Plotting Vectors on a Map of Change : East Europe: The Soviets and their bloc neighbors are moving into a new system--both internally and externally.

When Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush were scheduling their Malta summit a few months ago, the two leaders could not foresee that their dialogue would begin when almost all of Eastern Europe, with the exception of Romania and Albania, was in a state of total upheaval.

The chain reaction of the reshuffling in the political leaderships and change in the political structures are so sweeping that no one can predict when and where they will end. Only one thing is clear: The East has changed, and so have specific and important vectors of world politics.

These changes are real and irreversible. They have demonstrated to the West and to the world community that the Soviet Union, Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia are busy shaping new priorities in their internal and foreign policies. In short, the East European community is adjusting its movement to the new system of internal and external coordinates.

But this means that a similar system of coordinates need to be defined for East-West relations. The one used now has many reference points marked in the Cold War period.

In a new system, both sides will have to determine which of their estimates and expectations concerning changes in the East are the same and which are different. But even if differences remain, they should not be allowed to destabilize the situation. For instance, the future of the two German states should be approached with special caution, as it is a problem facing all of Europe. And each of the points in common should promote new forms of East-West cooperation, particularly economic, for this sphere has the largest number of detonators for instability in the East.

We recognize that there are quite a few people in the West who prefer to stay on the sidelines, or openly oppose new forms of cooperation with the East. One should be cautious, they say, and not help the Soviets restore their ability to threaten the West or interfere in the affairs of their fraternal states.

I think the ongoing developments have cut the ground from under their feet. However high the emotions may run from Budapest to Warsaw, not a single Soviet soldier has made a move. If any, the movement will be homeward. The Brezhnev Doctrine is dead--not only because the drive for reform has assumed such proportions in the Soviet Union’s allied states, but primarily because the Soviet Union itself was the first to step over the dead dogmas and move toward restructuring and renewal.

Off the coast of Malta, George Bush will face the “chief troublemaker,” the person who was at the onset of the change. I think Bush will find out from what angle to view the Soviet Union in future dealings. I am sure he would choose a changing Soviet Union. But will he be able to treat the Soviet Union as a partner and not as a rival?

What Europe really needs is new approaches to the alignment of forces in nuclear and conventional armaments, the recognition that the old doctrines and armament levels are a wasteful and inadmissible luxury, as well as encouragement of the efforts to lower the level of military confrontation. Neither the Soviet Union nor the United States will lose anything. They can only gain if they find a way to accelerate the Vienna talks. The Soviet Union has made a series of unilateral steps promoting the arms-reduction process. If Bush declares his readiness to make meaningful cuts in the U.S. military contingent in Europe, the new system of coordinates stands a good chance of being shaped.

Of course, in a changeable time like ours, it would be unwise to fall into euphoria. The chances of raising mutual understanding to a new level are good, but there is a tight knot of problems still to be untangled. Among them is Afghanistan and Washington’s stubborn support for the irreconcilable opposition. Soviet-American relations still carries vestiges inherited from the “second Cold War” of 1980-84. Yet the five years of restructuring in the Soviet Union have seen examples of compromise solutions that, if applied toward the United States, would give a new impetus to the settlement of regional problems.