Before Going to Summit, Apply a Bit of Prudence : Summit: The West urgently needs a vision of a new Europe. The risk is creating one without an allied blueprint.

The forthcoming “saltwater summit” between George Bush and Mikhail S. Gorbachev is being billed as unremarkable--but that gives it importance.

When the American and Soviet presidents can begin to meet routinely, the Cold War is surely being consigned to the ash heap of history. Yet this friendly get-together also has risks. And it dramatizes the urgent need for the West to create a vision of Europe’s future and to set goals for achieving it.

At first glance, everyone benefits. Gorbachev gains added legitimacy for reforming his domestic economy and lowering global tensions. He also gains another symbol of equality with the U.S. President, which provides political value home at a time when economic reform is faltering.

Just by showing up, Bush confounds domestic critics who charge him with being timid. He also tells European allies that he is in the East-West game and he builds a case against being faulted for “losing” Gorbachev if the Soviet leader is either deposed or forced to retrench. Most important, the world benefits from the steady transformation of U.S.-Soviet relations from episodic confrontation to a halting but significant search for common ground.

But the very fact that Bush foresees an agenda-free meeting points to an area of possible misunderstanding. In his announcement, he stressed “the rapidity of change in Eastern Europe.” Indeed, given what has been happening, the summit will no doubt be widely judged on the basis of what the two leaders either say, or refrain from saying, about the extraordinary unraveling of the Soviet empire.

In Western Europe, the allies should not complain. After all, the American President is responding to their plea to seize the initiative, and they have not developed their own design for a new structure of European security and East-West political relations. Yet complaints there will surely be if conduct at the summit gives even a hint of U.S.-Soviet coordination on East European matters. In particular, the West German government has been stung by U.S. media criticism that it has been overly zealous in its dealings with the East and that it cannot be trusted with the explosive subject of reunification. A Bush-Gorbachev meeting that centers on East European issues will clearly stiffen West German resistance to any cavilling about its own behavior.

There would be little concern, however, if the casual approach to the summit did not highlight the continued lack of a context for judging what the West must do to respond constructively to change, rather than simply watching in wonder. It does not imply failure to acknowledge that there is no clear blueprint for the future: Too many imponderables must be dealt with before it is clear what new institutions and practices are needed for a new all-European security system.

Bush is, of course, no Ronald Reagan. He is unlikely to engage in the sort of freewheeling discussions that stunned the allies following the December, 1986, Reykjavik summit. Nor does this meeting in the Mediterranean have the makings of another Yalta, whereby the superpowers alone decide the fate of the Continent. Yet if only for the sake of prudence, Bush would be wise to make a quick round of allied capitals--London, Paris and Bonn--before going to sea with Gorbachev.

More important, the American President must finally come to grips with what he styles “the vision thing.” In process, that means expanding the Atlantic alliance’s mandate, persuading the European Community to talk with the United States about political issues affecting Europe’s future, and proposing an all-European forum to vet ideas about common security. In substance, it means presenting criteria for a new security system: What must happen in East European states, the nature of Soviet security interests, the long-term role the United States should play as a “European power” and how current arms-control efforts could, in time, transform NATO and the Warsaw Pact from military alliances to political instruments for change backed by residual military guarantees.

Both to spur the process and to give it focus, Bush should go further and gain allied agreement on a timetable for transforming the two military blocs. Given the pace of events and evolution in attitudes, the year 2000 would be an appropriate deadline. By then, the truth will be known about the Gorbachev revolution. If it continues, much will be possible; if it does not, at least Bush will have set a standard for Western actions. Either a new world will be emerge, or the alliance will have a solid political basis for preserving the one we have.