While it is self-evident that the Soviet leadership is anxious to convince the US administration that it will not allow communist victories in Indochina to deflect it from its policy of superpower detente, it is not easy to spell out its compulsions and calculations.
This is not an altogether new difficulty. Even before the final American debacle in Indochina, it was becoming increasingly difficult to accept the earlier Western assessment that the Soviet interest in reducing tensions in Europe and increasing co-operation with Washington was primarily the product of its desire to gain access to Western, specially US capital, technology and markets in order to overcome its comparative lag in certain fields and to eliminate the possibility of a Sino-US tie-up.
Momentous
Inflation in the entire capitalist world followed by the Arab-Israeli war, the oil embargo and the rise in oil prices in the last quarter of 1973, the Cyprus crisis, the overthrow of US-backed dictatorships first in Greece and then in Portugal, the withdrawal of Athens from NATO, the establishment of communist-supported military rule in Lisbon and the disenchantment with America and NATO in Turkey as a result of the decision by the US Congress to block military aid, had clearly changed the East-West power balance before the collapse of anti-communist regimes in Saigon, Phnom Penh and now in Vientiane.
But before the momentous development in Indochina, Soviet gains in the competition with the United States could be said to have been offset by the decrease in its influence in the critically important Arab world. Even the massive arms assistance which alone could have made it possible for President Sadat to launch “Operation Spark” against Israel in October 1973 and the continuing supplies to Syria and Iraq did not seem to have arrested the erosion of its hold dating back to the expulsion of its military personnel from Egypt in July 1972. For, the initiative in West Asia had clearly passed to conservative forces headed by King Feisal and President Sadat on the one hand and on the other, to Mr Kissinger who alone was in a position to bring pressure to bear on Israel in favour of a negotiated settlement.
Even now the power balance has not shifted in favour of the Soviet bloc. For one thing, the combined economic might of the West and Japan remains much greater, and Moscow can find itself in an unenviable position if the United States decides to step up its arms build-up in a big way. For another, China remains a thorn in the side of the Soviet Union and Peking’s military power, specially in the nuclear field, is steadily increasing. But never before has the Soviet claim regarding the over-all power balance been as justified.
If this was all, it would have been reasonable to draw the inference that the Soviet leadership has on balance decided to adhere to the policy of detente with the United States in the calculation that things will continue to move its way if it acts with patience and prudence. But the issues are not all that simple. The United States has to re-establish the credibility of its power. As such it can be only a matter of time, and that, too, not too long, before it begins to insist that Moscow provide positive evidence to prove its good faith.
It is almost certain that the US terms for SALT II agreement will harden. Mr Kissinger, his personal position seriously weakened by his failure to arrange a further disengagement in the Sinai and to prevent the invasion of Cyprus by Turkey, withdrawal of Greece from NATO and the debacle in Indochina, cannot beat back the challenge posed by the Defence Secretary, Mr Schlesinger, specially in the face of evidence that the Soviet Union continues to press ahead with its programme of missile and naval build-up. This is not all. It is on the cards that the United States will expect the Soviet Union not only to exercise restraint in respect of military supplies to Syria, and possibly even Egypt, but also to use its influence with the Portuguese communist party to persuade it not to push things too far.
It goes without saying that Washington will also insist that Moscow does all in its power to prevent President Kim Il Sung from trying to destroy the status quo in the Korean peninsula. The former is reasonably assured that the Chinese will not encourage him because they are aware that trouble there will pose a serious challenge to the United States and frighten Japan either into a major armament programme or into drawing closer to the Soviet Union.
Competition
Recent developments in Indochina represent a critical point in US-Soviet relations. The two super-powers must either move towards greater co-operation and mutual trust or the competition between them would become intensified. This is so partly because Soviet military assistance to Hanoi has facilitated its victory – a fact which the US administration is not likely to ignore – and partly because Washington has to win back the prestige and self-esteem it has lost. This it can do by winning Soviet co-operation in ensuring stability in areas of vital interest to it or by reasserting its military superiority or by drawing closer to China.
This poses a difficult choice for the Soviet leadership. Until now, it could pursue the policy of detente in Europe without having to reduce, not to say withhold, support to anti-US forces elsewhere because the level of American tolerance was reasonably high. That threshold has now been considerably reduced because the United States has been shaken by the failure of its efforts in Indochina and because the weaknesses of NATO’s southern flank have been fully exposed.
Everyone knows that the Paris agreement which Mr Kissinger negotiated with Mr Tho was nothing more than a fig leaf behind which the United States could withdraw its troops from South Viet Nam. But the fig leaf was important not just for Mr Nixon and Mr Kissinger. It was important for even those Americans who were opposed to the Viet Nam war in order to avoid the humiliation of defeat. This point may not be quite obvious just now. But it will without doubt become clear once the American people overcome the sense of shock and guilt. The reaction may not take the form of a McCarthyite backlash. But a new brittleness in their attitude towards others, specially the Soviet Union, is to be expected.
Concessions
The Soviet leadership’s problem is likely to be compounded by the possibility that it may not have much to show by way of US concessions in return for its restraint and co-operation. Moscow has all these years wanted nothing as keenly as a de jure Western endorsement of the borders resulting from the Second World War and its hold on Eastern and Central Europe. This it has already secured. It, of course, still needs economic co-operation with the West and Japan if it is to meet the revolution of rising expectations among the Soviet people. But that cannot be as effective a weapon as the compulsion to secure the West’s acceptance of its dominion over Eastern and Central Europe in its struggle against either the marshals or the ideologues, specially in the context of the likely US demand for more than restraint on its part in areas like the eastern Mediterranean, West Asia and East Asia,
All this is not to say that these problems would not have arisen if the communist forces had not achieved the kind of spectacular victories they have in South Viet Nam and Cambodia. But they would not have arisen in this dramatic fashion. It is also not suggested that the United States can freeze the status quo anywhere with or without the co-operation of the Soviet Union. That, too, is out of the question because basically nationalism is proving to be a stronger force than Washington had ever thought.
Though it revelled first in Marshal Tito’s and then in Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s defiance of the Soviet Union, it just did not grasp the potential power of nationalism. Its obsession with a “stable world order” has simply been too great to permit it to do so. And so enormous has been its physical power that it could easily convince itself that those it would not bribe, it could coerce and those it could not coerce, it could topple through a combination of economic pressure, manipulation of public opinion and covert operations by the notorious CIA.
All that is implied here is that developments in Indochina have created major problems for the Soviet Union as well, irrespective of either their impact on the Moscow-Peking rivalry or the manner in which North Viet Nam, by far the strongest military power in South-East Asia, behaves towards its nervous neighbours – Thailand, Malaysia and Burma.
The Times of India, 14 May 1975