PLAYING Straight : Manipulation of Moscow Obscures Common Ground

Good Reaganauts in Washington believe the Soviet economy is faltering, and a vigorous arms race will drive it into the ground. A key Democratic leader who came to do some politicking in Southern California a few days ago said a better approach would be to “seduce” the Russians with the hope of economic gain, technology, loans, most-favored nation tariff treatment and other “taming” enticements. I doubt that either strategy makes much sense.

The Republican strategists’ hope of breaking the Soviet economy in arms competition would probably break the U.S. enthusiasm for guns over butter long before it shattered the Soviet economy. It is true that the gross national product of the Soviet Union is only 55%-60% of the American GNP. But the Soviets’ gross industrial product is at least 80% of ours. They have consistently been spending more than we have on arms, at least since the Vietnam War. Their military outlays buy more research and more hardware than ours because half our military budget is spent on personnel costs, including salaries to attract a volunteer army and amenities such as PX stores. In contrast, the Soviets devote only a quarter of their military budget to personnel--and feed Ivan cabbage soup. Ours is a democratic society, thank heaven, and voters are already beginning to conclude--absent a clear and present danger--that social needs, including education and fiscal health, require a slower military buildup, not a faster one. So the Soviet-American race to bankruptcy is not one we can really hope to win.

Then there is the liberal Democratic delusion. The difficulty is that it takes two to achieve a successful seduction. Actually, the idea of taming the Soviets through progressive enmeshment in the Western economic order was Henry A. Kissinger’s plan in the 1970s. The objective was that of the Lilliputians when they tied down a sleeping Gulliver with gossamer strands. Kissinger explained his failure in legislative terms, pointing out, correctly, that the Jackson-Vanik Amendment tied economic benefits to Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union, an arrangement meaning the Soviets would have to acknowledge our influence over their internal jurisdiction. Moreover, the Stevenson Amendment, which came at the same time, severely limited Export-Import Bank loans. Understandably Kissinger asserted that these restrictions deprived him of potential enticements, leaving him no carrots and only sticks. His memoirs also express the deep conviction that Watergate and a weakened presidency then deprived America of sticks.

It is unlikely that Kissinger’s dream of domesticating Moscow by enmeshment would have provided a real solution anyway. Just as it takes two for a seduction, it takes a sleeping giant--or at least a highly inattentive giant--to accept being entangled and restrained. If anything is true of the Soviets, it is that they are utterly determined not to allow their economy or their strength to become subject to Western manipulation. They demonstrated this when President Carter ordered the grain embargo after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. At the cost of temporary disruption, the Soviets found alternative suppliers and they have not since allowed themselves to become as dependent on U.S. grain supplies. The Soviet Union is an alert and wakeful giant.

So what is the solution to our dilemma? Play it straight. Straight means not trying to manipulate but finding areas of potential agreement. Since World War II tides of detente and confrontation have risen and fallen in alternating rhythms, but common interests and Cold War antagonisms have never been altogether absent. We must recognize that U.S.-Soviet relations will be mixed for the indefinite future. Our task is to define places where cooperation truly serves us both while never giving away the store. Controlling nuclear arms and avoiding a holocaust are obviously the primary areas of true common interest, where it is supremely important to play straight.

The Reagan Administration has been trying to convince us that its arms buildup, its unyielding negotiating stance and its steadfastness in refusing preemptive compromise has brought the Soviets, finally, to more reasonable and forthcoming positions. In contrast, certain liberal Democrats assert that example, moderation, restraint and the willingness to take risks for peace will evoke responses in kind from the Russians. Neither assertion seems wholly true. The Reagan Administration is right when it says that patience is essential, that vigilance is necessary, and that the Soviets recognize and respond to reality and strength. The Administration has come close to batting a thousand in avoiding the follies of unilateral concession and weakness, and has also batted close to zero in connecting to opportunity. The Paul H. Nitze-Yuli A. Kvitsinsky proposal on intermediate nuclear arms after the “walk in the woods” of 1982 is only one example of the recurring tragedies of missed opportunity. “But,” say Administration spokesmen, “look at the shifts in Soviet position American steadfastness has produced, most recently, Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s uncoupling of negotiations on intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe from the demand that America give up its Strategic Defense Initiative.” True, there have been shifts in Soviet position, but also true, the Reagan Administration has been the only one in at least a quarter-century to have concluded no significant arms-control agreement whatever.

The liberals’ penchant for unilateral concession has worked no better; the record of mutual arms reduction by American example and Soviet voluntary emulation has been dismal. The Soviets feel no compulsion to respond to unilateral American moves by doing likewise.

Part of the problem is that weapons decisions, development and deployment, almost by definition end up being out of phase with arms-control negotiations and political events. It takes about a decade to develop and deploy a new weapons system; once the effort is fully under way, it is practically impossible to abandon--to waste billions already spent and turn around a military Establishment that has already finalized plans and made difficult interservice compromises. For this reason U.S.-Soviet arms-control negotiations have been cynically described as a “scaffolding built around the arms race.” Administrations come and go, Soviet general secretaries die and are succeeded, negotiations move along their twisting paths, political situations and realities shift and the arms development programs rumble forward on their decade-long immutable cycles.

A vivid example was the U.S. development of MIRVs, multiple independently targeted re-entry Vehicles. The U.S. decision to develop MIRVs was the direct result of Soviet development of anti-ballistic missiles. The problem was solved by SALT I and the ABM Treaty of 1972, but by then the MIRV genie was out of the bottle and the number of American and Soviet warheads multiplied several times, tragically and unnecessarily.

It is probably fair to say that shifts in negotiating positions on both sides come more from domestic political changes, technological breakthroughs and weapons development by either side than from “hard” or “soft” short-term postures. It is also fair to say that a strategy of using American policy to manipulate internal Kremlin politics is unwise. It is folly to think we can strengthen a “moderate” Gorbachev through “goodies” and concessions. Any whiff of U.S. support for a single Kremlin figure would be the quickest way to undo him.

The postwar record of opportunities missed is heartbreaking; too often we have dithered, argued and fought our internal wars while real chances for agreement slipped away. Again and again, resolute and fast-acting American leadership might have produced better outcomes at crucial moments in the continuing superpower dialogue. So what should we do? Seize opportunities, as they present themselves, which they will. Then, above all, play it straight.