The New Soviet Peace Offensive

...Once it has atomic arms, a country which has major national interests it has failed to secure by peaceful means may be tempted to take risks which satisfied powers would never envisage...

...Moreover, I believe that Hungary marks the beginning of the end of international Communism as an important instrument of Soviet foreign policy...

...The third stage was a direct approach to Britain for a general settlement...

...The political preconditions for a general settlement exist already...

...It is significant that those, like Andrei Zhdanov and Khrushchev, who saw foreign Communist parties as playing a major role in Soviet policy also had to conceive the possibility of some national independence for those parties: The Comin-form, like the short-lived new look in Eastern Europe, was an attempt to revitalize international Communism as a force which ceuld add to the influence of the Russian state precisely because it was not wholly the creature of that state...

...The theme of disarmament and a European disengagement was repeated by First Deputy Premier Mikoyan during his visit to Austria a week later, and was taken up again by Zorin on April 30 in London...

...The so-called "return to Stalinism" in Eastern Europe means that Russia has had to abandon the concept of international Communism as a major ally, even if it remains a minor convenience as a source of spies and saboteurs...

...Finally, if major war is no longer a rational means of policy, preparing to fight with the latest available weapons becomes impossibly wasteful if there is any means whatever of maintaining a balance of military strength at a lower level...

...And the very existence of a thermonuclear stalemate between Russia and America may seem to provide an umbrella beneath which smaller powers may take risks with impunity...

...The second stage in the campaign was the publication of the BulganinEden correspondence before the military action in Suez, and a renewal of Russia's earlier proposal to neutralize the whole of the Middle East and operate an arms embargo in the area...

...Zorin presented the United Nations Disarmament Subcommittee with the most reasonable proposals Russia has vet made in this field...

...When at the Security Council meeting in mid-October Britain, France and Egypt reached a basis for negotiation far more favorable to the West than the settlement which Nasser is now able to impose, Bulganiu took it for granted that war was at last excluded...

...But there is a consistency in the pattern which suggests that the new Soviet policy represents a real shift of front produced by preoccupations which the West would be well advised to take seriously...

...Western Germany," it said, "would become one big cemetery...

...In Europe, the area thus opened to air inspection would extend from the extreme southeast of Britain to a narrow strip of Soviet territory adjoining Poland...

...The role of atomic weapons in a European war is the main issue in the German election campaign, and the Soviet note was carefully drafted to damage Adenauer's position...

...He reacted by denying intentions which he bad specifically proclaimed a few weeks earlier, and left the confusion over NATO's use of atomic weapons worse than ever...

...For the first time in history, all powers have the same interest in the international limitation and control of armaments...

...The real tragedy is that the West is abandoning its military aims without seeking to exploit the political opportunities which this could put within its reach...

...A basis of common interest is slowly emerging on which the cold war in its Mani-chean form can be liquidated...

...They also indicate that in the end Russia was as badly deceived as America regarding British intentions...

...He must have been as furious as Eisenhower at what happened a week later...

...But the world has yet to satisfy itself that the new weapons offer the possibility of a strategic doctrine through which military aggression can be deterred or halted without the confrontation in peacetime of the opposing forces along a common frontier...

...The first stage in the campaign was a series of warnings to the European members of NATO against the awful consequences of accepting nuclear arms on their territory— whether under their own or American control...

...Bulganin ended with an appeal for more personal contacts between leading statesmen of the two countries...

...Their most important feature was a frank admission that, given the obstacles to a comprehensive disarmament agreement, a start should be made with disarmament in Central Europe, the area of greatest tension...

...It is easy to see this extensive complex of diplomatic activity as aimed at weakening and dividing the West, and this may well be one of its purposes...

...They maintain Russia's earlier acceptance of ground control posts in the area of arms limitation, and go further than ever before in accepting air inspection...

...But it may be possible to persuade them to abandon the use or threat of war as an instrument of expansion—it has never, in any case, played nearly so prominent a role in Soviet foreign policy as in that of Nazi Germany...

...There has not been such a spate of diplomatic activity in Moscow for many years...

...Soviet Premier Bulganin has fired a barrage of letters and notes at the governments of nearly all the NATO powers, and each of the Soviet leaders has played some part in building up a new picture of Russian policy...

...In my opinion, these arguments apply no less to the interests of the major Western powers...

...But the maintenance of a military balance, again, is much more difficult in a world in which the major weapons are widely distributed, since the number of combinations against which security is required becomes infinite...

...By far the most savage of these was the Soviet note to Western Germany...

...Russia has, therefore, every economic and political reason to try to freeze the pattern of world armaments in something like its present shape, and then to try to reduce the level of armaments at which the pattern is maintained...

...Bulganin's letters are, in fact, of considerable interest...

...Germany and the Middle East are the most likely sources of such a war, and therefore the great powers must consider whether there is some way by which they can collectively reduce the prospects of a local conflict in either area...

...This development may have a profound influence on Russia's views about a European settlement—she may regard some of the satellite regimes as politically expendable provided she can achieve military security without them...

...The danger of local war leading to world war may be greatly increased as atomic weapons spread beyond the three countries which now monopolize them...

...In the first place, now that she has her own H-bombs, she no longer seems frightened that the United States will deliberately initiate world war by a surprise attack upon her—the real danger of world war now comes from a local war which the great powers are unable to prevent from spreading...

...This is a problem, however, which is just as relevant to the present division of Europe as it would be to the creation of a European neutral zone...

...That is why the West has so great an interest in taking up the present Soviet proposals for a completely new approach to European security through the creation of a zone of limited and controlled armaments...

...The British Defense White Paper has only emphasized a fact which has long been obvious—that NATO will never obtain the ground forces which are necessary to implement its original concept of forward ground defense...

...If the main aim were to exploit internal conflicts inside the Atlantic community, one would expect, as in the past, to find Russia playing more effectively on the theme of anti-Americanism, and exacerbating French suspicions of Germany...

...Indeed, apart from the disingenuous attempts to exploit wounded national pride in Britain, Russia is for once saying much the same thing to every member of the Western alliance, though the tone of her words varies from one to another...

...this attacked Adenauer personally for staking a claim to "tactical" atomic weapons, and spelled out in some detail the nature of a campaign fought in Germany with nuclear arms...

...Unlike the Scandinavian governments, which took their warnings calmly, Adenauer was badly rattled by the note...

...It is, in fact, the only way by which Secretary Dulles can implement his latest pledge to achieve the liberation of the satellite peoples by peaceful means...

...This letter was excessively flattering in tone—even the warnings were couched in apologetic language, very different from that addressed to the other European powers...

...A second area would extend east from Siberia and Alaska to the American Middle West...

...Dated from September 11 to October 23, they are friendly and thoughtful in tone, warning Eden accurately enough about the consequences to Britain of a resort to arms, with special emphasis on the fact that "today, just as in the past, small wars can turn into big wars, with all the grave consequences for states and peoples following therefrom...

...Bulganin sent a long letter to Macmillan on April 20 in which, besides warning Britain what she would suffer in an atomic war, he congratulated Macmillan on his decision to cut British troops in Germany and offered to resume discussion on the Eden proposals for a disengagement of hostile forces in Central Europe...

...This does not mean, of course, that the Soviet leaders will abandon in a night all the ideas on which their regime has been reared for 40 years...

...I believe that Russia is at last coming to terms with some aspects of the technological revolution in warfare ¦—indeed, she may have been quicker than the West to assess the impact of the new weapons on diplomacy...