SPECIAL EDITION: CRISIS IN THE KREMLIM : Global View : Waking Up to a World Without Gorbachev : * The Kremlin coup has also doomed the spirit of cooperation with Washington on a variety of global issues, U.S. experts say.

Just three weeks after George Bush and Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in Moscow with pens crafted from scrapped superpower missiles, the very premise on which that benchmark accord was signed has been sabotaged.

“The new world order is gone,” concludes Blair Ruble, director of the Kennan Institute at Washington’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

On a host of issues ranging from arms control to regional peace efforts, the spirit of cooperation between Moscow and Washington has probably been set back years by Gorbachev’s abrupt ouster in an apparent rightist putsch, according to U.S. analysts. The hard-liners who replaced him are unlikely to collaborate readily with the West, they say.

“It basically means that the deck is reshuffled,” says Michael Beschloss, a Soviet expert and author of “The Crisis Years.”

He adds: “It does not necessarily mean the end of collective security. But it does mean an end to the assumption that the Soviet Union is going to be a part of that system.”

And, without the East’s participation with the West, progress in defusing many of the world’s major flash points will lack the vital dynamics that have until now propelled it so effectively.

Despite the ouster of Gorbachev, Soviet specialists in the United States do not foresee a return to the tensions of the Cold War. Much of what Gorbachev has done, particularly on earlier arms treaties and in neighboring Eastern Europe, cannot be undone.

“They can’t rebuild the (Berlin) Wall,” says a U.S. official. The tearing down of the Wall in 1989 symbolized the democratic wave that swept Eastern Europe.

“The unification of Germany is a fait accompli ,” adds Jerry Hough, a Soviet specialist at Duke University and the Brookings Institution.

Moscow also simply can’t afford to inject new funds into arms development programs or to return troops to Europe.

Instead, analysts predict a period of stagnation on bilateral and global issues over the next six months as hard-liners on the new Soviet ruling “Emergency Committee” focus on domestic problems, especially the tattered economy and the political rebellion in several Soviet republics.

“The leaders of the coup will be so preoccupied with internal order that they will have no time to interfere with foreign policy matters--that is the best we can hope for,” Ruble says.

But the impact may be just as severe as would be a return to the Cold War.

After a two-year period of whirlwind change, the world may effectively be heading into a big freeze as the Soviet drama plays out at home and robs the United States and its Western allies of the partner they need to sustain the momentum on joint efforts.

“Most of the people who are involved in this coup are people who had been opposed to Gorbachev’s initiative in the Mideast and Eastern Europe--people who have been dragging their feet and obstructing arms control,” Ruble adds. “I don’t see anything good coming out of this, for the Soviet Union or for anyone else.”

ARMS CONTROL

The fate of the recently signed START accord reflects the dangers of a freeze on the new world order and how it may play out.

“The temporary emergency measures in no means affect international commitments assumed by the Soviet Union under existing treaties and agreements,” Acting Soviet President Gennady I. Yanayev pledged in a message to heads of state and the United Nations within hours of the coup.

But the treaty must be ratified by the Supreme Soviet--as well as by the U.S. Senate--before it goes into effect. And U.S. analysts predict that it may be put in limbo if Moscow’s new rulers do not put it up for a vote or if the Supreme Soviet refuses to vote on it.

A treaty that Gorbachev signed last November at the Paris summit of the 35-nation Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe may also go into a de facto freeze. The treaty drastically cuts the numbers of tanks and troops from the East and West confronting each other in Europe.

The coup leaders “can’t roll back to the past, but they can make agreements more difficult,” said Charles William Maynes, a Soviet expert and editor of Foreign Policy magazine. “The Soviet Union has been pressing the East Europeans to sign peace and friendship accords to preclude membership in an anti-Soviet alliance. The East Europeans have so far been reluctant.”

Before removing the remaining Soviet troops--including about 225,000 in what was once East Germany and about 32,000 in Poland--the Soviets “may now press harder in a way that will complicate all other bilateral issues,” he says.

Several experts also are voicing general skepticism about Yanayev’s promise to honor treaties. “These people (involved in the coup) have never seen an arms control agreement that they’ve liked. They perpetually try to violate agreements on the edges,” Ruble says.

Others question whether the new government will begin pushing arms sales again, rather than trying to help Western nations control proliferation, in order to earn foreign exchange and help revive the Soviet economy.

“A big part of the support for the coup leaders comes from the (Soviet) military-industrial complex,” Ruble says. “I don’t think they are going to curtail arms sales.”

MIDDLE EAST PEACE

The impending Middle East peace talks reflect the impact of Gorbachev’s political demise on superpower cooperation to end regional conflicts. “They might back out on Mideast talks,” says Ruble, outlining what he thinks would be the worst-case scenario. And Beschloss says that even if the peace conference goes forward, “it will not be same event that we thought it was going to be.”

The reason is that a prime motive for former hard-line countries, notably Syria, to participate in the U.S.-orchestrated talks has been the declining Soviet influence in the world’s most volatile region. A joint U.S.-Soviet position was also widely believed to be pivotal to the willingness of hard-line Arab states to compromise with Israel.

Moscow’s mere withdrawal or inaction on Mideast talks could stymie the entire process, U.S. experts say.

“I doubt that the Soviet Union will return to Cold War confrontation on regional crises . . . ,” says Maynes. “On the other hand, the Soviets had been a constructive partner in getting the Mideast peace talks going, and I’m not sure they will be helpful in future. That does not mean they’ll be a destructive force but that their attention may be directed elsewhere.”

As a result, Maynes says, key players may feel less pressure to make concessions essential to end the decades-long conflict.

U.S. experts say several specialists in Moscow’s Foreign Ministry were known to be unhappy with Gorbachev’s actions in the Mideast, both in opening up to Israel at the expense of longstanding Arab allies and in cooperating so fully with the United States against Iraq, another former ally, during the Persian Gulf War. With the rise of hard-liners, these Soviet officials may press for a return to former policies.

Just as important, U.S. analysts say, may be the implicit impact of Gorbachev’s ouster.

“In the Mideast, much of what has happened in the last year has been based on the fact that rivalries no longer exist,” Beschloss says. The visible Soviet-U.S. cooperation during the Gulf War sent a strong signal that Third World nations could no longer exploit the East-West divide for their own gain.

“In regions around the world, we may have a situation where countries can once again play off the Soviet Union against the West,” Beschloss says. “This is one case in which the situation changes overnight.”

Several analysts contend that if Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait had happened this year instead of in 1990, the United States and its European and Arab allies would not have had the global support to carry out Operation Desert Storm.

“Automatic Soviet cooperation, which was close to what we had, can no longer be assured” in bilateral talks--at the United Nations or in any other forum--Maynes asserts.

EASTERN EUROPE

The ripple effect of Moscow’s coup is most likely to be felt soonest in Eastern Europe, U.S. analysts predict.

Besides the direct issue of Soviet relations with the former Warsaw Pact nations and the Soviet troops who are still deployed in Eastern Europe, there is the question of political atmospherics.

Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika created a new climate, encouraging the revolutions that swept Communist regimes from power. The return to the Kremlin of hard-liners--whose coup was apparently motivated largely by the contentious issue of whether to allow the Soviet republics to break away--may at least give new hope to any pockets of dogmatism that exist in the region. And in Yugoslavia, where Serbian Communists are balking at independence moves in the republics of Slovenia and Croatia, the crisis in the Kremlin may encourage similar crackdowns in the name of national integrity.

OTHER ISSUES

When President Bush was in Moscow three weeks ago, he said the three outstanding issues of disagreement between the United States and the Soviet Union were independence for the three Baltic states, Soviet aid to Cuba and Japan’s claim to four northern islands held by the Soviet Union since World War II.

“Those were trivial issues--they showed really how reduced the rivalry had become,” Beschloss says. “It’s unlikely there’ll only be three differences a year from now.’

U.S. analysts predict the new Soviet leaders will play hard-ball on those three issues--refusing independence to the Baltics and other republics, continuing aid to Fidel Castro and ignoring Tokyo’s land claims. But they are also already identifying other potential flash points, from emigration to environmental issues, that could heighten tensions with the outside world.

One of the most sensitive issues could be the exodus of Soviet Jews, more than 270,000 of whom have gone to Israel or Western countries in the last 20 months alone. Any attempt to stem the now-daily flights will create major tension with the West and Israel and also further damage Mideast peace efforts.

The restoration of ties with hard-line regimes would also harm relations with the West. In light of Moscow’s dire economic status, U.S. analysts interviewed said they did not anticipate renewed aid to socialist countries or extremist factions.

But mere dialogue could increase the profile or clout of these parties--a possible shift already anticipated in statements out of Iraq and the Palestine Liberation Organization on Monday welcoming the Soviet change in leadership.

Gorbachev’s ouster also may mean an end to the nearly two-year dialogue with the United States on joint measures to curtail international terrorism. The new cooperation has been given major credit, particularly during the Gulf War, for the decline in spectacular attacks on Western aircraft and diplomatic and military facilities.

Again, U.S. analysts do not predict renewed Soviet support or aid to terrorists but rather Soviet inaction that could lead extremists to believe restraints have been lifted.

Finally, U.S. specialists predict that the new ruling committee will ignore environmental dangers--from nuclear reactors to industrial pollution--that have become major political issues throughout Eastern Europe.

“These are the people who have been running the institutions polluting the country as well as countries on their borders, and there’s no indication they intend to stop,” Maynes says.

Of all the goals of the new regime, however, foreign policy is the most ill-defined, leading most U.S. experts to shy away from firm predictions on what Moscow will do next.

“It really rests on what kind of ambitions this regime has, and that’s a completely open question,” says Beschloss. “Do they want to focus on the Soviet Union and ignore the rest of the world? There’s an ancient tradition for that, especially in Russia. Or, as people brought up in the Cold War era and acting in reaction to Gorbachev, do they want to compete with the U.S. around the world?

“There’s evidence for both,” Beschloss says. “So far, we do not have an answer.”