It need not surprise anyone if in spite of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia President Johnson has not given up the ambition of crowning his political career with a visit to Moscow and face-to-face discussions with Russian leaders. On all accounts he remains as anxious as ever to pave the way for a far-reaching Russo-American agreement on preventing another costly and pointless arms race between the two super-powers and a number of other issues.
The personal element cannot be absent from President Johnson’s calculations. He is an extremely vain man who feels that he has been cheated of his place in history as one of America’s greatest Presidents by the Viet Nam war. His failure as a war leader has apparently whetted his appetite to pass off as a man of peace.
But this is by no means the decisive consideration for President Johnson. Since the Russo-American confrontation over Cuba in October 1962 both Washington and Moscow have not deviated from the policy of seeking and extending the area of detente and cooperation. This is best illustrated by the fact that they have not allowed their differences over Viet Nam to stand in the way of an agreement on the non-proliferation treaty.
Keyrole
Most of the sophisticated weapons like missiles and MiG fighters which have played a key role in the defence of North Viet Nam and consequently in the frustration of American plans have come from the Soviet Union. Since 1965 Moscow has supplanted Peking as Hanoi’s principal supplier of arms and economic aid. Yet Washington has not taken the position that it is fighting a Soviet-backed communist movement in Viet Nam. It has continued to justify its actions there in the name of the containment of China.
The US Administration has indulged in this make-believe regarding the nature of the Viet Nam war mainly because it has been anxious to ensure that the climate of opinion at home remains favourable to the pursuit of a policy of co-operation with the Soviet Union. The Kremlin has pursued a more or less similar policy regarding the United States in spite of Mr Brezhnev’s occasional anti-American outbursts.
The fear or hope (depending upon one’s predilection and interest) has been expressed from time to time that the Russo-American detente would break down in the case of West Asia and lead to a renewal of the cold war. This fear or hope has not materialised leaving little scope for doubt that the two super-powers are prepared to subordinate every other consideration to the demands of the policy of rapprochement.
The Soviet Union sat on the sideline in June 1967 when Israel inflicted a crushing defeat on the UAR. It co-operated with the United States, although hesitatingly, in the United Nations for the purpose of bringing about a ceasefire between Israel and the Arabs. It has since rearmed the UAR and Syria but made sure that they do not pursue an “adventurist” policy and provoke Israel into another war.
Arms Race
The Russo-American co-operation is not a wholly negative affair. It is intended not only to prevent another direct confrontation and another arms race between the two countries but also to enable them to establish a stable world order based on their power. The non-proliferation treaty illustrates their approach to the question of a new world order.
It is idle to ask whether the concept of spheres of influence is implicit in this approach. It obviously is. It is not for nothing, for instance, that the Soviet Union has in recent years spared little effort to prevent Dr Castro from trying to foment insurrections in Latin America.
Moscow might not formally admit that it regards Latin America as falling within the USA’s sphere of influence. But of late its policy has been suitably adjusted to accord with such a recognition. Russia’s continuing economic aid to Castro’s Cuba does not detract from this fact. There has been a similar recognition by Moscow of the American role in south-east Asia. The Soviet aid to North Viet Nam is intended not so much to supplant American influence in the region as to detach Hanoi from Peking. The United States has reciprocated by recognising, though informally and indirectly that Eastern Europe is a legitimate sphere of influence for the Soviet Union.
The US State Department spokesman might be correct in the purely technical sense when he says that America has not entered into an agreement with the Soviet Union on the question of spheres of influence and that it has not given Moscow to understand that it would be indifferent to any action that Russia and its Warsaw Pact allies might take in Czechoslovakia. But it would he absurd for anyone to deny that recognition and respect for the status quo in the still divided Europe is implicit in the Russo-American scheme of things.
Washington can legitimately claim that it could not have prevented a Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia however hard it tried. The arguments are familiar enough. The United States is too deeply involved in Viet Nam to risk a direct confrontation with the Soviet Union. American forces in West Germany are depleted. The geographical situation favours the Soviet Union as far as a convention war is concerned. The factors which compelled Mr Khrushchev to back down over Cuba in 1962 would have forced President Johnson to beat a retreat in the case of Czechoslovakia if he had been rash enough to commit his country’s prestige there.
Dangerous
But the question is whether Washington made any attempt at all to dissuade Moscow from the dangerous course on which it was apparently embarked since last June when it sent a large number of troops and masses of equipment into Czechoslovakia in the name of staff exercises of Warsaw Pact countries. As far as the public record is concerned, the United States played it cool. Last month it even denied the report that President Johnson had cut short his meeting with President Thieu of South Viet Nam in Honolulu by some hours to be able to return to Washington and deal with the threat of Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Washington has followed an interventionist policy throughout the world since the war and it cannot therefore either feel shocked by the Soviet aggression in Czechoslovakia or adopt a posture of moral superiority. Its willingness to acquiesce in the Russian action has been evident since the Soviet troops moved into Czechoslovakia last week. Unlike at the time of the Soviet armed intervention in Hungary in 1956 there has been no sense of emergency or crisis in Washington. The US denunciation inside and outside the United Nations of the Soviet invasion has lacked the passion of past years.
Receded
The Soviet action is bound to upset a number of calculations on which America’s Europe policy has been based. The prospect of liberalisation and democratisation in Eastern Europe leading to a reconciliation between the two halves of the continent has clearly receded farther into the future. Washington will now find it far more difficult to persuade Bonn to sign the non-proliferation treaty. Herr Kiesinger’s statement that his country would need a guarantee against possible Soviet aggression is a pointer in that direction. Similarly it will not be easy for the United States to rebut the Gaullist argument that Western Europe needs an independent nuclear deterrent to deal with the long-term Soviet threat. All the same Washington cannot but welcome the fact that the Soviet Union has, wittingly or unwittingly, delivered a heavy blow to the world communist movement, made nonsense of its claim that it can lead a socialist commonwealth of free and equal members, and validated the Chinese charge of big power chauvinism.
Aspirations
The Soviet ability to identify itself with the nationalist and radical aspirations of the third world helped it in its struggle against the United States all these years. Many Governments in the third world were willing to sympathise with the Russian dilemma at the time of the Hungarian tragedy in 1956. But it is a different story this time. Russia has placed itself on the wrong side of both the nationalist and the radical movement in Eastern Europe. This cannot but call into question the credibility of its claim of being the champion of the forces of change in the third world.
In invading Czechoslovakia the Soviet leadership has ignored the larger consideration of its impact on their country’s influence in the communist movement, Afro-Asia and the world. In the process it has damaged Russia’s claim to world influence and leadership. This is a god-send for the United States which had suffered an almost irreparable loss of prestige and self-confidence in the wake of the debacle in Viet Nam earlier this year.
The Times of India, 28 August 1968