The Soviet government is displaying an unusual sense of urgency in pushing its proposal for a European security conference. It has made concessions on Berlin which no one in the West expected even six months ago. It has ignored the requirements of protocol to invite Herr Brandt to Moscow, and hold discussions with him. Its three topmost members will be soon visiting foreign capitals to sell the idea.
The reasons which have led Moscow to try to extend the area of detente with the West in recent years are fairly well known. It is keen to stabilise its western front in order to be relatively free to cope with the growing Chinese challenge. It has been interested in securing western acceptance of the status quo in Eastern Europe and access to western markets, technology and capital resources to meet the urgent demands of its economy. It feels that a softer line will help it at once to slow down, if not altogether stop, the movement towards integration in Western Europe and weaken the latter’s link with the United States.
In spite of the truly remarkable expansion of the Soviet navy and strategic nuclear weapons, Moscow has been anxious to limit military expenditure, partly because it cannot otherwise hope to meet the growing demand for consumer goods at home and partly because it knows that another nuclear arms race will be extremely costly, (an anti-ballistic missile system will cost over $50 billion) and futile (it will not add much to its security against the United States though it will in respect of China).
Soviet planners also appear to have calculated that a detente in Europe need not inhibit them in areas of immediate interest – West Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, South and South-East Asia – where they expect to make the maximum gains.
Changes
Some of these factors have clearly acquired a new urgency in view of the Sino-US dialogue. President Nixon’s forthcoming visit to Peking, the re-emergence of a strongly anti-Soviet bias in America’s foreign policy in the wake of Washington’s decision to cut its losses in Viet Nam and make up with China, Peking’s remarkable progress in the nuclear field and its increasing acceptance by the international community and likely admission to the United Nations in the near future.
Moscow has got to cope with these dramatic, if not altogether unexpected, changes in the international situation. It knows that otherwise it can be outflanked, despite its massive military superiority over China and parity with the United States, in the diplomatic and political field.
No one can say with certainty that a major foreign policy debate is again on in the Kremlin as it was during the Khrushchev era. But Mr Victor Zorza of The Guardian, London, is perhaps not entirely off the mark when he says that it is and that the West can influence its outcome if it is vigilant and does not allow its actions to be dominated by the cold war psychology.
Mr Zorza has not yet spelt out his views. His principal concern at the moment seems to be to drive home the point that President Kennedy badly misjudged Mr Khrushchev’s intentions in 1961 and over-reacted to Soviet moves to the detriment of the West’s own long-term interest. The Soviet leader’s ultimatum on Berlin, loud support to the so-called wars of national liberation and extravagant claims regarding his nuclear arsenal, he argues, were a facade behind which he was engaged in a grim battle to control his marshals on the one hand and the Chinese on the other.
But even if a comparison with Mr Khrushchev is not wholly relevant in the changed circumstances, it stands to reason that the present Soviet leaders should wish to review their policy because the very possibility of a Sino-US understanding, however limited it may be, to begin with, has begun to transform the international scene.
Comparison
On a surface view, it is futile to argue whether the Soviet government will be dealing with the West in coming years from a position of strength or weakness, because it has elements of both strength and weakness. In any case an overall assessment cannot be a one-time exercise. It has to be undertaken more or less on a continuous basis. India, too, cannot escape this necessity, particularly after it has signed a treaty of friendship with Moscow.
Military power is obviously the Soviet Union’s greatest strength. Since it can comfortably hold both the eastern and western fronts, it does not have to make concessions either to China or to the West on just that account. In fact the rapid expansion of its navy has given it the capacity for the first time to make its power and influence felt all over the globe. This is specially relevant in the context of the popular disenchantment in America with its world role and the certain and fairly substantial retrenchment in its commitments abroad. The US Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean has already been outgunned by a more modern Soviet fleet and it is unlikely that the American naval presence in the Indian Ocean can match Russia’s in the foreseeable future.
In other fields, however, the Soviet Union is decidedly at a disadvantage. It lags far behind the United States and Western Europe in science and technology. Its political system may have facilitated what has appropriately been described as the primitive accumulation of capital. But it has become a drag on the country’s economic progress. This point has been argued at length, among others by Mr Sakharov, one of the men who made it possible for Moscow to produce the H-bomb in the early ‘fifties. The system hampers innovation, initiative and exchange of information, with predictable results. Soviet scientists engaged in one defence establishment cannot, for example, share their achievements with those in others. This inevitably leads to needless duplication and triplication of effort.
The United States is ahead of the Soviet Union in all branches of the most modern industry. To cite just one instance, it employs many times more computers. And this is not all. While America uses third generation computers, Russia employs at best only second generation ones except in its defence establishments.
There can be genuine differences of opinion on whether or not the Soviet system, with its drastic curbs on freedom of expression, accords with the aspirations of the intelligentsia and even of common people. But it cannot be seriously disputed that the Soviet leadership has failed to place its relations with fellow socialist countries in Eastern and Central Europe on a sound and durable basis. This indeed is Moscow’s gravest weakness and it is likely to be aggravated as the Kremlin moves towards a greater detente with the West.
It is enough to recall the events of 1968 to illustrate this point. The Soviet government justified its military intervention in Czechoslovakia in August that year on the ground that forces of revanchism and militarism in West Germany were wanting to detach that country from the socialist bloc. The plea was specious but it was possible to advance it so long as Moscow maintained the myth of West German militarism and revanchism. In the new context what justification can it give for a similar intervention?
Complicated
In the wake of further relaxation of tension in the continent, the Soviet Union will find it increasingly more and more difficult to justify measures to maintain its present dominant position in Eastern and Central Europe. This would not have been regarded as a critical issue if there was reasonable hope that a new relationship could evolve peacefully in course of time between Moscow and other members of the Warsaw Pact and if nationalism in those countries had not acquired violently anti-Russian overtones. But as it is, there is no evidence that the Kremlin is prepared to accept a diminution in its authority and that it is in a position to defuse the powder keg it has unwittingly established on its flank.
The Soviet government can, of course, pursue contradictory goals – a detente with the West and the maintenance of its present position in Eastern and Central Europe – for some time on the strength of its military prowess. But the two objectives cannot be reconciled. China’s intervention by way of espousing the right of all nations to shape their policies without outside interference will further complicate Moscow’s task.
The key questions are whether the men in the Kremlin, who are pressing for a European security conference and mutual reduction of forces by NATO and Warsaw pact powers, recognise the need for liberalisation at home and a new relationship with other socialist countries, whether they realise that there is an intimate connection between the two and whether they are strong enough to have their way in the face of opposition from more conservative elements in the party and the military hierarchy. If past experience is any guide such opposition is bound to surface in course of time.
It is difficult to answer these questions with certainty just now. But in the long run these will determine whether Europe and the rest of the world will in coming years move towards greater stability or instability. The more unpleasant possibility cannot be altogether ruled out at this stage.
The Times of India, 22 September 1971