Slowing the Conventional-Arms Race : Soviet Aims Could Be Changing, and We Need a Breather, Too

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who surprised the West in recent weeks by his posture of sweet reason on the removal of medium- and shorter-range nuclear missiles from Europe, is now sending signals that he wants to negotiate reductions in conventional, non-nuclear arms, too.

The gift horse should be approached with caution. The Soviet Union’s overtures may be nothing more than an effort to sidetrack the recent pledge by North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers to strengthen conventional forces in lockstep with the prospective removal of U.S. and Soviet medium- and shorter-range nuclear missiles from Europe.

On the other hand, Gorbachev may genuinely want to put the conventional arms race on hold for reasons of his own. Security-minded Americans should pray that this is the case, because we need a reprieve from the economic pressures of the arms race as badly as do the Soviets.

The Soviet-led Warsaw Pact has always enjoyed a large numerical advantage over the Western alliance in manpower, tanks, helicopters and tactical aircraft. NATO consciously chose nuclear weapons as the great equalizer.

The superpowers now seem to be within reach of a pact to eliminate medium- and shorter-range nuclear missiles from Europe. But there is great concern, especially in West Germany, that the move will upset the military balance by making the Soviet advantage in battlefield nukes, chemical weapons and conventional forces more important.

NATO defense ministers pledged last month to make renewed efforts to overcome the imbalance. President Reagan, in his televised speech to Europe last week, promised that Washington would lead a “difficult and expensive” buildup of conventional arms to compensate for the withdrawal of nuclear missiles.

Fine. Western military officials have repeatedly warned that NATO forces have stockpiles of weapons and ammunition sufficient for only a few days of fighting. Thus, in the absence of major improvements in the alliance’s conventional forces, any Soviet invasion could be stopped only by going nuclear early in the game.

Please note, however, that nobody in NATO has made a specific commitment to spend more money. The Europeans have always been unwilling to foot the bill for an effective non-nuclear deterrent. And, despite considerable support on Capitol Hill for greater emphasis on conventional forces, neither Reagan nor his successor is likely to be provided with the wherewithal to finance a significant buildup of expensive, high-technology conventional arms.

But if a buildup in conventional forces is politically infeasible, why not a build-down on the Soviet side? The idea is being energetically encouraged by Moscow.

On May 29 the Warsaw Pact called for talks aimed at eliminating the “disparities” in conventional forces in Europe. Gorbachev subsequently said that he was ready to negotiate “deep reductions” in conventional arms.

We should be skeptical. Negotiations in this area have been going on for a long time. A year ago the Soviets proposed the demobilization of 150,000 soldiers on each side as a first step toward a 25% reduction in ground and tactical air forces. The West has observed in response that equal cuts on both sides would merely perpetuate the existing imbalance. A fresh negotiating start has been proposed, but so far the two sides cannot agree even on a forum, much less on compliance safeguards.

Strictly speaking, the Soviets have done nothing but brush the dust off their previous proposals. But we would be foolish not to notice that Soviet motivation may be changing.

By now we are accustomed to reading about Soviet economic problems. The Soviets are good at pure science, we are told, but are too slow at turning research discoveries into technology and products of practical benefit to the economy. Too much of Russia’s best brainpower is employed in the design and manufacture of weapons, and not enough in the civilian economy.

To put things right, a reordering of priorities is needed. And if that doesn’t happen, the military forces themselves will suffer in the long run because the overall economy will become less and less able to produce the money and technology required for modern, high-tech armed forces.

Rightly or not, some Western experts think that Soviet military men themselves have become willing to accept a “temporary” shift of resources to the civilian sector if they can be reliably assured that the West won’t take advantage by pushing “Star Wars” and other high-tech weapons programs. Arms-control agreements are one way to obtain that assurance.

If this is a plausible explanation for Gorbachev’s seemingly positive approach toward a winding down of the nuclear arms competition, it makes equal sense in the conventional field, which devours far more resources than nuclear weapons do.

Since there is no proof that the Kremlin’s long-term aims have changed, some argue that we shouldn’t be in the business of taking the pressure off now so that the Soviets can come at us with a stronger military machine later. There is logic of a sort in this approach. But it overlooks the fact that our own economy is in a mess, and we could use a breathing spell ourselves.

As things stand, we are winning--or are in a position to win--the technological competition with the Soviets in nuclear and high-tech conventional arms. That’s comforting, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are having increasing difficulty in holding our own in global economic and technological competition with the Japanese.

We badly need a reordering of our own priorities to spend more tax money for education, to direct more research and development money to global industrial competition, to put more of our best brainpower to work building a better mousetrap rather than a better missile or “smart bomb.”

In the long run, if we win the technological race with the Russians but lose it to the Japanese, we are doomed to being a second-rate power, in military as well as standard-of-living terms.

Simple prudence calls for us to greet the Soviet overtures with skepticism--but to accept the fact that, if we can work out a deal to keep the arms competition in both nuclear and non-nuclear areas at bay, we stand to gain as much as those guys in Moscow do.