Let’s Get It in Writing

George Kennan comes closer than any other American to reading Moscow’s mind and knowing how Washington should react. His most recent reading is that for all of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s domestic disasters, America is better off with him in charge than anyone else.

Kennan outlined for a Senate committee last week two ways that Washington can help Gorbachev keep his balance despite armed insurrection in the Soviet south and political insurrection in the north. One is to stay in close touch with Moscow so that nothing that happens in Eastern Europe surprises either superpower. The other is to be more forthcoming on troop reductions in Europe so that drastic cuts in tanks, infantry and aircraft can be made faster.

But for once, Washington seems a skip or two ahead of Kennan and has concluded--for reasons that seem sound enough to us--that it ought not try to hurry cuts in so-called conventional forces.

Kennan is undoubtedly correct in saying that the sooner the military ranks in Europe are thinned out, the sooner Moscow can shift resources to agriculture and consumer goods to give Soviet citizens tangible reasons for absorbing whatever hardships that reforms will impose in the near future. Troop cuts would have domestic benefits for the United States as well.

There are other good reasons for haste. With the collapse of communist governments in all six Warsaw Pact nations, Hungary and Czechoslovakia are already pressing to get Soviet troops off their soil and the idea is certain to spread. Washington should be in a position to take advantage of withdrawals that are all but inevitable anyway. The more cuts that can be negotiated now, the lighter the pressure for unilateral troop cuts among U.S. allies in Europe if negotiations hit a snag.

But government specialists and arms-control advocates, who usually think government is dragging its feet, doubt that Washington can, or should, try to move much faster. A big reason is that the current conventional-arms negotiations have produced so much in less than a year--compared with nothing at all in the previous 15 years--that the superpowers should get something down in writing before they reach for more.

There is already a deal on tanks, artillery and armored vehicles--deep cuts for Moscow and smaller cuts for the West. A deal is close on troop levels: a cut of more than 300,000 troops for Warsaw Pact, with its superiority in conventional forces, to trigger a 25,000 reduction in American troops. Another important factor is that President Bush has told negotiators that, in addition to what happens on conventional forces, he wants agreement to reduce intercontinental nuclear missiles before the end of this year. If he gets both agreements by year’s end, that would be no little accomplishment. Obviously, getting these in writing comes first.