PERSPECTIVES ON THE SUMMIT : Partners in Paralysis : The superpowers came away with no vision of how to use their changing leverage in a changing world.

The Soviet-American relationship is beginning to resemble the medieval dance in which the partners take two steps forward, a half step back. Stepping back is not unusual; it has always been part of the rhythm of the superpower dance. Yet the failure of both powers at the Washington summit to advance a significantly new quality to their relationship has demonstrated that they have not yet freed themselves from the habits and shadows of the Cold War. Their inability to wind up a very old agenda is preventing them from charting a new course.

The American problem is that of intentions. The Cold War gave American foreign policy a clear direction. Now we have lost our compass. The question awaiting public consensus is, what direction should we take? To what ends, and with what means, should we shape world affairs? And should we work with Gorbachev to devise new international arrangements to guide a cooperative security regime in the post-Cold War era? Or do we still retain sufficient skepticism of Soviet behavior and Gorbachev’s chances of survival to warrant a much more cautious approach as changes keep unfolding before us?

It will take time to arrive at that consensus and set a new course for the American ship of state. The Soviets already have a strong consensus, for reform; their problem lies in a troubling inability to move ahead. Gorbachev has assumed broad powers, yet his authority to effect change appears to be fading. The old system has been destroyed, but the new system cannot emerge. Internal divisions are widening.

Gorbachev’s intense interest in a Soviet-American trade agreement illustrates his desperate need to demonstrate tangible economic accomplishments to his people. Given Congress’ ambivalence, however, the agreement is likely to prove more symbol than substance.

The dynamic between the American problem of intention and the Soviet problem of implementation is hindering the evolution of a modern relationship geared to the challenges facing the two powers in the 1990s. The superpower two-step is stuttering as the world moves on. The summit was thus significant less as a marker of change in the relationship between Moscow and Washington as of the change in the relationship of both countries to the world.

Power is diffusing. International events are less driven by the Soviet-American relationship. New powers have emerged. Other nations have grown in power, to the point where the ambitions of the United States and the Soviet Union are likely to be constrained less by one another than by regional actors.

The very nature of power itself has changed: There is a growing discrepancy between power measured in military resources and power measured in terms of control over the outcome of events.

These trends have been energized and clarified by the dynamic of German unification and the collapse of the Soviet Union’s external empire in Eastern Europe. As a result of these events, Americans and Soviets are sliding into new world roles.

America may no longer be a clear Number One, but it has become the Only One: the only nation that still retains significant attributes of power in all its dimensions--military, political, economic, technological, demographic--and the only nation with the opportunity to leverage its central influence with Japan, Europe and Germany, the Soviet Union and other major nations to advance its own interests together with those of its partners. It could emerge as the world balancer. Yet Americans are distracted and complacent.

The Soviet Union, on the other hand, remains a formidable second in global military power, yet is deficient in most other attributes of power. While the military component of Soviet-American relations will remain central, the purposeful use of military power for direct political or economic influence has become relatively ineffective. Beset by grave internal difficulties, the Soviet Union will remain selectively strong, handicapped by a relative incapacity to translate its great potential into prosperity for its people or effective power abroad.

The swirl and flash of the Washington summit distracted attention from a central fact: Until we can cut the knot tying American ambivalence to Soviet paralysis, Moscow and Washington will continue to be preoccupied with the vestiges of the Cold War while summits involving other nations become more relevant to defining a positive agenda for change in the world.