Gorbachev's Opening to the West

...The approach appears to stem from the theoretical flexibility Gorbachev introduced into the Soviet Union's foreign policy...

...In the future, Soviet policy would have to operate on the basis of a nuclear deadlock with the U.S., and a "soft-sell" among America's allies...

...Perhaps the major impetus has come from the United States...

...The Soviet economic model was totally discredited, and the leading Communist power found it difficult to retain viable supporters...

...Too often the United States finds itself reacting to one of the Soviet leader's proposals, only to have to explain itself after the fact...

...And now that the Moscow has declared a willingness to relax the requirement that it retain 51 per cent ownership in joint ventures, the West Europeans can be expected to move in...

...How should the United States, especially the incoming Bush Administration, respond to the warm reception Western Europe has given Gorbachev's initiative...

...In addition, the Kremlin realized that its scare tactics on the Continent were backfiring: It was the Europeans who signaled the end of détente by sounding an alarm over the deployment of Soviet SS-20s...

...In conflicts that are not primarily military, West Germany, France and Britain may be able to bring their considerable diplomatic prestige to bear...

...As Allen Lynch has observed, Soviet theorists have long maintained that if the military factor is severely constrained in the global "correlation of forces, " then the economic, technological and political factors will assume a greater role...

...To many it appears that Gorbachev's calls for "new political thinking" are simply aimed at achieving the longstanding Soviet objective of splitting the West and diminishing the American presence (if not influence) in Europe...

...What is novel in this message is the effort to treat Western Europe and Japan as autonomous entities, capable of influencingU.S...

...The unilateralism has produced a desire for greater freedom from U.S...

...This confronts the U.S...

...By emphasizing the futility of a nuclear or even conventional war in Europe, it implies that the guarantor of European security, the United States, no longer has anything to offer...

...The "breakthroughs" of the 1970s in Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Vietnam, and Afghanistan had in the 1980s turned into draining burdens...

...Instead, the incoming Administration should focus on the dual nature of Gorbachev's policy by pursuing a course that accepts short-term economic cooperation, yet confounds the longer-term Soviet aspiration of diminishing American influence on the Continent...

...policy...

...Gorbachev's recent threat to stop the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan resembles more a desire for a Nixonian "peace with honor" than a renewed commitment to occupation...

...The more Western Europe acts as an independent political entity, the better are Soviet chances for using Europe to influence the United States...

...Moscow's maneuvers in the Third World had reached a dead end, too...

...A common goal, particularly in theeconomicsphere, would do much to balance Soviet overtures...

...A creative American political and diplomatic initiative might just succeed in throwing Gorbachev of f guard enough to enable the West to capitalize on the short-term economic benefits of his "new political thinking," and avoid the longer-term divisiveness that Soviet strategy hopes to bring about...

...In Angola and Afghanistan, for example, the Soviets accepted negotiated solutions—and at least in the latter case reconciled themselves to a resounding defeat...

...The possibility of economic gains is, to be sure, another powerful motivation...

...It would alienate the Soviets and provide them with superb propaganda, and more important the West Europeans are unlikely to be persuaded...

...has the ability to match the USSR in military capacity (barring the consolidation of a pan-European defense bloc, which is unlikely...

...By offering access to them, he is certain to attract the attention of Western businessmen eager to take advantage of the Soviet Union's weaker domestic competition, lax environmental controls and cheaper labor...

...Even more dramatic has been the sudden surge in economic and financial activity between the USSR and Western Europe...

...Thus Moscow's emphasis on the developing world is being replaced by attention to Europe, Japan and the United States...

...In short, the USSR has not only demonstrated remarkably little staying power in underdeveloped countries, but the Third World has little to offer it in its current economic state...

...Even at lower levels of military involvement they may be able to count, as the experience in the Persian Gulf showed...

...To the extent that Moscow's proposals involve profits, American opposition because of security concerns will be viewed by West Europeans as an unwarranted intrusion in their affairs...

...hasapowerful advantage, formost of Western Europe wants to remain within the framework of Western society...

...Peter J. Stavrakis, a new contributor to the NL, is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Vermont specializing in Soviet affairs...

...Second, the United States must endeavor to integrate European security considerations into overall defense planning...

...Several factors reveal how he has combined these two thrusts, and why Western Europe has become his principal target...

...Overall the issue may seem of minimal importance, but it still retains a powerful attraction to a continent that was accustomed to a global role prior to 1945...

...leadership will be proportionately reduced...

...This week—on his way home from New York where he addressed the UN General Assembly, was treated to lunch by President Ronald Reagan and President-elect George Bush, and took in some city-sights—the Soviet President scheduled a stop in London to reciprocate an earlier visit British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made to Moscow...

...The United States did not have a considered strategy for the period following the implementation of INF, leaving European leaders to wonder about the credibility of the American commitment to the Continent...

...On the other hand, the prospect it holds out of economic cooperation and interdependence is clearly intended to suggest that the Soviets do have something to offer...

...The May 1988 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Agreement (INF) helped slow the tempo of the arms race, but it also injected an uneasiness into the U.S.-West European relationship...

...Rather, they are at the moment merely trying to extract whatever benefits they can from a divergence between U.S...

...The U.S...

...Western trade with East Europe remains constrained by political considerations emanating from Moscow, but should perestroïka prove successful, all of Central Europe may ultimately be open to European firms...

...In the process, West Europeans must be consulted on major decisions or their willingness to accept U.S...

...Brezhnev also left a foreign policy the country was no longer able to sustain, given the deterioration of the domestic economy...

...Indeed, the propositions of his "new political thinking" constitute a well-targeted package...

...Yet the General Secretary's efforts are motivated as well by an immediate need to respond to pressing domestic problems...

...European statesmen have welcomed American security guarantees, but they have always found the U.S...

...Parity in nuclear weapons with the United States had been accomplished, but NATOS "two-track" decision—to deploy theater nuclear forces while pursuing arms reduction agreements—faced the Soviets with the prospect of a new round of escalation they could not match...

...In any case, the impression that the American commitment to Europe is in some respects "negotiable" should be avoided...

...policy, and the sense of detachment has fueled the West European incentive to consider cutting a security bargain with the only other superpower...

...The Brezhnevite élite disregarded this advice and concentrated on the military dimensions of power...

...Gorbachev has the task of repairing the damage done by Leonid I. Brezhnev, who succeeded in pushing the USSR's centrally-planned, command economy to exhaustion...

...Lastly, there is the potential for playing a larger role in global diplomatic and political affairs...

...Since October, with the encouragement of their governments, Italian, German, French and British banks, joined by the Japanese, have granted nearly $9 billion in credit to finance the Soviet restructuring program...

...and Western Europe with what is actually a dual Soviet strategy: In the short term, the West is being presented with an opportunity to embrace the "new thinking," and thereby promote economic and political cooperation and a lessening of global tensions...

...over the long term, though, Gorbachev seeks to ensure traditional Soviet goals...

...Properly controlled, the marketplace could provide significant leverage in Western economies and simultaneously advance the goal of domestic restructuring...

...None of this is to assert that the Soviets are attempting to somehow push the United States off the Continent, though they look forward to the eventual abandonment of the American role in Europe...

...Although key countries like Cuba and Vietnam had to be retained, elsewhere the Soviet Union under Gorbachev sought to extricate itself from the responsibilites of empire...

...deficit problem: With no new taxes, cuts in expenditures wfll have to come somewhere, and European leaders are fearful they will be made at the expense of the U.S...

...Because of the extremely high economic stakes involved, West Europeans have always had a greater interest in détente than Americans, a fact the Soviets are now trying to exploit...

...If this framework is strengthened with a sense of common purpose, the Atlantic community will be little affected by an increase in economic relations with the Soviet Union...

...First, as former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt recently argued, it should make every effort to give Western relations some sense of development and direction...

...tendency toward unilateralism particulary disturbing...

...This would both satisfy West European interests and prevent a further division within the Atlantic alhance...

...Finally, the Bush Administration must seek to match Gorbachev's vitality in the foreign policy arena...

...Writing in Izvestia, the Soviet government daily, Alexander Bovin summed up Moscow's attitude: "We would like to utilize Western Europe's potential via the transatlantic channel to meet the evident deficit of common sense on the part of the current Administration in the USA...

...Outright dismissal of the General Secretary's "new political thinking" as merely a disguised form of the same old Soviet tricks would be counterproductive...

...Europe's anxiety is particularly pronounced in light of the Republican Administration's failure to solve the U.S...

...The decision to dismantle intermediate nuclear forces also demonstrated America's detachment from European affairs, for the INF Agreement bargained away weapons peripheral to American interests yet vital to European security...

...At the same time, various Soviet gestures, such as the willingness to permit observers at Warsaw Pact exercises and statements indicating a readiness to undertake conventional force reductions, added to a growing perception that perhaps the Cold War was finally abating...

...The West Europeans, stressing the economic aspects of perestroïka, disagree...

...By couching his new policy in terms of economic opportunities and the futility of military escalation, Gorbachev is sending a message that has special appeal to the West Europeans and Japanese...

...military commitment...

...since only the two superpowers can conduct military policy on a global scale, Bonn, Paris, London, and perhaps even Tokyo would welcome the opportunity for an independent political or diplomatic role...

...The United States fears all this Western assistance will benefit the Soviet military sector...

...The failure to consult with West European capitals on such fundamental policies as the Strategic Defense Initiative (which profoundly affects European security), has created resentment...

...Moreover, Gorbachev's calls for greater reliance on negotiation to resolve regional disputes are appealing...

...and West European interests, while concentrating on refurbishing their own economy...

...Gorbachev has reversed that position with special attention to Western Europe...

...That is better than triple the sum the USSR received from the West in the previous three years...

...The failure of an agressive, military-based foreign policy to produce positive results, and the inability of the economy to act as a lure have forced Gorbachev to resort to his lone remaining resource: the Soviet markets...

...deficit problem would go a long way toward calming European fears...

...similarly, Brezhnev's and Yuri V. Andropov's effortsto derail the"twotrack" strategy with a new round of missile emplacements helped push through acceptance of the controversial U.S...

...The next logical step is securing the necessary financing, and here Europe is preferred because it reduces the risk of dependence on the United States...

...Put in more concrete terms, Washington should pursue three goals...

...But the Party chief's essential focus can be narrowed still further...

...If driving a wedge between the United States and Western Europe is the So viet objective, one may legitimately wonder why the Europeans have embraced Gorbachev so enthusiastically...

...Among developed societies, only the U.S...

...Pershing lis by West European parliaments...

...Despite some intra-Party resistance, the majority of the Soviet leadership seems convinced that their survival cannot be guaranteed by radical economic reform alone, that superior Western technology and management practices are vital to any meaningful restructuring...

...Gorbachev's Opening to the West BY PETER J. STAVRAKIS In recent months Mikhail S. Gorbachev has been host to Italian Prime Minister Ciriaco De Mita, French President François Mitterrand and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl...

...Their preference is for a strong, stable American presence to offset Soviet forces, but if that begins to crumble the Europeans (unless they are able to muster their own forces) will feel compelled to be more accomodating to the Soviets...

...Developments relating to security matters have contributed to the divergence of views between Western Europe and the U.S...

...Resolving the current U.S...