Soviet Situation Called ‘Unstable’ Amid ‘Crises, Chaos, Change’ : Reforms: The population’s rising expectations ‘cannot be met,’ a strategic analysis says.

In its annual survey, the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies reported Thursday that the situation in the Soviet Union is “inherently unstable,” enveloped by “crises, chaos, and change on an unprecedented scale.”

The institute’s 1990 strategic analysis concludes that “the continuing failure” of the reforms to improve Soviet economic life “is a fundamental cause of the present difficulties.”

“Without a degree of economic success, the population’s rising expectations fueled by glasnost simply cannot be met.”

The survey, compiled by the institute’s staff, said the Soviet plight was intensified by the collapse of its position in Eastern Europe, the “increasing virulence of the nationalities problem and the deepening political crisis in the country.”

It argued that “events in the (Soviet Union) have spun so far out of control that there can be no certainty of what the country will look like when, and if, it finally stabilizes.”

As for responding to the deteriorating Soviet position, the survey warned that Western democracies should think twice before giving security guarantees to the emerging East European governments.

“How Western states marry their desire to see progress in Eastern Europe with an equally potent concern not to get entangled in the messy aftermath of Soviet decolonization in Europe will be one of the principal dilemmas of the 1990s,” the report said.

It also warned: “Security arrangements that do not provide sufficient safeguards to uphold legitimate superpower interests, to involve them in the functioning of a European system, and to alleviate their justifiable concerns, cannot be expected to last.”

As for the conduct of foreign policy by the Bush Administration, the institute’s report said it was “characterized by a refreshing degree of competence.”

Bush’s advisers, it observed, “generally earned high marks for their professionalism, and Bush himself was deeply involved in both the formulation and execution of U.S. foreign policy.”

Another authoritative defense analysis organization in London, Jane’s Information Group, issued a report Thursday saying that while the Soviet navy is scrapping its vintage vessels, it is also replacing its surface fleet in tonnage at the highest rate in more than 20 years to strengthen its offensive capability.

The editor of the 1990-91 edition of Jane’s Fighting Ships, Richard Sharpe, said Soviet submarines are also being replaced at the highest rate in the past decade. He said Soviet admirals have cited lack of progress in talks with the West on naval cutbacks.