems back to its former purpose.

Even in his Glassboro speech the President was unwilling to dispel these confusions. “Let us seek actual arms reductions,” he said. But also: “Let us leave behind the defense policy of mutual assured destruction and seek to put in its place a defense that truly defends . . . a shield that could protect us from nuclear missiles just as a roof protects a family.”

Which is it to be? The Soviet Union’s recent proposals for reducing offensive strategic arms are all contingent on some restriction in SDI; unless America accepts such restrictions, there are no incentives for the Soviet Union to reduce its offensive arms.

But are the Soviets not showing greater flexibility now? Yes, but scarcely because of American double talk. Mikhail S. Gorbachav, for one, has a clear strategy. Convinced that the Soviet Union is, for economic and technological reasons, in a position inferior to its superpower rival, he wants to constrain the power of the United States--much as Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger in the early 1970s, aware of America’s weakness after the Vietnam War, sought to limit Soviet power through arms control and detente. The confusion in Washington is actually playing into Gorbachev’s hand: Every time the President placates his right wing, he also--given the avalanche of Soviet peace initiatives--has to appease the moderates. The paradoxical result is that the stronger power, the United States, is pleading for a summit meeting while the weaker one plays hard-to-get.

The price of ambiguity and confusion in Washington is likely to rise further if Soviet-American negotiations ever reach the critical stage of hard bargaining. When that time comes, the President will find that he has given hostages to fortune. The successful conduct of arms control and East-West policies requires a long-range perspective. If that perspective is missing, the nitty-gritty of detail will provide ample opportunity to those who want to torpedo any deal, however reasonable.

This does not rule out progress in East-West relations entirely. There may well be some, but it will be the result of accident rather than design. The Administration resembles a man trying to park his car by ear--first bumping against the car in back, then against the one in front. The driver in the White House seems to navigate less by an inner compass than by the shouts and protests of those who happen to disagree with his erratic progress--the Pentagon, Congress, the State Department, the allies.

America’s friends abroad, and possibly Americans themselves, would feel more reassured if the central task of building sound relations between East and West was addressed by the West’s principal power with a sense of direction, rather than by a process of presidential trial and error.