New Thinking by New President Can Advance U.S.-Soviet Relations

MOSCOW — By the time of the inauguration of the new President of the United States, the schedule of contacts between Moscow and Washington at all levels should be worked out. Both sides have shown a desire to hold a summit meeting as soon as possible.

Among all the items on the agenda, the issue of progress toward an agreement on 50% reductions of strategic armaments demands especially urgent attention. The same is true of problems related to the compliance with the Geneva agreements on Afghanistan.

The road to a new disarmament agreement is now essentially blocked by a lack of readiness on the part of the United States to slow down or put under control a series of programs for the development of new types of weapons, especially sea-launched ballistic missiles and space systems. Is the fact that Washington’s stand has become signally tougher explained by the effect of the election campaign? The near future will provide the answer.

Until now the intention to proceed from “strength and experience” could be easily discerned in George Bush’s remarks. The first part of that formula will not evoke a positive response in the Soviet leadership. “Might is right,” or is it really?

As for the need to rely on experience--primarily on practical achievements of recent years in Soviet-U.S. relations--we definitely endorse Bush’s viewpoint. Had he not used the subject of continuity, his campaign would have had a different, not so happy, outcome.

There is no doubt that Ronald Reagan’s positive legacy in the development of Soviet-American relations played a substantial role in Bush’s election.

Now Bush must show that he is able to make independent decisions. Alongside restrained optimism, we show quite understandable caution. Will the new President be able to protect his acquired independence from the influence of all kinds of friends of ultra-conservative reputation? Their spokesman, Vice President-elect Dan Quayle, is called on to stand guard against deviations in policy toward “liberalism.” It is in the interest of the same quarters to encourage in every way the elevation of deep-rooted instincts of anti-communism to the status of “ideology.”

Yet if there are fresh attempts at reviving an “ideologized” foreign policy, the cause of disarmament and political settlement of regional problems will face the greatest threats.

As for the negotiations on radical cuts in strategic armaments, Moscow believes it indispensable that a breakthrough toward an agreement should be ensured. So far, Bush has favored the need for a “serious discussion of the situation” and has made it clear that planned U.S. armament programs were inviolable. It is plain that some on his team are still hardly able to stand the temptation of launching an unbridled arms race to make the Soviet Union “go broke.” Yet such temptation cuts both ways--a fact that Bush should realize when he independently assesses vital U.S. interests. Such an arms race would be suicidal for the United States; it would give its West European and Japanese partners/rivals full control over world markets as a prize.

Similar dangers accompany the temptation of playing a special “American” card in the Afghan game. The gain for one party by the loss of another is not possible here. Carried away with unilateral actions in favor of Pakistan and the irreconcilable Afghan opposition (in violation of the spirit and the letter of the Geneva agreements), Washington is opening with its own hands the gate for a tidal wave of Islamic fundamentalism. The blow inflicted on American interests in Tehran in 1979 will seem negligible compared with the avalanche that may be triggered in 1989.

The new political thinking preached and practiced by Moscow has gained impressive support in the world because everyone came to regard it as the only alternative to power politics and the ideological confrontation that had led the world into a deadlock. But one of the main conditions of success of the new policy--and Reagan could see that for himself--is consistent progress. Bush is confronted by the same challenge. Perestroika helps the Soviet Union a lot in its foreign policy.

The United States will not be able to avoid a perestroika of its own. America has already embarked on such a perestroika , although it perhaps has not yet fully come to realize that. Bush is faced with the choice between the role of a person who will carry on with an American perestroika and that of an instrument in the hands of those quarters that favor stagnation.