The Nixon-Brezhnev summit cannot determine the future shape of the world any more than the Nixon-Chou parleys could of Asia last February. But there can be no question that it is an event of historic significance. For all that we know, this may mark the end of the cold war and help open a new chapter in Russo-American relations.
In view of the mining of Haiphong and other North Vietnamese harbours and the intensification of bombing raids on that country by the United States, it is remarkable that the visit is taking place at all. In similar circumstances some years earlier it almost certainly would have been postponed, if not cancelled. Mr Khrushchev broke up the Paris summit after the U-2 incident in 1960 and President Johnson dropped his proposed visit to Moscow after the Soviet military intervention in Czechoslovakia in August 1968.
This is not to suggest either that President Nixon intended to humiliate the Soviet Union when he ordered the mining of North Vietnamese ports and harbours or that Mr Brezhnev was under any obligation to treat this as a direct challenge to his country. On the contrary President Nixon and his special foreign policy adviser, Mr Henry Kissinger, have been at pains to emphasise that they respect the Soviet Union as a superpower and Mr Brezhnev cannot be blamed if he has politely refused to allow North Vietnamese to push him off the course he has chosen after great deliberation. After all, in the ‘fifties the Russians preferred to risk the end of their alliance with China to allowing it to determine their policy, specially towards the United States and India.
Prestige
All the same, some of the top Soviet leaders could, and perhaps did, take the view that however much they may resent Hanoi’s decision to launch a major conventional offensive with weapons supplied by them on the eve of President Nixon’s carefully planned visit to Moscow, his measures hurt their country’s prestige and made it necessary for them to retaliate in some way. That the leadership as a whole did not share this view is a measure of the importance it attaches to the development of relations with the United States. This is also an indication that Moscow assumes that Mr Nixon is more than likely to be re-elected for another four-year term next November.
It would clearly have been out of character for the Soviet Union to have risked a direct confrontation with the United States on the question of Viet Nam. Except for one instance in which Mr Khrushchev acted rashly in trying to install nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962, the Soviet leadership has observed great restraint in its actual dealings with Washington since the death of Stalin in March 1953, so much so that it has backed down in every single crisis. In the ‘fifties it repeatedly threatened but failed to sign a peace treaty with East Germany which would have placed access routes to West Berlin under Pankow’s control; at the time of the landing of US marines in Lebanon and British troops in Jordan in the wake of the revolution in Iraq in 1958, Mr. Khrushchev left President Nasser in no doubt that the Soviet Union would not intervene in the event of an Anglo-US attack on Baghdad; it stood aside when Egypt and Syria were attacked and defeated by Israel in 1967 and more recently in 1970 it prevailed upon Damascus not to intervene to stop the massacre of Palestinian guerillas in Jordan. President Nixon had signalled his intention to go to the rescue of the King by ordering some units of the Sixth Fleet to be ready for action.
A direct confrontation would also have endangered Moscow’s three-year-old efforts to ease tension in Central Europe, secure the West’s endorsement of the status quo in Eastern Europe and gain access to the technology, capital and markets of the EEC countries and the United States. It might have made it difficult, if not impossible, for Mr Brandt to persuade the West German legislature to ratify the treaties with Moscow and Warsaw. It would have scuttled the European security conference on which Moscow is so keen. It would have certainly increased the chances of anti-Soviet Sino-US cooperation.
Parity
But in view of the nuclear parity with the United States and the remarkable expansion of the Soviet navy, Mr Brezhnev and his colleagues might have felt inclined to take these risks and to go against the established tradition of their foreign policy if they were convinced that vital Soviet interests were at stake. But this surely could not be said to have been the case. On the contrary, it cannot be seriously disputed that the Soviet stakes in Viet Nam are rather limited. That was plainly why Mr Khrushchev had more or less decided to wash his hands off the whole affair. If his successors have reversed his policy and extended substantial economic and military assistance to Hanoi, specially in the last three years, they have done so not so much because they regard the defeat of the United States as vital for them as because they have been anxious to ensure that China does not obtain greater and even predominant influence there and thereby score over them in the over-all competition for the support of Asian communist parties. Though it is by no means certain, it is not inconceivable that the Soviet Union provided sophisticated military hardware to Hanoi in the hope that it would use it in a big way after the US troops had finally departed, possibly before the presidential election next November.
Thus if all rational considerations ruled out significant naval activities on the part of the Soviet Union, the leadership could have punished Mr Nixon only by withdrawing the invitation to him. But this controlled response, too, would have caused a setback to Soviet efforts in Europe. That might have been a temporary affair. But it could have caused considerable complications and greatly facilitated the task of Chinese diplomacy in strengthening suspicions of the Soviet Union.
Thus if there was anything like a debate in the politburo, Mr Brezhnev need not have found it particularly difficult to convince his colleagues that in the circumstances discretion was the better part of valour. Why then did he think or find it necessary or at least useful to convene a meeting of the Central Committee, the highest body of the Soviet Communist Party and make it publicly endorse his approach?
We can only speculate about the answer. All that we know for certain is that Mr Brezhnev remains strong enough to pursue the policy of detente with the West, specially the United States. An article that appeared in Pravda after the meeting of the Central Committee last Sunday also indicates that Moscow does not intend to set aside its differences with Peking just because the two have agreed to co-operate with each other in sending military supplies to North Viet Nam. The writer would otherwise not have reiterated the charge that China works against the interests of the socialist group of nations.
In view of the note of caution sounded by Mr Kissinger, it is not possible to say whether the proposed agreement on limiting the number of offensive and defensive missiles will be signed during President Nixon’s visit. But a small delay in the finalisation of this and other deals will in no way detract from the importance of the summit. The two leaders are determined to extend the area of detente and cooperation and the chances are that they will have paved the way for it during the present discussions as far as Europe and their bilateral relations are concerned.
The key issue – this is a matter of special interest for Egypt, Syria and many other countries, including in some ways India – is whether at the end of these discussions Mr Brezhnev will be converted to Mr Nixon’s view that the super-powers owe it to themselves and to each other to ensure that arms supplied by them to third countries are used strictly for what the US Administration would regard as defensive purposes.
Influenced
Mr Nixon has been deeply influenced by Mr Kissinger who thinks in terms of the concept of Europe in the 19th century and is appalled that smaller powers like India and North Viet Nam should have the audacity to defy the United States. The US President wants to freeze the existing status quo and seeks Soviet co-operation. He will apparently be willing to make major concessions to Moscow in respect of trade, credit and export of technology. He may also be willing to accept Moscow’s “legitimate interests” in certain areas like West Asia and the Indian sub-continent provided that it accepts a mutually agreed ceiling on the supply of arms to its friends and allies.
The Soviet government is apparently sensitive to the fears of its friends and allies on the one hand and the Chinese charge that the two super-powers are trying to divide the world between themselves on the other. That is apparently why it has gone out of its way to emphasise its commitment to certain principles. But it is essentially a status quo power and may not be wholly averse to the idea of a “stable” international order supervised by it and Washington. There are, of course, a number of snags, the most important being the revisionism of China. But Mr Nixon can offer Mr Brezhnev considerable temptations. Whether he will fall for them remains to be seen.
The Times of India, 23 May 1972