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January-February 1989 [3]
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453248055
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January-February 1989 [3]
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30540-003
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Records of the National Security Council (George H. W. Bush Administration)
Robert D. Blackwill Chronological Files
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1989
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Originally Processed With FOIA(s):
FOIA Number:
2011-0298-F
2011-0298-F
FOIA
MARKER
This is not a textual record. This is used as an
administrative marker by the George Bush Presidential
Library Staff.
Record Group/Collection:
George H.W. Bush Presidential Records
Collection/Office of Origin: National Security Council
Series:
Blackwill, Robert D., Files
Subseries:
Chronological Files
OA/ID Number:
30540
Folder ID Number:
30540-003
Folder Title:
January-February 1989 [3]
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0
O
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Rice
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506
0807
February 23, 1989
ACTION
MEMORANDUM FOR G. PHILIP HUGHES
FROM:
CONDOLEEZZA RICE CR
SUBJECT:
U.S. -Soviet Embassy Agreement
The NSC staff concurs with the modification of the language on
the subject agreement for the State Authorization Bill. Attached
(Tab I) is a memorandum for your signature to Ronald K. Peterson,
OMB, informing him of our views.
Robert Lampley NBIA Blackwill, concur. William for Working, John Lewis, oreghew of and Virginia Arah
RECOMMENDATION:
That you sign the memorandum to Mr. Peterson attached at Tab I.
Approve All Disapprove
Attachment:
Tab I
Memorandum for Mr. Peterson
Tab II
Incoming
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506
0807
February 27, 1989
MEMORANDUM FOR RONALD K. PETERSON
FROM:
G. PHILIP HUGHES Plip
SUBJECT:
U.S.-Soviet Embassy Agreement
The National Security Council Staff concurs with the modification
of the language on the U.S.-Soviet Embassy agreement (Sec. 152)
for the State Authorization Bill.
Fay 3pg
/
EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20503
URGENT
February 13, 1989
LEGISLATIVE REFERRAL MEMORANDUM
0807
TO:
Legislative Liaison officer -
National Security Council (Stevens 3723)
49
Department of Justice (Perkins 633-2113)
17
Department of Defense (Brick 697-1305)
06
Central Intelligence Agency
SUBJECT: Rev. provision on the U.S.-Soviet Embassy agreement
(Sec. 152) for the State Authorization Bill.
The Office of Management and Budget requests the views of your
agency on the above subject before advising on its relationship
to the program of the President, in accordance with OMB Circular
A-19.
A response to this request for your views is needed no later than
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1989.
Questions should be referred to Annette Rooney/Sue Thau
(395-7300), the legislative analyst in this office.
Romeldk.Petown
RONALD K. PETERSON FOR
Assistant Director for
Legislative Reference
Enclosures
cc: B. Sasser
M. Margeson
A. Donahue
T. Thiele
100
LRD/RDI 8W0
13:11
02/14/99
ROV
DI-ACTUX
20239557701# 6
2/10/89
SEC. 152, UNITED STATES-SOVIET EMBASSY AGREEMENT
Section 152 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act,
Finesl Years 1935 $1.0 1989 (Public Law 100-204) is amended to
read as follows:
"SEC. 151. UNITED STATES-SOVIET EMBASSY AGREEMENT
"(a) In order to address concerns as to the security of
the new United States Embassy complex in Moscow and the
potential damage to the national security of the United States
from the new Stviet Embassy complex in Washington, District of
umbia. the President shall determine, no later than October
1990. whether
"(1) all feasible and effective steps have been or
will De taken to attain the following objectives:
"(A) to ensure that a new chancery building to be
OK
occupied by the United States Embassy in Moscow can be
safely and securely used for its intended purposes: and
(B) to eliminate the damage to the national
shiminates 2 yrs,
security of the United States due to electronic
surveillance from Soviet facilities on Mount Alto, and
"!?) it is vital to the national security of the
United States that the United States not terminate the
Agreement between the Government of the United States and
the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
on the Reciprocal Allocation for Use Free of Charge of
Plots of Land in Moscow and Washington (signed at Moscow,
May 16, 1969) and related agreements, notes, and
understandings.
*(b) Any determinations made under subsection (a) shall
: reported to Congress within 30 days of the date the
determinations are made. Any such report shall include--
at sorh of the
200
OMB LRD/RDI
13:11
02/14/69
Extended Page
21
'(A) b detailed explanation of each of the
determinations:
"(B) on assessment of the impact on national security
of the removal of the Soviet Embassy from Mt. Alto; and
"(C) the specific steps that have been or will be
taken under paragraph (a)(1).
(c) It 18 the sense of Congress that, in the event that
the President cannot make an affirmative determination under
subsection (a', the United States should terminate the
agreement land related agreements, notes, and understandings)
referre. to :- subsection (a)."
E00
LRD/RDI 8W0
13:12
02/14/99
REB
UNCLASSIFIED
RECORD ID: 8900807
NSC/S PROFILE
RECEIVED: 14 FEB 89 14
2/27/89
TO: HUGHES
1355
FROM: PETERSON, R
DOC DATE: 13 FEB 89
SOURCE REF:
KEYWORDS: USSR
LEGISLATIVE REFERRAL
PERSONS:
SUBJECT: REV PROVISION ON US - SOVIET EMBASSY AGREEMENT FOR STATE
AUTHORIZATION BILL
21
ACTION: MEMO HUGHES TO PETERSON
DUE DATE: 17 FEB 89
STATUS: S
STAFF OFFICER: BLACKWILL
LOGREF:
FILES: WH
NSCIF:
CODES:
DOCUMENT DISTRIBUTION
FOR ACTION
FOR CONCURRENCE
FOR INFO
BLACKWILL
Cond,
EBNER
FARRAR
LAMPLEY
RODMAN
WORKING
COMMENTS:
DISPATCHED BY
DATE
BY HAND W/ATTCH
OPENED BY: NSGAD
CLOSED BY:
DOC 1 OF 1
UNCLASSIFIED
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506
1007
ACTION
February 21, 1989
MEMORANDUM FOR G. PHILIP HUGHES
FROM:
CONDOLEEZZA RICE CR
SUBJECT:
Message from Mrs. Gorbachev to Participants
in Armenian Relief Concert
Ambassador Dubinin asked General Scowcroft to pass the message
from Mrs. Gorbachev (Tab A) to Mrs. Bush. It is a message to the
participants in a concert to benefit Armenian relief that Mrs.
Bush and Mrs. Gorbachev are sponsoring.
At Tab I is a memorandum to Susan Porter Rose asking her to pass
the message to Mrs. Bush.
RECOMMENDATION
That you sign the memorandum to Susan Porter Rose at Tab I.
Approve
Disapprove
Attachments
Tab I
Memorandum to Susan Porter Rose
Tab A Message from Mrs. Gorbachev
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506
1007
MEMORANDUM FOR SUSAN PORTER ROSE
FROM:
G. PHILIP HUGHES
SUBJECT:
Message from Mrs. Gorbachev to Participants
in Armenian Relief Concert
Ambassador Dubinin delivered the attached message from Mrs.
Gorbachev to the participants in the Armenian relief concert to
General Scowcroft this morning and asked that it be passed on to
Mrs. Bush.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Attachment
Tab A
Message from Mrs. Gorbachev
Mrs. GORBACHEV'S MESSAGE
TO THE SPONSORS AND PARTICIPANTS
IN THE BENEFIT CONCERT
AT CARNEGIE HALL
on February 21, 1989
"I was profoundly moved by the idea of inviting some
of the best-known Soviet and American performers to take
part in a benefit concert in aid of those affected by the
earthquake in Soviet Armenia.
We thank all those who have taken to heart our anguish
and have reached out generously to help in coping with the
consequences of that natural disaster. These poignant
expressions of solidarity strengthen the belief in the common
human ideals of kindness, compassion and humanism.
The joint appearance at Carnegie Hall of these stars
from our two countries is also a major event in Soviet-
American cultural relations, a good sign of growing trust
and mutual affinity between the Soviet Union and the United
States.
I take this opportunity to convey sincere gratitude
to the organizers and participants in this benefit, to all
those who have contributed to making this noble idea a
reality.
With my warmest feelings,
Raissa GORBACHEVA"
ОБРАЩЕНИЕ P.M. ГОРБАЧЕВОЙ
K ОРГАНИЗАТОРАМ И УЧАСТНИКАМ
БЛАГОТВОРИТЕЛЬНОГО КОНЦЕРТА B
КАРНЕГИ-ХОЛЛ
2I февраля I989 года
"Меня глубоко тронула идея проведения благотворительного
концерта C участием широко известных советских И американских
артистов B пользу пострадавших oT землетрясения B Советской
Армении.
Мы благодарны BceM, KTo сегодня принял близко K сердцу
нашу боль, бескорыстно пришел Ha помощь B ликвидации послед-
ствий стихийного бедствия. Эти волнующие проявления солидар-
ности укрепляют Bepy B общечеловеческие идеалы добра, мило-
сердия И гуманизма.
CoBMecTHoe выступление B Карнеги-Холл талантливых
MacTepoB искусства наших двух cTpaH - это И крупное событие
B советско-американских культурных связях, добрый 3HaK
растущего доверия И взаимного расположения между Советским
Союзом И Соединенными Штатами.
Пользуюсь этой возможностью, чтобы выразить слова
искренней признательности организаторам и участникам благо-
творительного концерта, BceM, KTo BHec вклад B осуществление
этого благородного замысла.
C самыми теплыми чувствами,
Р.ГОРБАЧЕВА"
Baerbel-
I already
proofread this
last Friday
Lois made changs
Sat. Joan
CONFIDENTIAL
0019
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506
February 17, 1989
ACTION
MEMORANDUM FOR G. PHILIP HUGHES
FROM:
RUDOLF V. PERINA
BARRY F. LOWENKRON
SUBJECT:
MEMCONS of President's Telephone Conversations
At Tabs 1-9 are the MEMCONS of telephone conversations between
the President and European leaders which were monitored by
members of the European and Soviet Directorate. The President's
telephone call to Prime Minister Martens of Belgium was not
monitored because the telephone operators failed to alert the NSC
Secretariat of the call.
Bob Blackwill concurs.
RECOMMENDATION
That the MEMCONS be filed for record purposes.
Attachments
Tab 1
MEMCON with FRG Chancellor Kohl
Tab 2
MEMCON with Italian Prime Minister De Mita
Tab 3
MEMCON with Finnish President Koivisto
Tab 4
MEMCON with Soviet General Gorbachev
Tab 5
MEMCON with British Prime Minister Thatcher
Tab 6
MEMCON with French President Mitterrand
Tab 7
MEMCON with Spanish Prime Minister Gonzalez
Tab 8
MEMCON with Danish Prime Minister Schlueter
Tab 9
MEMCON with Vatican Pope John Paul II
DECLASSIFIED
CONFIDENTIAL
Declassify on: OADR
PER E.O. 13526
2012-1557-MR
11/8/2013 MM
CONFIDENTIAL
0019
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION
SUBJECT:
President's Telephone Conversation with
FRG Chancellor Helmut Kohl
PARTICIPANTS:
The President
Rudolf V. Perina, NSC (Notetaker)
Gisela Marcuse, State Department
(Interpreter)
Chancellor Kohl
DATE, TIME
January 23, 1989, 10:07 a.m. - 10:12 a.m.
AND PLACE:
Oval Office
The President identified himself and asked the Chancellor how he
was.
The Chancellor greeted the President and said he was very well.
He said he watched the President's inauguration on television
with great interest. It was a big event. He wanted to wish the
President good luck, much success and God's blessing.
The President said this was the first call he was placing because
he wanted to thank the Chancellor for the very warm message of
congratulations.
The Chancellor said that this was how he hoped the two could
handle matters in the future. It would be very useful to call
even when no urgent business was at hand.
The President replied that he was strongly in favor of that. He
had one point to make today. Because he knew how opposed the
Chancellor was to chemical weapons, he was personally outraged by
some of the recent commentaries on the Libyan issue in the U.S.
press. He had spoken out on this publically, and he hoped the
Chancellor's staff had shown him these comments.
The Chancellor said he had seen the comments and was grateful for
them. He wished to reiterate clearly that it was his intention
in coming weeks to amend the legislation which had led to this
problem. The present legislation had been in effect since before
he came to office, and up until now it had presented no problem.
DECLASSIFIED
PER E.O. 12958,
AS AMENDED
CONF IDENTIAL
Declassify on: OADR
2000-0429-F
2/25/09 KO
CONF IDENTIAL
2
The Chancellor said he was strongly opposed to the involvement of
any German firm in the production of CW anywhere in the world.
He wanted to bring the present firm to court but this required
evidence, and the situation regarding evidence was not good.
There was an old saying that the President perhaps knew: Before
a court and the open seas, one is in the hands of the Lord.
The President said he understood. He asked the Chancellor to
convey his love to Hannelore and say that he looked forward to
seeing them.
Chancellor Kohl asked the President to give his love to Barbara
and to tell her that she was doing a great job. She was doing
things in her own way and everyone liked her for that. She
should not change.
The President said he would convey that message, and the two
leaders said good-bye.
CONE IDENTIAL
CONF IDENTIAL
0019
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASH'NGTON
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION
SUBJECT:
The President's Telephone Conversation with
Italian Prime Minister De Mita
PARTICIPANTS:
The President
Rudolf V. Perina, NSC (Notetaker)
Neil Seidman, Department of State
(Interpreter)
Prime Minister De Mita
DATE, TIME
January 23, 1989, 10:25 a.m. - 10:29 a.m.
AND PLACE:
Oval Office
The President asked the Prime Minister how he was.
The Prime Minister responded "not bad." He said he wished to
repeat his congratulations to the President.
The President said he had called to say thank you for the warm
congratulations which the Prime Minister had sent.
The Prime Minister said he wanted to reiterate those and also
hoped to see the President in Italy soon.
The President said he also hoped so. It would be wonderful, and
he remembered his last visit to Italy with great affection. They
would be talking about that. For now, he just wanted to thank
the Prime Minister and say how much he looked forward to working
with him.
The Prime Minister extended best wishes to the President and
hopes for his success in office. He also hoped the two would
deepen their friendship.
The President said he had great respect and admiration for the
job which the Prime Minister had done in Italy. They would work
closely together because Italy was very important to the United
States. The President again thanked the Prime Minister for the
message of congratulations, and the two men said good-bye.
DECLASSIFIED
CONFIDENTIAL
Declassify on: OADR
PER E.O. 12958,
AS AMENDED
2000. 0429.F
8/21/09 Ko
CONF IDENTIAL
0019
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION
SUBJECT:
President's Telephone Conversation with
Finnish President Koivisto
PARTICIPANTS:
The President-
Rudolf V. Perina, NSC (Notetaker)
President Koivisto of Finland
DATE, TIME
January 23, 1989, 10:42 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.
AND PLACE:
Oval Office
The President asked President Koivisto how he was.
President Koivisto replied he was well and asked if it was
morning in Washington.
The President said it was morning. He said he wanted to thank
the President for his congratulatory telegram. He wanted to
continue the personal relationship he. had with him, and to wish
him well.
President Koivisto said this was very nice of the President. He
said the President had gotten a very good start, with very
favorable press coverage.
The President said jokingly that that would change. He had big
budgetary problems which would change the press. But he wanted
to continue the good relationship with Finland and with President
Koivisto.
President Koivisto thanked the President and said he had interest
in keeping this connection open.
The President said he wanted to do that also. He had made this
clear to Brent Scowcroft, who was of the same view. The
President said he had discovered that the White House had a
sauna, though it was not as good as a Finnish one.
President Koivisto said he would see.
The President said that he and Mrs. Bush still fondly remembered
the hospitality of their last visit to Finland. He again thanked
President Koivisto for his message, and the two men said
good-bye.
DECLASSIFIED
CONFIDENTIAL
PER E.O. 12958,
Declassify on: OADR
AS AMENDED
2000-0429.F
8/21/09
KO
CONFIDENTIAL
0019
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION
SUBJECT:
President's Telephone Conversation with
Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev
PARTICIPANTS:
The President
Rudolf V. Perina, NSC (Notetaker)
Dimitri Zarechnak, State Department
(Interpreter)
General Secretary Gorbachev
Unidentified Soviet Interpreter
DATE, TIME
January 23, 1989, 12:33 p.m. - 12:46 p.m.
AND PLACE:
Oval Office
The President said he appreciated very, very much the cordial
message of congratulations which he received from the General
Secretary. He said this was a thank you call to express his
appreciation.
General Secretary Gorabchev said he welcomed the call and was
very pleased to speak on the telephone with the President. He
again wished to congratulate him on his inauguration.
The President thanked Gorbachev and said his intention was to go
forward as they had discussed on Governor's Island. He was
undertaking policy reviews immediately which would come up with
ideas on how to improve the bilateral relationship and the
policies started by President Reagan. He could assure the
General Secretary that there would be no unnecessary delay. He
just wanted to take a new look at policies and would then be
ready to move forward as quickly as possible for both sides.
General Secretary Gorbachev thanked the President for his words.
He said that, for his part, he wished to reaffirm all that they
had discussed on Governor's Island. Everything he had told the
President remained valid. General Secretary Gorbachev said that
he had familiarized himself with the President's speech and found
new elements that were of interest and importance in it,
especially on the subject of U.S. -Soviet relations. Combined
with what the President had just said, it strengthened his
conviction that the two would expand relations and build upon the
assets which already existed.
DECLASSIFIED
CONFIDENTIAL
Declassify on: OADR
PER E.O. 12958,
AS AMENDED
2000-0429-F
2/25/09
KO
CONFIDENTIAL
2
The President thanked Gorbachev and said he had just two points
to make. He wanted the General Secretary to know that his son
and grandson had been deeply moved by their visit to Armenia.
This had not been a political trip but rather a way to express
how Americans felt about the enormous tragedy in Armenia. The
President said he and Mrs. Bush were very grateful for the warm
way in which their son and grandson had been received.
General Secretary Gorbachev said he wished to confirm that this
very human gesture had been very well received by the Soviet
public.
The President thanked Gorbachev and said his second point was
that the General Secretary had been very generous in his time
with Henry Kissinger. General Scowcroft would be inviting
Kissinger to the White House in the next few days, and they would
listen attentively to what Kissinger reported. They would not
necessarily believe everything because this was, after all, Henry
Kissinger but they knew that the General Secretary had been
generous with his time, and they would listen attentively to what
Dr. Kissinger said.
General Secretary Gorbachev thanked the President for this
information and said he hoped that the President would find
something of interest in what Dr. Kissinger reported.
The President said he had one last point. He hoped that Jim
Baker, after consulting in Europe with Allies, would be able to
establish a relationship with Foreign Minister Shevardnadze along
the lines of the one Secretary Shultz had had. The President
said that Jim Baker was very close to him, and a good working
relationship with Foreign Minister Shevardnadze would benefit
U.S. -Soviet relations.
General Secretary Gorbachev said he understood fully and would do
everything in his power to assure that the relationship between
the two foreign ministers would not only be maintained, but also
expanded and multiplied.
The President thanked Gorbachev and said he looked forward to
working with him to strengthen world peace.
General Secretary Gorbachev said the President could rely on full
cooperation from him in this effort. Everything which they had
discussed remained valid. The Soviet side would proceed from a
position of realism but also see the broad perspectives and try
to act in a manner which benefited both the Soviet and American
people and the world community as a whole. General Secretary
Gorbachev said he had heard that at 7:30 that morning the
President had sworn in his White House team. He sent regards to
all these people, and thanked the President for his call. He
also wished to pass sincere regards from him and Mrs. Gorbachev
to the President's wife Barbara.
CONFIDENTIAL
CONF IDENTIAL
3
The President thanked Gorbachev and said that his wife looked
forward very much to getting to know Raisa even better. The two
would get along very well.
General Secretary Gorbachev said he was very pleased by their
conversation and wished the President all success in his
activity.
The President thanked Gorbachev and wished him good-bye.
CONF IDENTIAL
CONF IDENTIAL
0019
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION
SUBJECT:
Phone Call between the President and Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain
PARTICIPANTS: The President
Barry F. Lowenkron, NSC (Notetaker)
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
DATE, TIME
January 23, 1989, 1:19 p.m. - 1:23 p.m.
AND PLACE:
Oval Office
The President thanked Prime Minister Thatcher for returning his
call, and for the congratulatory letter. Prime Minister Thatcher
responded by congratulating the President on his inauguration.
The President said he looked foward to working with the Prime
Minister on the key international issues they faced. Prime
Minister Thatcher responded that the President would always be
welcome in Britain. She then outlined the most pressing problems
the West had to tackle: preparing for a NATO Summit, taking a
decision on nuclear modernization, and maintaining a unified
Western position on East-West issues.
The President said that he had put together a solid team of
pragmatists like Secretary Baker and National Security Advisor
Scowcroft. They shared his view on the importance of maintaining
the special relationship with Great Britain.
Prime Minister Thatcher said that she had not been able to take
the President's earlier call because she had been dedicating a
statue to Eisenhower in Grosvenor Square, at a ceremony which was
also attended by General Galvin and Ambassador Walters. She
emphasized that both countries could rely on each other.
The President said he hoped he could feel free to call on the
Prime Minister for her advice, and hoped that she would feel the
same about calling him. Prime Minister Thatcher responded that
she would indeed do so.
Prime Minister Thatcher then reiterated the "urgent" need for
nuclear modernization, saying she would be discussing the issue
with Chancellor Kohl next month. Prime Minister Thatcher also
expressed concern about the euphoria surrounding General
Secretary Gorbachev. She said that the West was responding to
his words, but his deeds were what counted.
DECLASSIFIED
CONFIDENTIAL
PER E.O. 12958,
Declassify on: OADR
AS AMENDED
2009-0429-F
8/21/09 Kc
CONF IDENTIAL
2
The President said that, while he did not want to be cast as the
person stalling better East-West relations, he would continue to
stress caution and the need for the NATO Allies to work together.
Prime Minister Thatcher said that the President's past statements
on dealing with the Soviets were right on the mark.
The President again thanked the Prime Minister for returning his
call. Prime Minister Thatcher said that Mrs. Bush was "going
down really big in Britain." The President said he appreciated
Denis Thatcher's handwritten postscript to the Prime Minister's
congratulatory letter. Prime Minister Thatcher said that the
United States could always rely on Britain.
The conversation ended at 1:23 P.M.
CONF IDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL
0019
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION
SUBJECT:
The President's Telephone Conversation with
Prime Minister-Mitterrand of France
PARTICIPANTS:
The President
Barry F. Lowenkron, NSC (Notetaker)
President Mitterrand
DATE, TIME
January 24, 1989, 9:21 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
AND PLACE:
Oval Office
The President thanked President Mitterrand for his warm message
of congratulations. President Mitterrand said that it was only
natural for him to send the President congratulations on his
inauguration.
The President asked President Mitterrand whether he would be
traveling to Tokyo for the Emperor's funeral. President
Mitterrand replied that he had not yet made up his mind, but that
he was leaning toward going. The President then suggested that
the two get together in Tokyo to renew their friendship and
consult on key issues. He stressed that there would be no set
agenda. The President then raised the idea of having lunch with
President Mitterrand in Tokyo.
President Mitterrand said that he looked forward to working
closely with the President. He characterized his relations with
the President as going beyond strictly official, and joked about
how friendly and "disrespectful" his house dog had been to the
President. President Mitterrand then asked whether the President
would be announcing his trip to Tokyo today. The President
responded that the White House would issue the announcement later
in the day. He then repeated his interest in meeting with
President Mitterrand.
President Mitterrand replied that, in that case, he would go to
Tokyo, and that he would accept the President's invitation to
lunch. The President said his plan was to have his bilaterals on
February 23, and proposed lunch on that date. He stressed that
if President Mitterrand could not make lunch on the 23rd, they
could have lunch at a later date.
DECLASSIFIED
PER E.O. 12958,
CONF IDENTIAL
AS AMENDED
Declassify on: OADR
2000-04
2/25/09 KO
CONFIDENTIAL
2
President Mitterrand asked whether the President would be in
Tokyo both the 23rd and 24th? The President said yes. President
Mitterrand then asked whether the President's announcement would
include his specific schedule of activities in Tokyo? The
President said that the announcement would be general, making no
mention of specific events in Tokyo. President Mitterrand said
that he would issue an announcement of his trip to Tokyo, but
that it would make no mention of a luncheon with the President.
President Mitterrand said that the funeral in Tokyo was not an
event that one looked forward too. But, he said he did look
forward to meeting with the President. He promised that his dog
would be more respectful in the future. The President said that
his dog was pregnant. President Mitterrand asked that the
President convey his warmest regards to Mrs. Bush. The President
said he looked forward to seeing President Mitterrand soon.
The conversation concluded at 9:30 a.m.
CONF IDENTIAL
CONF IDENTIAL
0019
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION
SUBJECT:
The President's Telephone Conversation with
Prime Minister Gonzalez of Spain
PARTICIPANTS:
The President
Barry F. Lowenkron, NSC (Notetaker)
Prime Minister Gonzalez
DATE, TIME
January 24, 1989, 11:16 a.m. - 11:25 a.m.
AND PLACE:
Oval Office
The President thanked Prime Minister Gonzalez for his
congratulatory message. The President said he recalled his
previous visits with the Prime Minister, and looked forward to
seeing him again. Prime Minister Gonzalez said he was pleased
with the President's victory, and again congratulated him.
The President said he looked forward to discussing key
international issues with the Prime Minister, in particular
developments in Europe and in Central and Latin America. Prime
Minister Gonzalez said he would be delighted to exchange views
with the President. He said that, in his capacity as EC
President, he would be traveling to the inauguration of
Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez and would be meeting
with various Latin American heads of governments.
Prime Minister Gonzalez asked whether Vice President Quayle would
be attending the inaugural. The President said that the Vice
President would be going to Venezuela, and asked the Prime
Minister to meet with the Vice President. Prime Minister
Gonzalez said he would do SO.
Prime Minister Gonzalez said he looked forward to meeting the
President. The President asked whether Prime Minister Gonzalez
was planning to travel to Tokyo for the Emperor's funeral. Prime
Minister Gonzalez said that King Juan Carlos would be
representing Spain at the funeral. He then said he would
appreciate the opportunity to pay a visit to Washington during
the first half of this year.
DECLASSIFIED
CONDIDENTIAL
PER E.O. 12958,
Declassify on: OADR
AS AMENDED
2000-0429-F
8/21/09
KO
CONFIDENTIAL
2
The President said that he would discuss the possibility of such
a visit with General Scowcroft and Secretary Baker. He
reiterated that he was anxious to meet with the Prime Minister
and promised that he would try to work something out.
Prime Minister Gonzalez said he was delighted, and that he could
raise the issue when he meets with Vice President Quayle in
Venezuela.
The President thanked the Prime Minister again for his
congratulatory message. Prime Minister Gonzalez thanked the
President for the telephone call.
The conversation ended at 11:25 a.m.
CONFIDENTIAL
FIDENTIAL
THE WHITE HOUSE
0019
WASHINGTON
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION
SUBJECT:
The President's Telephone Conversation with
Prime Minister Schlueter of Denmark
PARTICIPANTS:
The President
Barry F. Lowenkron, NSC (Notetaker)
Prime Minister Schlueter
DATE, TIME
January 24, 1989, 3:10 p.m. - 3:21 p.m.
AND PLACE:
Oval Office
Prime Minister Schlueter said he was delighted with the excellent
start of the President's Administration. The President said that
both he and Mrs. Bush were delighted with the Prime Minister's
congratulatory message.
The President said that he had put together a strong national
security team headed by Secretary Baker and General Scowcroft.
Prime Minister Schlueter said he knew both of them. The
President said that the United States would be a steady partner.
Prime Minister Schlueter said he did not doubt it.
The President said that he did not want to play "defense" all the
time, and that he would be interested in the Prime Minister's
views on how to set the NATO agenda. He said he appreciated the
political problems the Prime Minister faced, and he considered
the Prime Minister a friend.
Prime Minister Schlueter asked the President for his thoughts on
a NATO Summit. The President said he thought a Summit built
around the fortieth anniversary of NATO was a good idea. He
asked the Prime Minister for his recommendation on where to hold
the Summit. Prime Minister Schlueter said that the location was
not as important as the fact that it take place soon. The
President said he was leaning toward Brussels, although the
British were interested in hosting it as well. As for timing,
the President thought late May or early June was most
appropriate. Prime Minister Schlueter said that was fine with
him. He then stressed the importance of the President meeting
with the NATO Allies before meeting with Gorbachev. The
President said he agreed completely, emphasizing that Allied
consultations would precede any meeting with Gorbachev.
DECLASSIFIED
CONF IDENTIAL
PER E.O. 12958,
Declassify on: OADR
AS AMENDED
2000 F
8/21/09
KO
CONF IDENTIAL
2
The President said that the Prime Minister was always welcome to
contact him on any issue.
Returning to the issue of the NATO Summit, the President said
that he thought that Brussels was the most appropriate site.
Prime Minister Schlueter agreed.
The President said that he and Mrs. Bush were looking forward to
meeting the Prime Minister and his wife. Prime Minister
Schlueter said he felt the same way, and thanked the President
for the call.
The conversation ended at 3:21 p.m.
CONE IDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL
0019
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION
SUBJECT:
The President's Telephone Conversation with
Pope John Paul II of the Vatican
PARTICIPANTS:
The President
Paul Lebras, WHSR (Notetaker)
Pope John Paul II
DATE, TIME
January 26, 1989, 12:02 p.m. - 12:03 p.m. and
AND PLACE:
12:14 p.m. - 12:16 p.m., Oval Office
The President said he was calling to thank the Pope for his warm
note of congratulations. He remembered the warmth of his
reception, both at the Vatican and here in the United States.
The Pope said he again wished to congratulate the President.
(At the point the connection was cut-off and resumed after a few
minutes.)
The President said they had been cut off but he again wished to
thank the Pope for his message. He said he had great respect for
all that the Pope was doing in the cause of world peace. He
wanted the Pope to know that he was welcome to call at any time
to discuss things of concern. The President said he also looked
forward to seeing the Pope before too long. He had a very good
relationship with the Reverend Pio Laghi, the Vatican
representative here. He was also well acquainted with Cardinal
O'Connor. So he was very familiar with the Pope's official
family here.
The Pope said he wished to send greetings to both the President's
family and the entire United States.
The President thanked the Pope. He said, once again, that he
looked forward to seeing him soon and that he should not hesitate
to call.
The Pope said he was very grateful for the offer which should
prove useful.
DECLASSIFIED
CONFIDENTIAL
PER E.O. 12958,
Declassify on: OADR
AS AMENDED
8/21/09 KO
UNI IDENTIAL
CONF IDENTIAL
0749
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
WASI NGTON, D.C. 20506
ACTION
February 14, 1989
MEMORANDUM FOR G. PHILIP HUGHES
FROM:
RUDOLF V. PERINA
SUBJECT:
Agrement of Mr. Anders Thunborg as
Sweden's Ambassador to the U.S.
We have received a request from the State Department (Tab II) for
the President to grant agrement to Mr. Anders Thunborg to become
Sweden's new Ambassador to the United States. Attached at Tab I
is a memorandum to the State Department stating that the White
House concurs in Mr. Thunborg's appointment.
Bob Blackwill and Bob Perito concur.
RECOMMENDATION
That you sign the memorandum at Tab I to Melvyn Levitsky.
Approve
Disapprove
Attachments
Tab I
Memo for Levitsky
Tab II
State Recommendation
DECLASSIFIED
PER NSC WAIVER, 1500 2021-02
By SS NARA, Date 9/3/25
CONFIDENTIAL
Declassify on: OADR
CONFIDENTIAL
tun IDENTIAL
CONE IDENTIAL
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
0749
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506
MEMORANDUM FOR MR. MELVYN LEVITSKY
Executive Secretary
Department of State
SUBJECT:
Agrement of Mr. Anders Thunborg as
Sweden's Ambassador to the United States (U)
The President has reviewed and concurs in the recommendation of
the Department of State that the appointment of Mr. Anders
Thunborg as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of
Sweden would be agreeable to the Government of the United States.
You are requested to SO inform the Government of Sweden. (f)
G. Philip Hughes
Executive Secretary
DECLASSIFIED
PER NSC WAIVER, 1500 2021-02
By SS NARA, Date 9/3/25
CONF IDENT IAL
Declassify on: "Appointment of Ambassador"
CONFIDENTIAL
8902897
0749
United States Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520
UNCLASSIFIED
February 11, 1989
(With CONFIDENTIAL
Attachment)
MEMORANDUM FOR BRENT SCOWCROFT
THE WHITE HOUSE
SUBJECT:
Appointment of Mr. Anders Thunborg of the
Republic of Sweden as Ambassador to the United
States
The Government of Sweden has inquired whether our
Government agrees to the appointment of Mr. Anders Thunborg as
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Sweden to the
United States (TAB 2). A biography of Mr. Thunborg is attached
(TAB 1).
The Department believes from the information available that
Mr. Anders Thunborg will make a good Ambassador to the United
States and recommends that the President agree to the proposed
appointment. If he concurs, the Department will inform the
Government of Sweden.
Milayn Switshy
Melvyn Levitsky
Executive Secretary
Attachments:
1. Biography.
2. Memorandum of January 31, 1989.
UNCLASSIFIED
UNCLASSIFIED UPON
(With CONFIDENTIAL Attachment)
REMOVAL OF CLASSIFIED
ATTACHMENTS
0822813
ve:
21
SS 9/3/25
Withdrawal/Redaction Sheet
(George Bush Library)
Document No.
Subject/Title of Document
Date
Restriction
Class.
and Type
02d. Report
Government report [FOIA EXEMPTIONS REDACTED] (1
n.d.
(b)(1), (b)(3)
C
pp.)
Collection:
Record Group:
Bush Presidential Records
Document Partially Declassified
Office:
National Security Council
(Copy of Document Follows)
Series:
Blackwill, Robert D., Files
By MM
on 3/2/2015
Subseries:
Chronological Files
WHORM Cat.:
File Location:
January-February 1989 [3]
Date Closed:
5/3/2011
OA/ID Number:
30540
FOIA/SYS Case #:
2011-0298-F
Appeal Case #:
Re-review Case #:
Appeal Disposition:
P-2/P-5 Review Case #:
Disposition Date:
AR Case #:
MR Case #:
2012-1557-MR(501)
AR Disposition:
MR Disposition:
Released in Part
AR Disposition Date:
MR Disposition Date: 11/8/2013
RESTRICTION CODES
Presidential Records Act - [44 U.S.C. 2204(a)]
Freedom of Information Act - [5 U.S.C. 552(b)]
P-1 National Security Classified Information [(a)(1) of the PRA]
(b)(1) National security classified information [(b)(1) of the FOIA]
P-2 Relating to the appointment to Federal office [(a)(2) of the PRA]
(b)(2) Release would disclose internal personnel rules and practices of an
P-3 Release would violate a Federal statute [(a)(3) of the PRA]
agency [(b)(2) of the FOIA]
P-4 Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
(b)(3) Release would violate a Federal statute [(b)(3) of the FOIA]
financial information [(a)(4) of the PRA]
(b)(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
P-5 Release would disclose confidential advice between the President
information [(b)(4) of the FOIA]
and his advisors, or between such advisors [a)(5) of the PRA]
(b)(6) Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
P-6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy [(b)(6) of the FOIA]
personal privacy [(a)(6) of the PRA]
(b)(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes [(b)(7) of the FOIA]
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed of
(b)(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
gift.
financial institutions [(b)(8) of the FOIA]
(b)(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
PRM. Removed as a personal record misfile.
CONFIDENTIAL
BUSH PRESIDENTIAL 501 JERARY
Proposed New Ambassador: Anders Thunborg
(Phonetic: TOONboree)
Sweden
Anders Thunborg has an extensive background in defense and
foreign policy matters. Among his other assignments, he served
from 1977 to 1983 as Sweden's Permanent Representative to the
United Nations.
Thunborg joined the Social Democratic Party as a student at
the University of Stockholm, where he earned a B.A. degree in
political science and economics in 1958. At the age of 24 he
became legal adviser to the Stockholm SDP organization. He
subsequently became SDP information secretary and later
international secretary. From 1967 until 1969 Thunborg was
assistant SDP secretary. He served as under secretary in the
Defense Ministry during 1969-74 and as Secretary of State in
the Foreign Ministry during 1974-76. Thunborg was chairman of
the Swedish Government's Defense Planning Commission during
1975-76.
Thunborg is highly regarded by both Swedish and US
Government officials for his ability and his knowledge of
defense and foreign policy matters. Several years ago he told
US diplomats in Stockholm that one of his paramount concerns
was the need for cooperation with this country on defense
production.
Thunborg has traveled widely. He has written many books on
defense and politics. He speaks English and German. He was a
racing car driver in his youth. During 1969-76 he was chairman
of the Swedish Motorcyclists' Federation. Thunborg has been
married twice, as has his wife; he has two daughters and three
stepsons.
(b)(1); (b)(3)
Sources include:
(b)(1); (b)(3)
Information from Embassy of Sweden
CONFIDENTIAL
DECL:OADR
DECLASSIFIED IN PART
PER E.O. 13526
2012-1557-MR
11/8/2013 MM
United States Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520
January 31, 1989
MEMORANDUM
TO
: S/CPR - Miss Jennifer Fitzgerald
FROM
: S/CPR - Richard Gookin
SUBJECT : Request for Agrement for New Swedish Ambassador
For the record, I wanted you to know that the Swedish
Ambassador, Count Wilhelm Wachmeister, visited me today to
request agrement, on behalf of his Government, for his
successor, Anders Thunborg. He did not present a formal note
making the request, but simply left the curriculum vitae of
Mr. Thunborg. Orally, he described Thunborg as eminently
qualified.
Count Wachtmeister explained that the Swedish Foreign
Ministry had bowed to pressure from the Swedish media to
announce his successor. In response to Wachtmeister's question
about the length of time required to process the agrement, I
answered that it usually takes about 10 days - which he found
entirely acceptable. As to his own assignment to Washington,
Wachtmeister informed that he would complete his tour on May
31, 1989.
Attachment: Curriculum Vitae of
Anders Thunborg
CONFIDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL
0784
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506
February 14, 1989
ACTION
MEMORANDUM FOR G. PHILIP HUGHES
THROUGH:
fot LINTON BROOKS/ROBERT D BLACKWILL
DON Dam MAHLEY/PHILIP ZELIKOW
P2
FROM:
SUBJECT:
SNF Paper
Attached at TAB I is a proposed memorandum to your counterpart at
both Defense and State formally tasking a paper, the outline of
which was discussed at a meeting on February 13. State has
agreed to take the lead in putting the paper together, and both
agencies have agreed to the drafting deadline of Thursday. Once
the paper is drafted, it will be circulated interagency and
discussed at an Arms Control PCC Working Group (chaired by Don
Mahley) next Tuesday.
RECOMMENDATION
That you approve and sign the memorandum at TAB I.
Approve
Disapprove
Attachment
TAB I
Proposed memorandum to agencies
DECLASSIFIED
PER E.O. 13526
CONFIDENTIAL
2012-1557-MR
Declassify on: OADR
CONFIDENTIAL
11/8/2013 MM
Withdrawal/Redaction Sheet
(George Bush Library)
Document No.
Subject/Title of Document
Date
Restriction
Class.
and Type
03b. Memo
G. Philip Hughes to Melvyn Levitsky/Col. George P. Cole, Jr.
n.d.
(b)(1)
C
RE: Paper on SNF Language (1 pp.)
Collection:
Record Group:
Bush Presidential Records
Office:
National Security Council
Series:
Blackwill, Robert D., Files
Subseries:
Chronological Files
WHORM Cat.:
File Location:
January-February 1989 [3]
Date Closed:
5/3/2011
OA/ID Number:
30540
FOIA/SYS Case #:
2011-0298-F
Appeal Case #:
Re-review Case #:
Appeal Disposition:
P-2/P-5 Review Case #:
Disposition Date:
AR Case #:
MR Case #:
AR Disposition:
MR Disposition:
AR Disposition Date:
MR Disposition Date:
RESTRICTION CODES
Presidential Records Act - [44 U.S.C. 2204(a)]
Freedom of Information Act - [5 U.S.C. 552(b)]
P-1 National Security Classified Information [(a)(1) of the PRA]
(b)(1) National security classified information [(b)(1) of the FOIA]
P-2 Relating to the appointment to Federal office [(a)(2) of the PRA]
(b)(2) Release would disclose internal personnel rules and practices of an
P-3 Release would violate a Federal statute [(a)(3) of the PRA]
agency [(b)(2) of the FOIA]
P-4 Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
(b)(3) Release would violate a Federal statute [(b)(3) of the FOIA]
financial information [(a)(4) of the PRA]
(b)(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
P-5 Release would disclose confidential advice between the President
information [(b)(4) of the FOIA]
and his advisors, or between such advisors [a)(5) of the PRA]
(b)(6) Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
P-6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy [(b)(6) of the FOIA]
personal privacy [(a)(6) of the PRA]
(b)(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes [(b)(7) of the FOIA]
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed of
(b)(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
gift.
financial institutions [(b)(8) of the FOIA]
(b)(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
PRM. Removed as a personal record misfile.
CONFIDENTIAL
CONF IDENTIAL
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
0762
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506
February 13, 1989
ACTION
MEMORANDUM FOR G. PHILIP HUGHES
FROM:
PHILIP D. ZELIKOW PL
SUBJECT:
MEMCON of the President's Telephone Call with
Prime Minister John Swan of Bermuda, February 11,
9:45 a.m.-9:50 a.m, Kennebunkport, Maine
Attached at Tab A for your review is subject MEMCON.
Bob Blackwill PA concurs.
RECOMMENDATION
That the attached MEMCON be filed for record purposes.
Attachment
Tab A
MEMCON
DECLASSIFIED
White House Guidelines
E.O. 13526, SEC 3.4 (b), September 11, 2006
By 55 NARA, Date 9/3/25
CONFIDENTIAL
Declassify on: OADR
CONFIDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL
THE WHITE HOUSE
0762
WASHINGTON
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION
SUBJECT:
President's Phone Call to Prime Minister
John Swan of Bermuda
PARTICIPANTS:
The President
Philip D. Zelikow, NSC (Notetaker)
Prime Minister John Swan
DATE, TIME
February 11, 1989, 9:45 a.m. - 9:50 a.m.
AND PLACE:
Call placed from Kennebunkport, Maine
The President offered the Prime Minister belated congratulations
on his electoral win.
Prime Minister Swan thanked the President.
The President asked what the numbers had been.
The Prime Minister said that the opposition (Progressive Labor
Party) won 15 seats, 1 seat went to an Independent, 1 to the NLP
(National Liberal Party) and we (United Bermuda Party) won 23.
The President noted that the outcome had not been in doubt, but
it was always nice to have it in the bank. The President asked
how Colin was doing?
The Prime Minister said he was great.
The President said that Marlin sent his best and asked about the
weather, commenting that it was freezing where he was.
The Prime Minister said the weather was wonderful.
The President asked the Prime Minister not to tell him any more
the guest bedroom."
about it. "We're coming," he added, "turn down the blanket in
any time.
The Prime Minister said he would be glad to welcome the President
Closing the conversation, the President said he did hope to come
Minister's victory.
at some point, and he reiterated his congratulations on the Prime
DECLASSIFIED
CONFIDENTIAL
Declassify on: OADR
PER E.O. 12958,
AS AMENDED
2000-0429-F
CONFIDENTIAL
8/21/09 Ko
0275
RiCE
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
February 28, 1989
Dear Arnold:
Thank you for sending your recently
concluded report, "Managing U.S.-
Soviet Relations in the 1990s." As
you know, we are undertaking a major
review of our policies toward the
Soviet Union and the report is thus
very timely. I have made it available
to the members of the National
Security Council staff who will be
participating in the review. All the
best to you and to Abe Becker.
Sincerely, my best
Breat
Brent Scowcroft
Mr. Arnold L. Horelick
RAND/UCLA Center
1700 Main Street P.O. Box 2138
Santa Monica, California 90406-2138
SUMMARY
This report considers the effects of the process of change initiated
by Gorbachev on the Soviet Union's probable future internal develop-
ment and external behavior, and the appropriate U.S. strategy toward
the USSR under these conditions.
The Soviet Union has been perceived as a major security threat to
the West largely because of its formidable military capabilities and
aggressive external behavior; the threat appeared magnified by the
apparent connection of Soviet power and external behavior to the cen-
tral features of the Soviet system-communist ideology, totalitarian/
authoritarian social-political structure, and centralized, military-
favoring economic organization. Western views have varied on the
relative weight of the internal or external factors and therefore on the
advisability of directing Western policy to one or the other ends of this
nexus. With the advent of Gorbachev, Soviet domestic and foreign
policy change seem to be coming together, and many people in the
West now believe that the Soviet system is at last being transformed.
How much has the Soviet Union changed in fact?
Gorbachev came into office in 1985 with an apprehensive view of the
Soviet economy and society as well as of its internal and external pol-
icy; he spoke of the country being in "pre-crisis." Over the next few
years in a now familiar litany, he built up a scathing indictment of his
predecessors' misrule and of the USSR's "administrative command"
system generally. He charged them with bringing on economic stagna-
tion, assorted social pathologies, and ethnic conflict at home and costly
setbacks and isolation abroad.
Gorbachev has undertaken to resolve this multi-layered "pre-crisis"
with a far-ranging program of change that has both domestic and
external components. The hallmarks of domestic Gorbachevism are
demokratizatsiia, glasnost, and perestroika. Among the three, "democra-
tization" has so far produced the least change in Soviet society,
glasnost the most. In a remarkably short period, the constraints on
free expression in the Soviet Union have been substantially relaxed.
Perestroika, the process of social transformation, has had mixed
results. The principal content of "restructuring" is economic, which
has had two emphases-industrial modernization and economic reform.
The former was initially Gorbachev's main concern, but his gradual
recognition that the Soviet system itself stood in the way of achieving
that goal impelled him in the direction of more substantial reform.
Because the progress of economic reform has been largely stymied by
vi
opposition, foot-dragging, and inertia, Gorbachev is now pursuing a set
of political changes that would weaken or eliminate anti-reform forces,
break the hold of the ministerial bureaucracy on economic progress,
and curb the Party's micromanagement of economic activity without
sacrificing its strategic control of the economy or its monopoly of polit-
ical power. However, bloody disturbances in Armenia and Azerbaid-
zhan and agitation for economic and political autonomy in the Baltic
republics have shown that the relaxation of social controls deemed
desirable for perestroika is having unintended consequences that could
threaten the entire Gorbachev program.
Gorbachev's foreign and security policy changes, said to be the prod-
uct of "New Thinking," have included concessions to Western arms
control positions, steps to terminate Soviet and client military inter-
ventions in several Third World countries, conciliatory declaratory
overtures to the West, and generally restrained international behavior
thus far during his tenure. But the most radical assertions about
Soviet readiness to alter established behaviors and security
structures-e.g., by restructuring Soviet military forces to render them
incapable of large-scale offensive operations-remain to be tested.
Many of these promised changes have been deferred to the future, and
others have been made contingent on mutual agreement with the West.
The ferment in Soviet policy has evoked a wide spectrum of reaction
in the West, ranging from considerable skepticism on the reality and
durability of the apparent changes to jubilant acceptance of the
changes as evidence of the imminent transformation of the Soviet
Union into a democratic state with "normal," peaceful foreign rela-
tions. Underlying these contrasting views on the meaning of Soviet
developments are multiple uncertainties and divergent assumptions
about key variables. The major uncertainties include Gorbachev's ulti-
mate goals, his role in the changing Soviet picture, and his political
survival; the character of his foreign and security program; the actual
results of domestic and foreign programs; the current goals and relative
strengths of various leadership factions; the likelihood of developments
(such as major changes in the regime's ability to control national
minority agitation) that could substantially affect the political balance;
or the effect of momentum and expectations in preventing retrogres-
sion and maintaining the course of reform.
These uncertainties point to alternative possible near to mid-term
Soviet futures, discussed here in terms of the connection between inter-
nal system change and Soviet external behavior. We consider three
alternative states of domestic reform:
1. Limited reform. Three subcases of effects on system perfor-
mance and external behavior are examined:
vii
a. Improved economic performance makes more resources
available for external purposes without changing the present
system of essentially authoritarian-oligarchical political
decisionmaking, thus leading to increased external competi-
tiveness. This scenario is judged unlikely on both political
and economic grounds.
b. Poor economic performance drives an authoritarian regime
to external diversions. This strategy seems risky given the
inadequate resource base and the likelihood of Western
resistance.
C. Poor economic performance under conditions of growing
internal social-political tensions leads to lowered external
involvement. This subcase seems less unlikely than the oth-
ers, but perhaps transitory, because internal forces would
tend to push the Soviet Union onto one or the other of the
remaining alternative paths of change.
2. Retreat and reaction resulting from economic stagnation or
internal political-social crises might mean a return to cold war
with the West and revived Soviet foreign and military policy
assertiveness, but Soviet ability to implement a militant external
strategy would presumably continue to be resource-constrained.
3. Radicalization of reform leading to accelerated growth and
political pluralism might result in a Soviet foreign policy of
accommodation with the West. The combination need not mean
abandonment of great power ambitions, and it would probably
mean enhanced economic wherewithal to pursue such ambitions.
Other combinations of domestic change and external policy conse-
quences can be imagined, including a prolongation of the present situa-
tion; but the tensions of the present-unresolved economic, political,
and social problems-are likely to threaten the stability of such other
scenarios too.
The most important conclusion we draw from this assessment of
alternative Soviet futures is that there are grounds for hope for sub-
stantial improvement in East-West relations, but the uncertainties
besetting this prospect are large enough to warrant reservation and
even some skepticism about its likelihood. Perception of economic,
technological, and social weakness has been driving the Politburo to
domestic and foreign policy change. The initiatives for change could
take on a dynamic that may escape central control, leading possibly to
internal system and external policy transformation. However, success
in meeting the challenges of national weakness could induce the leader-
ship to halt or reverse much of the progress toward a. more benign
viii
USSR. That systemic reforms lead to benign attitudinal changes is in
part a statement of faith that can be tested only over a. period of time
that may amount to decades.
We identify four principal alternative Western strategies for dealing
with the USSR at this juncture:
1. Perestroika is irrelevant or dangerous: Impede Soviet
modernization. Proponents of this course maintain that there
has been and will be no substantive change in Politburo goals or
in its efforts to maintain and expand the Soviet empire. The
West should therefore attempt to impede Soviet modernization,
which would be used to enhance Soviet strategic capabilities, by
denying all economic assistance and straining Moscow's capabil-
ities to match the West's military modernization.
We reject this strategy as counterproductive, making for a more bel-
ligerent, less cooperative USSR and precluding any possibility of favor-
able outcomes for East-West relations that might result from unob-
structed Soviet reform. Our allies would unequivocally reject this
strategy, and it would be highly controversial in the United States as
well.
2. Perestroika is benign: Help Gorbachev. Supporters of this
strategy are confident that Gorbachev's world outlook is accom-
modationist and that perestroika, if unobstructed, is likely to
lead to internal democratization, thence to the Soviet Union's
behaving like a "normal" state. The political survival of Gor-
bachev and his program are vital to the West, but these are
threatened by internal opposition. Therefore, helping Gor-
bachev should essentially drive Western policy toward the Soviet
Union.
We reject this strategy too: (a) It would put too many Western eggs
too soon in one basket of uncertain structure and durability; (b) there
is no theory of Soviet politics that would permit reliable judgments
about how to effect a particular direction of internal political and
economic development; (c) to concentrate on advancing Gorbachev's
fortunes could prevent us from identifying and pursuing our own
interests, which might be opposed to his.
3. Soviet future uncertain, West's role negligible: Wait and
see. In view of the multiple uncertainties and the demonstrated
impotence of the West in affecting Soviet developments, the
ix
only rational policy is to sit on the sidelines, waiting until the
dust settles.
We reject this course as well. There are costs to waiting out the
game-opportunities for further Western gains as Soviet policy
develops and tactical advantages the Soviet Union would derive from
U.S. obstruction or indifference to Soviet initiatives, because America's
allies are unlikely to be persuaded to follow a do-nothing course.
4. Uncertainties, true, but Western engagement is inevitable
and desirable. The Soviet future is uncertain, and we can
have little confidence in our ability to shape the Soviet course.
Unwarranted optimism or pessimism about Soviet developments
would both be dangerous for Western interests; agnosticism that
translates into passivity and inaction could lead to our missing
transitory opportunities for breakthroughs. The U.S. policy
problem is not only how to remain open to possibilities for
major improvements in U.S.-Soviet relations but also how to
limit the costs of adverse developments. We believe that a stra-
tegy of step-by-step engagement is the most appropriate instru-
ment for achieving those goals.
Of course, the United States "engaged" the Soviet Union before, and
did so on a broad front during the years of detente. But now there are
unusually favorable international conditions for pursuing long-standing
Western interests on the traditional U.S. Soviet agenda-controlling
and, if possible, reducing the risks and costs of the competition.
Unlike the situation in the detente period, global trends have been run-
ning against the Soviets in the 1980s, and they know it. Whatever
Gorbachev's long-term foreign policy plans or intentions may be, the
current circumstances of the Soviet Union constrain the Soviet leader-
ship in ways that make it less inclined, at least for the time being, to
fish in troubled waters abroad, and more open to agreements and
arrangements to ease competitive pressures.
Where long-standing Western interests in managing East-West rela-
tions more safely, reliably, and at lower cost intersect with current
Soviet interests in providing a congenial international environment for
perestroika, the case for engagement is compelling and unambiguous.
But deep structural and institutional change in the Soviet Union and a
major reorientation of Soviet foreign policy raise the possibility of our
engaging the Soviet Union on a new agenda that might shift the bal-
ance in East-West relations from competition toward cooperation.
A substantially demilitarized and increasingly cooperative relation-
ship such as Gorbachev expounded at the UN in December 1988 would
signify a paradigm shift in East-West relations. Because movement
toward such a shift would entail perhaps irreversible changes in
Western security structures and strategies on which we have for SO
long successfully relied, the case for engaging the Soviets on this new
agenda is much more complex. So long as a visibly reforming Soviet
Union continues to put forward cooperative options, backed by mean-
ingful concessions and a general policy of self-restraint, the United
States should begin to explore the new and wider horizons in East-
West relations. This will require a broader conceptual dialogue with
the Soviets and a parallel one among the Western allies.
In exploring these new horizons with the Soviets, however, we
should proceed carefully and step by step.
Radical uncertainties about the outcome of Soviet reform will
be resolved only gradually, and we can't know how they will be
resolved.
Anticipatory responses to Soviet changes merely promised could
trigger a process of structural weakening of the Western secu-
rity system that might easily outpace actual change on the
Eastern side.
Progress is bound to be uneven. Gorbachev remains a highly
competitive adversary who will seek offsetting compensations
for any concessions he offers.
A Western. and especially a U.S., domestic consensus that is
sufficiently broad and enduring will need time and confidence-
building experience with the USSR to mature.
To prepare for this kind of broad strategic dialogue with the Soviets,
U.S. policymakers need to begin thinking through and articulating the
kinds of fundamental changes in the Soviet Union that the West would
need to see; what we might regard as persuasive evidence that such
changes were actually taking place; and what the West might be
prepared to offer in return.
Soviet policy changes such as have already occurred may be suffi-
cient for further incremental progress on the traditional agenda; but for
a more far-reaching reordering of East-West relations, the changes
required go to the heart of the Soviet political and economic system
and to its core relationship with Eastern Europe.
Changes in the domestic political and economic systems.
Democratic states, where leaders are accountable to their electorates
and are constitutionally constrained, are limited in the extent of
accommodation they can make with the leaders of an enormously
powerful state who can command the resources of their society for
potentially hostile purposes with no effective constitutional or systemic
constraints; with leaders who can change policy course quickly and
without warning, and who are under no domestic obligation to debate
alternative courses of action. This is why the domestic evolution of the
Soviet political-economic system is a vital foreign policy matter for the
United States and why we would have to see evidence in the actual
workings of the political-economic process of institutionalized domestic
political constraints on the external behavior of Soviet leaders.
The Soviet military priority. The most substantial change that
would be required in the military sphere would presuppose radical
reform of the Soviet economic and political systems. To be credible
and reliable, greater transparency and consistency of Soviet force size,
posture, and deployment with stated Soviet policy and doctrine should
not occur merely as a concession to the West for foreign policy pur-
poses, but as an integral domestic political function of an accountable
Soviet leadership.
Self-determination of Eastern Europe. The corollary of change
required in the Soviet domestic political system is the evolution of the
socialist states of Eastern Europe toward greater self-determination.
Western willingness to move toward substantially less reliance on
nuclear weapons and stationed forces would depend not only on Soviet
force reductions and restructuring but also on fundamental changes in
the nature of the USSR's relations with its Warsaw Pact allies, such
that their territories and resources would no longer be so readily at the
disposal of the Soviet Union.
What could the West offer in return for such far-reaching Soviet
changes? Initially, the United States could offer assurance that Wash-
ington prefers to deal with the Soviet Union rather than to squeeze it
during a period of adversity and difficult domestic change. Moscow
would take seriously this kind of assurance from a new administration
because of Kremlin concern that some quarters in the West perceive
Gorbachev's concessions as signs of weakness calling not for reciproca-
tion but still more pressure.
If and as changes in the Soviet Union deepen and become less
readily reversible than they are now, the Soviets could hope for accom-
modating Western responses across a wide range of issues of long-
standing concern to them:
Reducing the pace and scope of Western military competitive
efforts, especially in the high technology areas of Western
advantage (linked to progress in eliminating Soviet offensive
advantages).
Western agreement to consider further nuclear reductions,
which the Soviets seek (as the conventional balance is made
xii
more acceptable and as Eastern Europe achieves more auto-
nomy).
Wider acceptance of the Soviet Union as a full-fledged partici-
pant in the world community, and
Progressive liberalization of Western political restrictions on
trade, acceptance into international economic organizations,
such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Gen-
eral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and, ultimately,
even Western economic development assistance (in parallel
with transformation of the Soviet system and its foreign pol-
icy).
We have suggested that the new, broad conceptual dialogue with
Moscow should proceed in parallel with the ongoing discussion and
negotiation of issues on the current U.S.-Soviet agenda. The latter dis-
cussion could provide a bridge to the dialogue appropriate for exploring
the new limits of the possible that may be emerging in relations with
the USSR. The following discussion suggests directions of progress on
the four sets of issues making up the current agenda-arms control,
regional issues, bilaterals, and human rights-as well as a fifth, East
European instability, likely to be important in the near term.
In arms control, there is chiefly the unfinished business of START
and the launching of the Conventional Stability Talks (CST) negotia-
tions.
A START-like agreement is important on several counts: It would
keep the existing arms control regime, whose legal basis is now
in disarray, from unravelling;
improve prospects for further reducing first-strike instabilities,
thus helping to stabilize a strategic balance that both sides
seem to believe is already quite robust;
strengthen the viability of the strategy of nuclear deterrence by
bolstering public confidence in Western leaders' ability to
manage nuclear deterrence prudently;
prevent damage to alliance and domestic U.S. consensus that
would result from perceived U.S. responsibility for a breakdown
of START negotiations;
make it easier for NATO to hold the line against further
nuclear cuts until the conventional balance is more stable.
The preferred NATO strategy for CST negotiations has been to seek
reductions in Pact, especially Soviet, tank and artillery holdings down
to levels just slightly below NATO's, thus obviating the need to make
more than token reductions on the NATO side and avoiding the issue
xiii
of substantial reductions in stationed U.S. forces. Gorbachev's unilat-
eral cuts announcement has complicated the West's approach. This
makes all the more urgent a high-level NATO dialogue on how to
define Western interests in the new circumstances. It is true that a
new Western security review-in effect, revisiting the Harmel
Doctrine-would risk divisive debate; but without confronting these
fundamental issues it will be very hard for the alliance to make politi-
cally viable and strategically sensible responses to Soviet proposals.
This would leave the initiative in Soviet hands and, in the end, pro-
bably invite just the kind of alliance dissension that avoiding the issue
tries to duck.
Because instability in Eastern Europe poses what is probably the
greatest single threat of a major discontinuity in international politics,
the status of that region is almost certain to become an increasingly
prominent issue in the East-West dialogue. The paradox of persisting
East European instability in the face of Soviet reforms whose spread
might add fuel to the fire sharpens the dilemmas of Western policy for
Eastern Europe: how to promote self-determination for these coun-
tries, removing the security threat posed by the USSR's massive mili-
tary presence there, while avoiding triggering a Soviet military inter-
vention that would disrupt ongoing Soviet as well as regional reforms,
divide the Western alliance on how to respond, and threaten the peace
of Europe.
The new circumstances call for at least some changed emphasis in
traditional Western policies. We should tie prospects of far-reaching
change in European security arrangements more closely to Soviet
acceptance of greater autonomy for East European states. In the
upcoming negotiations on CST and Confidence and Security Building
Measures (CSBM), we should try to devise explicit, contractual inhibi-
tions against the cross-border movement of Soviet forces in any East
Europe contingency, such as Budapest 1956 or Prague 1968. And on
the incentive side, particularly in any East European crisis in which
Moscow did not intervene, we should be prepared to reciprocate Soviet
acceptance of greater East European autonomy by being more forth-
coming on such issues of Soviet concern as trade with the West.
In the past few years, there has been accumulating evidence of over-
lapping U.S. and Soviet interests in making political arrangements in
several regional conflicts to facilitate the military disengagement of the
Soviet Union or its clients (Afghanistan, Angola, and Cambodia). The
United States should continue to exploit opportunities to cooperate
with the Soviets in facilitating regional settlements that are consistent
with U.S. interests. This may entail continued U.S. support for insur-
gencies against pro-Soviet regimes employing communist military
XIV
forces from the outside to keep them in power, which has helped bring
the Soviets to make more sober cost-benefit calculations in the Third.
World.
A strategy of step-by-step engagement would call for extending the
same political approach and diplomatic style for resolving issues on
which there has as yet been little if any progress: Central America
(establishing agreed limits on Soviet military aid); Middle East (testing
Soviet readiness to move its clients toward settlement of the Arab-
Israeli conflict); Persian Gulf (arms export limitations and noninter-
ference in post-Khomeini Iran); Korean peninsula and other future hot
spots.
Bilateral relations. In economic policy, the United States should
try to phase liberalization of trade (relaxing technology transfer con-
trols, repealing the Jackson-Vanik and Stevenson amendments.
reopening the Export-Import Bank credit window, admitting the USSR
to international economic organizations (IEOs)) with indications of
substantial change in the structure of East-West relations and in the
nature of Soviet society. But this does not mean trying to repeat pre-
viously failed efforts to design explicit quid pro quos (such as Most
Favored Nation treatment and U.S. government loans in exchange for
higher levels of Jewish emigration), because the values involved are not
coordinate and we can't fine-tune the economic quids very well, espe-
cially with our allies. In the 1970s the United States sought Soviet
performance that would be an exception to the generally repressive
practices then prevailing. Now Soviet domestic policy is moving
toward liberalization to an unprecedented degree, reinforcing the case
for a more generalized linkage of Western trade liberalization to con-
tinued positive change in the USSR.
It may now be appropriate for Washington to end U.S. denial of
Soviet access to U.S. government loans and guarantees. In this initial
phase, the United States should still seek to minimize the transfer of
militarily relevant dual-use technology. With our allies, we should
emphasize sustainable export controls, recognizing this probably means
reducing their number and frequently reviewing lists. With continued
positive Soviet change, the West might consider agreeing to greater
Soviet involvement in IEOs, under the condition that the Soviet Union
has to adapt to the practices and goals of the IEOs-a process we
should favor—rather than the other way around-a contingency we
shouldn't fear all that much in any case because Soviet economic lever-
age is so limited.
Placing human rights on the agreed official agenda is an important
innovation of the new phase in U.S.-Soviet relations, because it pro-
vides a legitimized vehicle for direct U.S. access to the evolving Soviet
domestic scene, which will be very useful in monitoring and assessing
XV
Soviet change. If Soviet human rights performance continues to
improve, it will be as part of a sustained process of internally driven
societal change. The West exerts enormous influence primarily by our
very existence and the force of our example. We can perhaps nudge
the pace of such change by holding the Soviet leaders up to the highest
standards of their new-found commitment to human rights. We should
welcome evidence they are living up to those standards, condemn
departures from them, and highlight remaining obstacles.
Human rights issues play a less immediate role in the imperative
security aspect of our relations than in optional aspects, such as trade.
But in the long run, the condition of human rights in the Soviet Union
will determine the upper limits on progress toward a more cooperative
East-West relationship generally, including security relations. Con-
sideration of fundamental alterations in the existing international secu-
rity system will be warranted only in the advanced stages of gradual
systemic change in the Soviet Union itself, in which the overall condi-
tion of human rights will be the most sensitive indicator.
0275
/. stoff to
THE
RAND
CORPORATION
have
JAN 30 1989
January 23, 1989
Lt. General Brent Scowcroft
Assistant to the President
for National Security Affairs
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Brent:
My RAND colleague, Abe Becker, and I have just completed a report of
"Managing U.S.-Soviet Relations in the 1990s." In view of the major
policy review which the new administration is undertaking, Abe and I
thought you might find this paper of interest and I am enclosing a
pre-publication copy for your perusal.
Abe and I would be happy to discuss the paper with you or your
colleagues. if you believe that would be helpful.
With best wishes for success in your new position,
Warm Cerviced regards,
Arnold L. Horelick
Director, RAND/UCLA Center for the Study
of Soviet International Behavior
ALH:jr
Encl.
CC: Abraham Becker
213.393.0411
1700 Main Street, PO Box 2138
Santa Monica, CA 90406-2138
Prepublication copy
R-3747-RC
Managing U.S. -Soviet
Relations in the 1990s
Abraham S. Becker, Arnold L. Horelick
Prepublication copy
THE
RAND
CORPORATION
1700 Main Street, PO Box 2138
Santa Monica, CA 90406-2138
PREFACE
A surprising feature of the 1988 presidential election campaign was
the absence of any debate on U.S.-Soviet relations. Perhaps this may
be explained by the shift in American policy in recent years, evoked by
and paralleling the unfolding of new policies in the Soviet Union. The
American Center and Left seem to have been largely disarmed by the
policy changes in the second Reagan administration; much of the Right
seems disoriented by developments in the USSR, uneasy with the
Reagan administration's rapprochement to Moscow, but unable yet to
formulate a viable alternative course.
In the meantime, the Soviet Union continues to surprise the world
(and its own citizens as well) by changes in policies, expressed views,
and, to some extent, even institutions. The reinvigoration of Kremlin
policy with Gorbachev's arrival on the Soviet scene challenges the
West to rethink its own attitudes and policies. Unfortunately, the
West has responded to Soviet initiatives in ad hoc fashion, without
reexamining either its objectives or its strategy. The result has been
some confusion and disarray. The new American administration just
coming into office has the opportunity and the obligation to review the
U.S. perspective and to help develop an alliance-wide dialogue that
should lead to a reformulation of Western strategy for dealing with the
Soviet Union in the last decade of this century. This study, prepared
under RAND Corporation sponsorship, is presented as a contribution
to the U.S. national discussion of these tasks.
iii
SUMMARY
This report considers the effects of the process of change initiated
by Gorbachev on the Soviet Union's probable future internal develop-
ment and external behavior, and the appropriate U.S. strategy toward
the USSR under these conditions.
The Soviet Union has been perceived as a major security threat to
the West largely because of its formidable military capabilities and
aggressive external behavior; the threat appeared magnified by the
apparent connection of Soviet power and external behavior to the cen-
tral features of the Soviet system-communist ideology, totalitarian/
authoritarian social-political structure, and centralized, military-
favoring economic organization. Western views have varied on the
relative weight of the internal or external factors and therefore on the
advisability of directing Western policy to one or the other ends of this
nexus. With the advent of Gorbachev, Soviet domestic and foreign
policy change seem to be coming together, and many people in the
West now believe that the Soviet system is at last being transformed.
How much has the Soviet Union changed in fact?
Gorbachev came into office in 1985 with an apprehensive view of the
Soviet economy and society as well as of its internal and external pol-
icy; he spoke of the country being in "pre-crisis." Over the next few
years in a now familiar litany, he built up a scathing indictment of his
predecessors' misrule and of the USSR's "administrative command"
system generally. He charged them with bringing on economic stagna-
tion, assorted social pathologies, and ethnic conflict at home and costly
setbacks and isolation abroad.
Gorbachev has undertaken to resolve this multi-layered "pre-crisis"
with a far-ranging program of change that has both domestic and
external components. The hallmarks of domestic Gorbachevism are
demokratizatsiia, glasnost, and perestroika. Among the three, "democra-
tization" has so far produced the least change in Soviet society,
glasnost the most. In a remarkably short period, the constraints on
free expression in the Soviet Union have been substantially relaxed.
Perestroika, the process of social transformation, has had mixed
results. The principal content of "restructuring" is economic, which
has had two emphases-industrial modernization and economic reform.
The former was initially Gorbachev's main concern, but his gradual
recognition that the Soviet system itself stood in the way of achieving
that goal impelled him in the direction of more substantial reform.
Because the progress of economic reform has been largely stymied by
V
vii
a. Improved economic performance makes more resources
available for external purposes without changing the present
system of essentially authoritarian-oligarchical political
decisionmaking, thus leading to increased external competi-
tiveness. This scenario is judged unlikely on both political
and economic grounds.
b. Poor economic performance drives an authoritarian regime
to external diversions. This strategy seems risky given the
inadequate resource base and the likelihood of Western
resistance.
C. Poor economic performance under conditions of growing
internal social-political tensions leads to lowered external
involvement. This subcase seems less unlikely than the oth-
ers, but perhaps transitory, because internal forces would
tend to push the Soviet Union onto one or the other of the
remaining alternative paths of change.
2. Retreat and reaction resulting from economic stagnation or
internal political-social crises might mean a return to cold war
with the West and revived Soviet foreign and military policy
assertiveness, but Soviet ability to implement a militant external
strategy would presumably continue to be resource-constrained.
3. Radicalization of reform leading to accelerated growth and
political pluralism might result in a Soviet foreign policy of
accommodation with the West. The combination need not mean
abandonment of great power ambitions, and it would probably
mean enhanced economic wherewithal to pursue such ambitions.
Other combinations of domestic change and external policy conse-
quences can be imagined, including a prolongation of the present situa-
tion; but the tensions of the present-unresolved economic, political,
and social problems-are likely to threaten the stability of such other
scenarios too.
The most important conclusion we draw from this assessment of
alternative Soviet futures is that there are grounds for hope for sub-
stantial improvement in East-West relations, but the uncertainties
besetting this prospect are large enough to warrant reservation and
even some skepticism about its likelihood. Perception of economic,
technological, and social weakness has been driving the Politburo to
domestic and foreign policy change. The initiatives for change could
take on a dynamic that may escape central control, leading possibly to
internal system and external policy transformation. However, success
in meeting the challenges of national weakness could induce the leader-
ship to halt or reverse much of the progress toward a more benign
ix
only rational policy is to sit on the sidelines, waiting until the
dust settles.
We reject this course as well. There are costs to waiting out the
game-opportunities for further Western gains as Soviet policy
develops and tactical advantages the Soviet Union would derive from
U.S. obstruction or indifference to Soviet initiatives, because America's
allies are unlikely to be persuaded to follow a do-nothing course.
4. Uncertainties, true, but Western engagement is inevitable
and desirable. The Soviet future is uncertain, and we can
have little confidence in our ability to shape the Soviet course.
Unwarranted optimism or pessimism about Soviet developments
would both be dangerous for Western interests; agnosticism that
translates into passivity and inaction could lead to our missing
transitory opportunities for breakthroughs. The U.S. policy
problem is not only how to remain open to possibilities for
major improvements in U.S.-Soviet relations but also how to
limit the costs of adverse developments. We believe that a stra-
tegy of step-by-step. engagement is the most appropriate instru-
ment for achieving those goals.
Of course, the United States "engaged" the Soviet Union before, and
did SO on a broad front during the years of detente. But now there are
unusually favorable international conditions for pursuing long-standing
Western interests on the traditional U.S.-Soviet agenda-controlling
and, if possible, reducing the risks and costs of the competition.
Unlike the situation in the detente period, global trends have been run-
ning against the Soviets in the 1980s, and they know it. Whatever
Gorbachev's long-term foreign policy plans or intentions may be, the
current circumstances of the Soviet Union constrain the Soviet leader-
ship in ways that make it less inclined, at least for the time being, to
fish in troubled waters abroad, and more open to agreements and
arrangements to ease competitive pressures.
Where long-standing Western interests in managing East-West rela-
tions more safely, reliably, and at lower cost intersect with current
Soviet interests in providing a congenial international environment for
perestroika, the case for engagement is compelling and unambiguous.
But deep structural and institutional change in the Soviet Union and a
major reorientation of Soviet foreign policy raise the possibility of our
engaging the Soviet Union on a new agenda that might shift the bal-
ance in East-West relations from competition toward cooperation.
A substantially demilitarized and increasingly cooperative relation-
ship such as Gorbachev expounded at the UN in December 1988 would
xi
potentially hostile purposes with no effective constitutional or systemic
constraints; with leaders who can change policy course quickly and
without warning, and who are under no domestic obligation to debate
alternative courses of action. This is why the domestic evolution of the
Soviet political-economic system is a vital foreign policy matter for the
United States and why we would have to see evidence in the actual
workings of the political-economic process of institutionalized domestic
political constraints on the external behavior of Soviet leaders.
The Soviet military priority. The most substantial change that
would be required in the military sphere would presuppose radical
reform of the Soviet economic and political systems. To be credible
and reliable, greater transparency and consistency of Soviet force size,
posture, and deployment with stated Soviet policy and doctrine should
not occur merely as a concession to the West for foreign policy pur-
poses, but as an integral domestic political function of an accountable
Soviet leadership.
Self-determination of Eastern Europe. The corollary of change
required in the Soviet domestic political system is the evolution of the
socialist states of Eastern Europe toward greater self-determination.
Western willingness to move toward substantially less reliance on
nuclear weapons and stationed forces would depend not only on Soviet
force reductions and restructuring but also on fundamental changes in
the nature of the USSR's relations with its Warsaw Pact allies, such
that their territories and resources would no longer be so readily at the
disposal of the Soviet Union.
What could the West offer in return for such far-reaching Soviet
changes? Initially, the United States could offer assurance that Wash-
ington prefers to deal with the Soviet Union rather than to squeeze it
during a period of adversity and difficult domestic change. Moscow
would take seriously this kind of assurance from a new administration
because of Kremlin concern that some quarters in the West perceive
Gorbachev's concessions as signs of weakness calling not for reciproca-
tion but still more pressure.
If and as changes in the Soviet Union deepen and become less
readily reversible than they are now, the Soviets could hope for accom-
modating Western responses across a wide range of issues of long-
standing concern to them:
Reducing the pace and scope of Western military competitive
efforts, especially in the high technology areas of Western
advantage (linked to progress in eliminating Soviet offensive
advantages).
Western agreement to consider further nuclear reductions,
which the Soviets seek (as the conventional balance is made
xiii
of substantial reductions in stationed U.S. forces. Gorbachev's unilat-
eral cuts announcement has complicated the West's approach. This
makes all the more urgent a high-level NATO dialogue on how to
define Western interests in the new circumstances. It is true that a
new Western security review-in effect, revisiting the Harmel
Doctrine-would risk divisive debate; but without confronting these
fundamental issues it will be very hard for the alliance to make politi-
cally viable and strategically sensible responses to Soviet proposals.
This would leave the initiative in Soviet hands and, in the end, pro-
bably invite just the kind of alliance dissension that avoiding the issue
tries to duck.
Because instability in Eastern Europe poses what is probably the
greatest single threat of a major discontinuity in international politics,
the status of that region is almost certain to become an increasingly
prominent issue in the East-West dialogue. The paradox of persisting
East European instability in the face of Soviet reforms whose spread
might add fuel to the fire sharpens the dilemmas of Western policy for
Eastern Europe: how to promote self-determination for these coun-
tries, removing the security threat posed by the USSR's massive mili-
tary presence there, while avoiding triggering a Soviet military inter-
vention that would disrupt ongoing Soviet as well as regional reforms,
divide the Western alliance on how to respond, and threaten the peace
of Europe.
The new circumstances call for at least some changed emphasis in
traditional Western policies. We should tie prospects of far-reaching
change in European security arrangements more closely to Soviet
acceptance of greater autonomy for East European states. In the
upcoming negotiations on CST and Confidence and Security Building
Measures (CSBM), we should try to devise explicit, contractual inhibi-
tions against the cross-border movement of Soviet forces in any East
Europe contingency, such as Budapest 1956 or Prague 1968. And on
the incentive side, particularly in any East European crisis in which
Moscow did not intervene, we should be prepared to reciprocate Soviet
acceptance of greater East European autonomy by being more forth-
coming on such issues of Soviet concern as trade with the West.
In the past few years, there has been accumulating evidence of over-
lapping U.S. and Soviet interests in making political arrangements in
several regional conflicts to facilitate the military disengagement of the
Soviet Union or its clients (Afghanistan, Angola, and Cambodia). The
United States should continue to exploit opportunities to cooperate
with the Soviets in facilitating regional settlements that are consistent
with U.S. interests. This may entail continued U.S. support for insur-
gencies against pro-Soviet regimes employing communist military
XV
Soviet change. If Soviet human rights performance continues to
improve, it will be as part of a sustained process of internally driven
societal change. The West exerts enormous influence primarily by our
very existence and the force of our example. We can perhaps nudge
the pace of such change by holding the Soviet leaders up to the highest
standards of their new-found commitment to human rights. We should
welcome evidence they are living up to those standards, condemn
departures from them, and highlight remaining obstacles.
Human rights issues play a less immediate role in the imperative
security aspect of our relations than in optional aspects, such as trade.
But in the long run, the condition of human rights in the Soviet Union
will determine the upper limits on progress toward a more cooperative
East-West relationship generally, including security relations. Con-
sideration of fundamental alterations in the existing international secu-
rity system will be warranted only in the advanced stages of gradual
systemic change in the Soviet Union itself, in which the overall condi-
tion of human rights will be the most sensitive indicator.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are grateful to RAND colleagues Jeremy Azrael, Francis
Fukuyama, Harry Gelman, and Arnold Kanter, and to William Hyland,
editor of Foreign Affairs, for critical reviews of drafts of this report.
Other RAND colleagues-including, particularly, Stephen Drezner,
Nanette Gantz, Donald Rice, and James Thomson-made valuable
suggestions in connection with oral presentations of abbreviated ver-
sions of the report. Of course, the authors alone are responsible for the
material presented.
xvii
CONTENTS
PREFACE
iii
SUMMARY
V
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
xvii
Section
I. INTRODUCTION
1
Purpose of the Report
1
The Domestic Policy-Foreign Policy Nexus
2
A Strategy for U.S.-Soviet Relations in the New Phase
5
Outline
6
II. THE USSR YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW
7
The Brezhnev Legacy
7
The Gorbachev Program
9
Contrasting Western Views on Soviet Change
14
Alternative Soviet Futures
18
III.
IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S.-SOVIET RELATIONS
23
General Implications
23
Alternative Western Strategies
24
IV. A STRATEGY OF STEP-BY-STEP ENGAGEMENT
29
A New Dialogue with the USSR
29
Why Step by Step?
34
What Fundamental Soviet Changes Are Required?
36
What Can the West Offer in Return?
39
Building on the Old Agenda
41
Reprise
55
xix
I. INTRODUCTION
PURPOSE OF THE REPORT
U.S.-Soviet relations form a central issue of any administration's
agenda, if only because no power other than the USSR is capable of
destroying the United States. The issue assumes new and particular
importance now because the Soviet Union is engaged in a wide-ranging
program of internal change that General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev
describes as "revolutionary." At the same time, the Kremlin seems to
be rethinking its national security interests and strategy. What differ-
ence has the advent of Gorbachev made to the character and behavior
of the USSR? How has this affected U.S.-Soviet relations since he
took over? How might Soviet internal and external behavior develop
in the foreseeable future? How would that development affect the
nature of the Soviet threat? What should U.S. policy toward the
USSR be under these conditions? These questions, fundamental to
any consideration of U.S.-Soviet relations at the present, are the con-
cern of this report.
Discussions of these fateful issues are taking place across the United
States, and counterpart debates have been in process throughout the
Western world. In the past, the American public was often hard-
pressed to understand the issues because the participants in the debate,
whatever the quality of their contributions, and whether these were
analytical or policy-prescriptive, tended to talk past each other. They
often failed to come to grips with their different assumptions, percep-
tions, forecasts, and values. One of the purposes of the first half of
this report is to expose the logical and empirical underpinnings of con-
flicting analyses and divergent policy recommendations in this area.
We will try to distinguish what we believe we know about Soviet policy
and behavior from what we do not know and from what may be
unknowable. We will try to define differences among various currents
of thought and opinion, in terms of the structure of their argument and
in relation to our sense of the uncertainties about the present and
future of the USSR. In the second half, we will set out our personal
views of an appropriate U.S. strategy.
1
3
that Realpolitik considerations (a pragmatic politics of objective reali-
ties rather than ideology), especially those arising from the U.S.-Soviet
nuclear superpower relationship, had since the 1960s come increasingly
to dominate the Soviet foreign policy calculus. Long-term Soviet goals
might be "ambitious" and the rhetoric unsettling, but Soviet external
behavior could be modified in important ways by appropriate Western
policy. Acceptance of Realpolitik made the USSR amenable to a broad
range of cooperative arrangements with the West that could be mutu-
ally beneficial. This school, moreover, was skeptical of Western ability
to influence internal Soviet processes. Thus, the policy conclusion was
to try to influence Soviet external behavior by concentrating on the
international environment of Soviet decisionmaking, rather than
attempt to change the Soviet system. This viewpoint was generally
held by American political liberals but also by many moderates in both
parties.
The first view, focusing on the Soviet system, was consistent with
the mainline American conception of the conflict with the Soviet
Union as more than a contest of military power and over international
influence and presence, but as ultimately a struggle of values concern-
ing human rights and the good society. The second view, which con-
centrated on Soviet foreign behavior, reflected American hopes that it
would prove possible to live peacefully with the USSR, even though it
remained Soviet. The guiding strategic conception of U.S. policy since
World War II, the doctrine of containment, supposedly integrated
these contrasting outlooks by suggesting that sustained containment
pressures would ultimately mellow, dissolve, or transform the Soviet
system. However, whereas containment was a clear imperative for U.S.
and Western security, Soviet system change was only a probability
estimate, with varying likelihood values attached by different observers
at different times.
The uneasy and unstable coexistence of these views makes the West
prone to wide, sometimes wild, swings of national emotion in response
to particular events and changing circumstances. Summit meetings
featuring jovial and personal exchanges humanize the adversary and
reawaken Western inclinations to believe that, at bottom, they are
"just like us." A KAL 007 shootdown or Afghanistan invasion evokes
the charge that the Soviets are showing their "true nature" and brings
into the foreground a tendency to view the USSR as an immutable
enemy. In the optimistic environment of detente in the early and
mid-1970s, little importance was attached to whether the domestic
¹Many political liberals, however, emphasized improvement of human rights in their
approach to policy toward the Soviet Union.
5
A STRATEGY FOR U.S.-SOVIET RELATIONS
IN THE NEW PHASE
The old anchors of the Western policy debate on East-West rela-
tions seem to be floating away before our eyes. New possibilities
appear on the horizon that many Westerners believe (or hope) are
transforming the parameters of the West's debate. New linkages
between internal and external Soviet developments are unfolding.
Some Western leaders and analysts, who see Soviet external accommo-
dations as flowing almost inevitably from internal reform, identify
Gorbachev's success so closely with Western interests that they would
make "helping Gorbachev" and promoting Soviet reform objectives of
Western policy. Other Western observers fear that shadow is being
mistaken for substance and promise for reality already attained. They
see in successful Soviet economic reform only one certainty-that the
resource base at the disposal of Soviet leaders would become larger and
more sophisticated. Western interests, in this view, would be better
served by a policy of impeding rather than promoting Gorbachev's
modernizing reform.
How then should the United States conduct itself in this new phase
of Soviet-American relations? Our conclusions are developed at length
in this report. Briefly, they are as follows:
In the nearly four years of Gorbachev leadership, important changes
have indeed taken place in Soviet policy and behavior, foreign and
domestic. More significant than the alterations that have already
occurred is the potential for further change, in the nature of the East-
West relationship and in the character of the Soviet system itself, the
foundation of Soviet external behavior.
At the same time:
The West cannot be certain at present whether Gorbachev is
committed to a long-term process of accommodation with the
West or whether he is seeking a mid-term breather to
strengthen the domestic foundations of Soviet military might,
preparatory to more effective resumption of the competitive
struggle.
Powerful forces in Soviet society are resisting radical change in
various spheres. Partly for this reason, the pattern of change in
Soviet domestic and foreign policy is complex; "new thinking"
and "old thinking" coexist in Soviet behavior in varying mix.
II. THE USSR YESTERDAY, TODAY,
TOMORROW
THE BREZHNEV LEGACY
To appreciate where Gorbachev wishes to take the USSR, it is
necessary to understand his point of departure-an apprehensive view
of the state of the Soviet economy and society, of its internal and
external policy: He spoke of the country being in "pre-crisis." A sur-
vey of the domestic and foreign scenes in the early 1980s would indeed
have revealed a sobering array of problems. Domestically:
Economic growth, once robust and a basis for Kremlin boasts
about the superiority of the Soviet system, slowed in the 1960s,
but the retardation became precipitous in the late 1970s and
1980s. Near or actual stagnation also meant widening of the
technological gap with the West, continued inability to diversify
Soviet exports away from dependence on raw materials (partic-
ularly oil), and even deterioration of living standards. The
prospect of continued economic decline relative to the West
threatened not just the military power and international pres-
tige of the Soviet Union but also the stability of its internal
order.
The Soviet Union appeared a sick society as well as economi-
cally stagnant. Alcoholism was rampant and, as we are learn-
ing now, drug addiction and various categories of crime (on a
smaller scale) were also increasing. Public health conditions
were bad enough to be screened from public knowledge: The
sensitive indicators of deteriorating birth and death rates were
banned from publication until the mid-1980s. A shadow
economy, operating side by side with the official, engendered
widespread official corruption, undermining public respect for
authority and belief in the probity of the nation's leaders.
Indifference to politics and official ideology were pandemic.
Despite official assurances of harmony among the numerous
ethnic-national minorities of the USSR, nationalist resentment
boiled not far beneath the surface in a great arc from the Bal-
tics through the western and southern regions of the USSR to
Central Asia.
Possibilities of change-economic, social, or political-seemed
frozen under an ageing, sclerotic leadership whose chief goals
seemed to be stability and continuity.
7
9
the United States was more willing to actively support anti-
communist insurgencies. Moscow seemed incapable of crushing
these counterrevolutionary threats, or unwilling to undertake
the costs.
As clients weakened, Soviet prestige declined, and the West was
emboldened, the Kremlin felt increasingly isolated.
Gorbachev would undoubtedly demur on some of the characteriza-
tions used above, but the general tenor and most of the particulars of
what amounts to a damning indictment of the Brezhnev leadership and
the Soviet system in the early 1980s can be documented in his speeches
and writings, as well as in those of his colleagues and close supporters.
Certainly, most Western students of the Soviet Union would accept the
picture as accurate. Western analysts were indeed generally familiar
with the elements of this picture, although with few exceptions they
would not have used quite as gloomy colors in the early 1980s as is cus-
tomary now in both Soviet writings and Western assessments. Gor-
bachev himself claims he did not have a full appreciation of the extent
of the "pre-crisis" when he came into office (although he may have tac-
tical reasons to claim partial initial ignorance). In any case, his public
sense of the gravity of the national disorder visibly deepened with time.
THE GORBACHEV PROGRAM
The program of change Gorbachev has undertaken to resolve this
multi-layered "pre-crisis" has evolved over time, and it has distinctive
domestic and external components. At this point, the hallmarks of
domestic Gorbachevism are contained in the slogan troika of glasnost,
demokratizatsiia,and perestroika. It is a tribute to his showmanship
and the remarkable worldwide interest in recent Soviet affairs that
these Russian terms need no translation for educated Western audi-
ences. Among the three, "democratization" has produced the least
Soviet change in Soviet society. Until recently it was chiefly a means
to encourage greater worker participation in factory production
management and greater popular involvement in discussion of local,
regional, and national issues. The June 1988 Party Conference may
have set in train more important changes in the relation between the
Communist Party and the economy and government, as well as in elec-
toral procedures for Party and government bodies, but as Soviet
liberals have protested, many of the proposed changes seem far from
democratic.
The process of societal transformation is perestroika; so far it has
produced mixed results. The principal content of "restructuring" is
11
being discarded or destroyed. Even Lenin has been criticized, although
gingerly and rarely to be sure. Current Politburo members, with the
still conspicuous exception of Gorbachev, are no longer automatically
immune, although there is by no means an open season in the Soviet
press; and the military and the security forces are gradually coming
under the glare of public examination. The Soviet Union is far from a
free society, but in a remarkably short period the constraints on free
expression have been substantially weakened.
Glasnost continues to be the main lubricant of political change. It
has transformed the attitude of most of the intelligentsia to the regime,
making that group Gorbachev's most important ally in the struggle for
change. Glasnost helps enlarge the pool of bright ideas, thereby help-
ing Gorbachev escape the limitations of narrow circles of Party and
government specialists. By the harsh light it has cast on the errors
and crimes of the past, glasnost undermines perestroika opponents,
while the elimination of former taboos makes the idea of change
respectable. Thus, glasnost helps generate and maintain a momentum
for change.
Along with desired change, however, the regime has also encoun-
tered less palatable effects of reform and liberalization. The consider-
able easing of censorship of ideas and the loosening of social controls
has brought to the surface ethnic-national tensions, of which the
bloody disturbances in Armenia and Azerbaidzhan are only the most
visible sign. Agitation for economic and political autonomy in the Bal-
tic republics has been formalized in regional legislative resolutions and
has spilled over into massive street demonstrations. Still other nation-
alist problems, in other regions of the country, are waiting in the
wings. Conflict among nationality groups and between the central
authorities and the minorities could seriously affect the balance of pol-
itical forces in the Soviet Union, threatening the political survival of
Gorbachev personally and of his reform program. More generally,
glasnost, perestroika, and demokratizatsiia have escalated popular
demands on the state that are difficult or even impossible to meet, and
these demands are being articulated with increasing vociferousness.
Gorbachev's foreign and security policy is said to be the product of a
"New Thinking." Among the leading propositions of this new orienta-
tion are:
the interdependence of all parts of a highly interrelated world,
the dependence of superpower national security on interna-
tional mutual security,
the prevention of war as the guiding principle of military
preparations, and
13
There have been important shifts in Soviet arms control negotiating
positions, however: Soviet consent to remove the intermediate range
missiles deployed in Europe and Asia and to intrusive verification pro-
cedures made possible the signing of the INF treaty; Soviet acceptance
of the principle of deep cuts in strategic nuclear forces, particularly in
heavy ICBMs, where they have had a major advantage, has enabled
substantial progress toward a START agreement. Looking to a set of
negotiations that is still in preparation, Moscow has also agreed in
principle to asymmetric reductions of conventional forces. The
announced unilateral cut in Soviet forces in Eastern Europe, if it
appears to be implemented, is likely to accelerate the movement to
Conventional Stability Talks (CST). However, Soviet spokesmen,
apparently unwilling to accept a concept of net asymmetry, have
insisted on unbalanced cuts in elements of Western forces-for exam-
ple, "strike" aircraft-where, the Kremlin maintains, the West has the
advantage, to compensate for deeper Soviet cuts in tanks. Also, Mos-
COW continues to press for complete denuclearization of Western and
Central Europe, which would undermine American extended deterrence
and erode trans-Atlantic ties. Thus, the proposal raises doubts in
Western minds about ultimate Soviet intentions.
In Soviet external behavior, too, there are mixed signals, although
the changes in policy are important. The most prominent and
dramatic of these is the Politburo's decision to withdraw Soviet forces
from Afghanistan, a decision that few Western analysts or politicians
believed possible just a few short years ago. At this writing, there is
still some uncertainty whether the withdrawal will be completed on
time, or indeed at all. In the West it seems to be the general belief,
nevertheless, that Moscow has little choice but to complete the with-
drawal. In Angola, clearly, and in Cambodia, less certainly, Moscow is
supporting settlements that would include withdrawal of its clients'
forces (Cuban and Vietnamese). More generally, the Soviet leadership
appears to have recalculated the costs and benefits, political as well as
economic, of Brezhnev's Third World interventionism. In consequence
the priority of that arena in the Kremlin's perspective seems to have
been sharply reduced, especially with regard to the poorer and strategi-
cally marginal parts of the Third World, where the USSR had invested
fairly heavily. There is no evidence at present of substantial new
Soviet commitments, and in view of the heavy resource requirements of
domestic restructuring, one would expect Moscow to be wary of costly
reengagement in the near future.
With regard to China, the application of "New Thinking" has
accelerated the process of normalization that was already in train at
the very end of the Brehznev era. While Gorbachev's conciliation of
15
competitive potential. The well-publicized changes of glasnost and
perestroika, the argument proceeds, are temporary concessions reversi-
ble at the appropriate time. A French journalist (Annie Kriegel of Le
Figaro) dubbed perestroika "a formidable happening, a gigantic logor-
rhea." From the other end of the spectrum, Gorbachev's goal, or the
ultimate outcome of the dynamic of current Soviet change, is seen as
conversion of the Soviet polity to democratic pluralism and the Soviet
economy to a variant of market socialism that will differ little from the
regulated capitalism of many European countries.
These polar views of the significance of Soviet domestic change have
counterparts with regard to Soviet foreign and security policy. At one
end, the "New Thinking" is seen as a smokescreen, behind which
Soviet military modernization for offensive superiority proceeds as
usual, and the Kremlin is only waiting for favorable opportunities to
advance its geopolitical aims at the West's expense in the manner of
the mid-1970s. Those at the other end of the spectrum believe the
Soviet military apparatus is coming under as radical a restructuring as
the economy and society, one that will sharply reduce force levels and
transform their doctrinal orientation; these changes are judged in keep-
ing with a new Soviet foreign policy perspective that sees cooperation
bringing greater benefits than aggressive competition.
Between these poles there are, of course, many intermediate posi-
tions. There are those who are also skeptical about the extent of
change already achieved or about the dedication of Gorbachev's Polit-
buro colleagues to reformist and internationally cooperative goals but
who, like Margaret Thatcher, view these considerations as
secondary to whether [Gorbachev] or indeed anyone can limit change
once it starts. If we believe that the human spirit's deepest urge is
for freedom, then we have to believe too that the more freedom is
granted, the more it will be wanted, and this convinces me that I am
right to be giving full support to the policies of perestroika and
glasnost. (Speech in London, January 13, 1988.)
Others are more impressed with the political, bureaucratic, and
national-psychological obstacles to change in the USSR and therefore
less optimistic about the outcome. Still others grant the novelty and
excitement of current Soviet developments but give greater weight to
concerns about the modernization of Soviet military and economic
capabilities.
Underlying these contrasting views on the shape and meaning of
current Soviet developments, but unfortunately rarely articulated, are
both multiple uncertainties and divergent assumptions about key vari-
ables. A critical set of issues revolves around Gorbachev, his goals and
17
inferior to that on programs, and the imperative to make the record
look good persists even under glasnost. It is not surprising, therefore,
that there is a wider dispersion of Western judgments on the extent of
realized than of intended change. If this applies in the first instance to
domestic economic and social programs, it is even truer of security pol-
icy, where the paucity of hard evidence opens the door to sheer specu-
lation.
There is much less dispute about the qualitative economic and social
progress achieved under Gorbachev, not because different schools
arrive at convergent results, but because most analysts are dependent
on Soviet reports and on the more or less independent evaluations of
Soviet data performed by the U.S. government, especially the CIA. In
the past, such government analyses have been criticized as both under-
stating and overstating Soviet economic growth and its major com-
ponents. The bulk of the criticism, however, is directed at possible
overestimation, charging that the Soviet raw statistics, which are
inevitably the foundation of all outside evaluations, overstate quantita-
tive increases and qualitative improvements and understate price infla-
tion. Those who regard these criticisms of CIA analyses as merited
may also discount in varying degree the estimates of Soviet change
under Gorbachev, although these display little optimism from a Soviet
point of view.
Controversy over the degree of progress in economic reform takes
place less over the facts of change than on the potential of reform and
the intentions of the leadership. We know, for example, how few indi-
vidual and cooperative profit-oriented enterprises have actually been
established; we have a reasonably good sense of the degree to which the
autonomy of state enterprises and collective farms is still constrained
by central regulation. But those who take a particularly jaundiced view
of reform's prospects are factoring in perceptions about Soviet ideologi-
cal rigidity, political and bureaucratic resistance, and perhaps also cri-
teria of "real" or effective reform that are judged to require more or
less capitalist forms of economic organization. On the other side,
reform optimists tend to downgrade the importance of these factors
and to place more emphasis on the Soviet leaders' perception of the
necessity of reform and the possibilities of perfecting the present,
admittedly incomplete, mechanisms.
The uncertainties of political change encompass not only the "real"
goals of the various leadership factions but also their current relative
strengths and the likelihood of developments that could substantially
affect the balance. An example of such a development might be major
changes in the center's ability to control national minority agitation for
greater economic, cultural, or political autonomy: for example, an
19
nexus, we choose to focus on the degree of internal system change-
primarily economic and political-and its connection to Soviet external
behavior. We examine the possible external consequences of three
states of domestic reform: the status quo or slow progress, retrogres-
sion, radicalization and rapid progress. In each case, the foreign policy
implications of a particular scenario of domestic change are far from
self-evident.
Limited Reform
In this alternative, a combination of system inertia, bureaucratic
footdragging, popular suspicions, and political opposition would sharply
limit the reform impetus, confining it to actual achievements or
perhaps with minor further progress. Three subcases of effects on sys-
tem performance and external behavior suggest themselves.
Improved Performance, External Competitiveness. Despite
the constraint on reform, economic performance might improve tangi-
bly through a combination of campaigns for disciplined labor, improved
incentives, the payoff of high investment in modernization, and luck-
for example, sustained good weather, which would increase agricultural
output. (The last element would contrast with the misfortunes that
have plagued Gorbachev's restructuring effort so far, especially the
disasters of Chernobyl and the Armenian earthquake.) The result
would be growth of the total resource pie, easing the leadership's allo-
cation choices among consumption, economic growth, and defense and
making more resources available for external purposes. All this would
take place without changing the present system of essentially
authoritarian-oligarchical political decisionmaking. Soviet foreign pol-
icy objectives and behavior might then be less accommodating to the
West than now appears to be the case: Domestic economic problems
might seem less pressing, resources would be available for continued
military force growth and qualitative improvement, and the leadership
would be fairly unconstrained by public and interest group pressures to
move in a contrary direction.
We do not attach high probability to this scenario. It assumes that
Gorbachev is driven only by economic weakness and that some
minimal resolution of the economic problem would induce him to aban-
don "New Thinking" and resume where Brezhnev left off. Further, we
are skeptical of the economic growth potential of limited reform. Even
if it achieved some economic success it would be unlikely to provide a
long-run solution to the Soviet economic problem, so that the
Kremlin's satisfaction with this scenario and therefore its duration
would probably be short-lived.
21
military coup seems unlikely; but a military peeved at reduced
resources, unilateral force reductions, and a constrained political role
could reinforce the anti-reform faction. Whether it appears in a neo-
Stalinist "national Bolshevik" form or is joined to militant great-
Russian nationalism, reaction to the fruits of glasnost, demokratizat-
siia, and perestroika could substantially alter the internal and external
face of Soviet policy.
The platform of reaction would vary depending on its political
makeup. A neo-Stalinist version would probably combine accelerated
economic modernization with public discipline and minimum reform.
The counterpart based on Russian patriotism would attempt to rally
the public with a plea to "save the country" from impending catastro-
phe, and it would call for substituting moral impulses for the profit-
making, income-maximizing slogans of perestroika.
A reactionary USSR exploiting the mobilization potential of Russian
or Soviet patriotism might mean a return to cold war with the West,
diminishing probabilities for arms control agreement, heightened East-
West military tensions, and revival of Soviet militancy in the Third
World. These do not, however, seem inevitable consequences of retreat
and reaction, if only because the economics of reaction would be
unlikely to yield a substantial narrowing of the technological gap with
the West. As in the poor performance, external competitiveness case,
Soviet ability to implement a militant external strategy would probably
continue to be resource-constrained. Would-be neo-Stalinist leaders of
the nineties might be guided by the example of the prototype a half
century earlier, whose hostility to the West was generally kept in check
by prudent consideration of the weaknesses of the USSR and the risks
of confrontation with a stronger enemy.
Radicalization of Reform
In this alternative, the Kremlin would have recognized the inadequa-
cies of the present situation, as well as the dangers embodied in the
previous alternatives, and would sharply accelerate economic and polit-
ical reform in the direction of market socialism and political pluralism.
This could bring economic dividends of qualitative and quantitative
growth, as well as the development of formal and informal groups and
institutions that would substantially enlarge the circle of policymaking
and circumscribe Kremlin decisionmaking.
The foreign policy of such a Soviet Union might indeed be as ima-
gined by those who place great confidence in Gorbachev-
accommodation and cooperation with the West, especially in reducing
the threat of Soviet military power. Less benign outcomes, however,
III. IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S.-SOVIET
RELATIONS
GENERAL IMPLICATIONS
The most important conclusion we draw from this assessment of
Soviet change now and in the foreseeable future is that the achieve-
ments and process of change hold out hope for substantial gains for the
cause of international peace and security, but the uncertainties beset-
ting this prospect are large enough to warrant reservations and even
some skepticism about its likelihood.
The reasons for optimism depend on two phenomena, the first short
term, the second bridging over to the longer term. Until now, recogni-
tion of economic, technological, and social national weakness has been
a powerful force driving the Politburo to a change of course at home
and abroad. The perception of weakness impels a concentration on
domestic restructuring and an effort to tailor external policy so as to
protect that concentration. It is therefore substantially responsible for
Soviet retrenchments in the Third World (reflecting a more sober
assessment of cost/benefit ratios), improvements in international
atmospherics, and concessions in arms control negotiations.
The second reason for optimism emerges from the Kremlin's
attempt to repair the most obvious weakness, poor economic perfor-
mance. In the process, the Soviets identified systemic roots of the
problem, which led to bolder economic and political reform initiatives
than had been contemplated originally. These initiatives take on a
dynamic that may escape central control, particularly as feedback rela-
tions develop among greater liberality in public discussion, political
change, and economic reform. The next step is part historical generali-
zation and political analysis but also part assertion: Marketization,
competition, and political pluralism would shape a Soviet Union that
would reject traditional communist ideology and increasingly institu-
tionalize the attitudes and policies of democratic socialism, perhaps
even of liberal capitalism. Even over the longer term such a Soviet
Union would be more interested in internal progress than in external
rivalry. It might insist on its "rightful" role in international relations,
but it would be concerned about insuring a peaceful environment for
domestic progress rather than sponsoring destabilizing, pre-Soviet
change.
23
25
Here we find four main alternatives:
1. Perestroika Is Irrelevant or Dangerous:
Impede Soviet Modernization
This alternative insists that the USSR is hardly likely to be
transformed into a democratic society with a benign foreign policy and
that the probable Soviet future is in "Limited Reform" or "Retreat and
Reaction," possibly in that time sequence. In all these cases, pro-
ponents assert, there would be little change in the Politburo's goals
inherited from the Brezhnev period and continued efforts to improve
capabilities for maintaining and expanding the Soviet empire.
Economic modernization would probably not alter external goals, but it
could make the USSR a more dangerous rival by qualitatively upgrad-
ing Soviet military industry. Therefore, the cardinal Western objective
should also be unchanged: defense against Soviet expansionism.
Short of egregious acts of Soviet provocation, which appear highly
unlikely at present, a deliberate Western effort to thwart perestroika is
not politically sustainable. However, the argument continues, the West
should make every effort to impede Soviet military modernization,
principally by disciplined embargoes on the export of "dual-use" tech-
nology (that may be of use to the military as well as in civilian pur-
suits) and by denying all economic aid (e.g., subsidized credits) and
even loans at market rates to the USSR. At the same time, the West
must press forward on its own military modernization. In doing so, it
is contended, the West should, where the choice is available, opt for
measures that are likely to force Soviet planners into responses that
would strain Soviet resource allocation, if Moscow wishes to stay in the
global race. With respect to regional conflicts, raising Soviet costs
would take priority over settlement of the conflict, which might only
ease the Soviet burden of empire. Convinced that Soviet goals are and
will remain inimical to the West, proponents of this strategy seek
means to frustrate Soviet purposes.¹
As explained in Sec. IV, we favor maintaining controls on technol-
ogy exports and market criteria for other economic intercourse with the
USSR, at least in the first phase of relations with a reform-minded
Soviet Union. Nevertheless, we reject this strategy because, as a pack-
age, with the indicated assumptions, goals, and policies, it promises to
be counterproductive: It is likely to make for a more belligerent, less
cooperative Soviet Union. It could provoke hostile Soviet responses
Supporters of this strategy might regard it as equally appropriate if the Soviet future
were poor performance and external quiescence; the aim would then be to accelerate the
apparent process of dissolution of the Soviet system.
27
massive Western Marshall Plan for the USSR could exert influence in
the other direction. But short of such beneficence, which is not being
seriously considered anywhere in the West, our ability to shape Soviet
developments to our benefit is limited. The fate of Soviet internal
change hangs essentially on the balance of internal forces, and there is
no theory of Soviet politics that would permit reliable judgments about
how to effect a particular direction of internal political and economic
development. Indeed, efforts to intervene would stand a good chance
of hurting rather than helping the intended beneficiaries. It is one
thing for the West to respond favorably to evidence of major Soviet
change attained, quite another to attempt to shape Soviet processes to
a particular mold.
A U.S. policy goal of advancing Gorbachev's fortunes could easily
prevent us from identifying and pursuing our own interests. In some of
the circumstances suggested earlier, Soviet interests could be opposed
to ours. Moreover, an effort to "help Gorbachev" would inevitably
open us up to counter-manipulation from Moscow, and in such a con-
test the Soviets enjoy a distinct advantage.
These three arguments provide sufficient grounds to reject this alter-
native. In addition, it is likely to complicate the Western alliance's
decisionmaking, unless one assumes that substantial economic aid to
the USSR would be an unalloyed good for the West. But if that is far
from self-evident, as we believe, then the strategy of helping Gorbachev
would have to devise means of influencing Soviet policy toward desired
ends, in short to fashion instruments of leverage. It would therefore
need to incorporate provisions for denial as well as extension of bene-
fits: Carrots without sticks are nourishing but do not promise much
leverage. Historically, however, the alliance has been able to agree to
relax constraints and extend benefits to the USSR far more easily than
to impose sanctions and withdraw rewards.
3. Soviet Future Uncertain, West's Role Negligible:
Wait and See
The third alternative is so impressed with the uncertainties sur-
rounding the identification of ultimate leadership goals, the degree of
system change already achieved, and the projection of present trends,
as well as with the West's impotence in affecting Soviet developments,
that it sees the only rational policy as sitting on the sidelines, watch-
fully waiting until the dust settles.
We reject this course as well. We certainly share the stand on the
importance of uncertainties, as we have made clear, but not the impli-
cit assumption that there are no substantial costs to waiting out the
IV. A STRATEGY OF STEP-BY-STEP
ENGAGEMENT
A NEW DIALOGUE WITH THE USSR
For the new phase of U.S.-Soviet relations we are entering, a strat-
egy of what we call step-by-step engagement is more appropriate than
trying either to impede or "help" Gorbachev, or just to wait on the
sidelines to see what happens after the dust settles in the USSR. Of
course, the United States has been "engaging" the Soviet Union
actively now for several years, and did so on a broad front during the
years of detente. But this new phase of engagement begins under con-
ditions that are strikingly different from those in either the early 1970s
or the 1980s.
We start now with unusually favorable international conditions for
pursuing long-standing Western interests in relations with the Soviets.
This is quite different from the detente period, when American strategy
rested on the premise of a shifting correlation of geopolitical forces
moving against the United States and the West. In retrospect, this
was a more pessimistic view than was objectively warranted, but its
broad acceptance in the West gave Moscow some reason to believe that
the United States and the West would accept Soviet expansion in peri-
pheral areas in exchange for Soviet restraint at the center.
The phase we have now entered also rests on a widely shared prem-
ise about the correlation of forces, but it is the converse of the underly-
ing premise of detente, and the Soviets all but explicitly acknowledge
it. The new premise is that in almost all components of the global
competition the tide is running against the Soviet Union. It is not the
military equation per se that has changed adversely for them but the
domestic, systemic foundations of Soviet global political influence and
its future military prowess that the Soviet elite now perceive to be in a
state of acute disrepair.
For U.S. strategic purposes, this means that whatever Gorbachev's
long-term foreign policy plans or intentions may be, and no matter
what the ultimate fate of his reform program, current Soviet cir-
cumstances constrain the Soviet leadership in ways that make it now
less inclined to fish in troubled waters abroad and more open to inter-
national agreements and arrangements to ease competitive pressures
that are potentially mutually beneficial. Where long-standing Western
interests in managing East-West relations more safely, reliably, and at
29
31
engage the Soviet Union politically and diplomatically on this level is
therefore a much more complex matter and far more challenging than
pursuing the traditional East-West agenda. Gorbachev's call to tran-
scend the tried and true paths of East-West relations has aroused deep
ambivalence in the West and, in some quarters, even outright resis-
tance.
Nevertheless, in addition to pursuing long-standing Western
interests in a more propitious environment, we believe the West should
begin to explore the new and wider horizons opened up by the possibil-
ity of far-reaching changes in the external aspirations and internal
structure of the Soviet Union. The West should seek to determine
what Gorbachev's millennial visions may mean, into what they may be
concretely translatable, by a broad conceptual dialogue with the Soviet
leadership. The most important justification for such a venture lies in
the implications for East-West relations of the possible deeper changes
in basic Soviet economic and political structures and institutions,
changes that go beyond the important, but still readily reversible, shifts
in policy that have fueled the recent improvement in U.S.-Soviet rela-
tions.
At issue here is exploration of the logical conclusions of successful
containment, the underlying strategic concept guiding our relations
with the Soviet Union over the past four decades. Our strategy of con-
tainment was designed to create a system of alliances that would block
Soviet expansionism and compel Soviet leaders to live with the internal
contradictions of their own system. Eventually, in some distant future,
it was hoped that successful containment might lead to the gradual
"mellowing" of Soviet power and to a Soviet Union with which a more
civilized balance of competition and cooperation would be possible.
Until recently, the prospect of such a changed Soviet Union seemed
SO remote that we took little trouble to consider its policy implications.
That prospect remains highly uncertain, but it is no longer merely a
theoretical possibility. Few in the West, and especially few in the
United States, challenge the contention that containment and its mili-
tary corollary, deterrence, will continue to be indispensable elements of
Western strategy for dealing with the USSR in the present more
dynamic phase of East-West relations. But now the possibility of sys-
temic change in the Soviet Union is no longer purely theoretical; it is
sufficiently plausible to justify serious consideration of an important
shift in the overall balance of competition and cooperation in the rela-
tionship, to move it more heavily toward the latter, perhaps even to
breakthroughs in relations with the USSR.
While proceeding cautiously and building incrementally on successes
in regularizing and stabilizing East-West relations, we should not reject
33
established framework. There are grounds for believing that such a
dialogue would benefit both East-West and West-West relations:
It could help deal with understandable Western anxieties about
"runaway peace," "preemptive dismantling," etc. by providing
conceptual grounds for distinctions between (1) within-system
improvements that are possible on the strength of the USSR's
current predicament, the policy changes it has already made,
and the thrust of its still not realized reforms; and (2) the
necessary assurance of irreversibility to justify movement
toward a transformation of the East-West relationship.
It would help the West to fashion a strategy for the new cir-
cumstances that combines the essentials of containment and
deterrence with pursuit of opportunities for moderating the
adversarial character of East-West relations during what could
be the early phase of Soviet evolution toward structures and
behavior more compatible with Western interests.
It would provide the West with a conceptual basis for calibrat-
ing the process of change in the Soviet Union to Western
requirements for appropriate guarantees against Soviet
backsliding, reversals, or deception. The feedback we might get
from such a dialogue could help our policymakers to elaborate
criteria for measuring and assessing progress or retreat in the
Soviet Union's evolution toward more compatible domestic
structures and international postures.
It could be used as a vehicle for encouraging the Soviets to take
unilateral steps that address Western concerns, in cases where
negotiated agreement may not be appropriate, or for which con-
ditions may not be ripe. The United States could encourage
these unilateral Soviet steps by signalling that they would be
assessed positively, and not downgraded or dismissed, without
hint of reciprocation, in the normal pattern of superpower
responses to the other side's unilateral steps.
Finally, the conceptual dialogue suggested here could help U.S.
policymakers, in concert with the allies, to shape and elaborate
a detailed specific agenda for negotiations, and as conditions
warrant, to advance particular issues from the broad, long-term
agenda to the immediate concrete one.
The modalities of such a dual-level dialogue will depend on the
styles, proclivities, and staff capabilities of the U.S. and Soviet leaders.
In any case, it would be an iterative process with continuous monitor-
ing of progress and with appropriate corrections and reinforcement.
35
3. A West whose capabilities and political will were weakened by
anticipatory responses to Soviet change would be unable to compete
effectively and maintain the international conditions that helped
induce the Soviets to make the new kinds of promising cost/benefit
calculations we have seen recently. A change in the external environ-
ment that made renewed Soviet assertiveness more promising could
well play into the hands of Moscow conservatives already chafing at
what they may regard as Gorbachev's foreign policy retreats.
4. In making a series of policy changes-in START, INF, Afghani-
stan, conventional arms reductions-that the West has rightly regarded
as concessions to its long-standing positions, Gorbachev has succeeded
in making a glistening virtue of hard necessity. But he has not yet
converted the "evil empire" into a philanthropic organization. Even in
his currently constrained circumstances, Gorbachev remains a highly
competitive adversary who will seek offsetting compensations for any
concessions he offers. Progress toward an improved relationship with
the Soviet Union that accords with Western goals and interests will
inevitably be halting and uneven.
5. In the absence of a robust domestic consensus, no U.S. policy
toward the Soviet Union can be effective or survive the snags and set-
backs that are certain to occur. Given the deep ambivalence about the
Soviet Union in American public opinion, a consensus that is suffi-
ciently broad and enduring will need time and confidence-building
experience with the USSR to mature.
For these reasons, we should follow an approach that builds progres-
sively on successes. Initially, we should minimize the extent to which
we rely on trust and on the sincerity of the Soviet conversion to "New
Thinking" in reaching new agreements or making new arrangements
with the Soviets. We should resist the kinds of "one fell swoop" solu-
tions that Gorbachev from time to time proposes, such as his calls for
radical denuclearization and demilitarization of Europe. Because Gor-
bachev has more credibility in the West than his predecessors who
made similarly grandiose proposals, it may not always be sufficient now
merely to reject "grand" Soviet proposals flatly. We should be
responding with Western alternatives that restructure, refocus, and
reorient those Soviet proposals SO that they seriously address our real
concerns. And we should use new departures of our own to test Soviet
willingness to cooperate for mutual benefit by pushing the limits of
their flexibility.
A word of caution is in order here. We should be careful not to be
too clever by half in designing proposals and positions to seize the
political initiative or throw the Soviets off balance. The fate of the
"zero/zero" INF arms control option shows that, in dealing with
37
debate alternative courses of action. This is why the evolution of the
Soviet political system is a vital foreign policy concern for the United
States. A substantially transformed East-West relationship almost cer-
tainly requires an institutionalized regime of effective domestic con-
straints on the international behavior of Soviet leaders.
What would be indicators for us that the Soviet Union was in fact
moving toward the internal changes the West requires for confidence
that a far-reaching accommodation with the USSR is desirable and
possible? Reforms that effectively decentralized Soviet economic
decisionmaking, replacing producer with consumer sovereignty, would
signify to the West that basic changes had occurred in the Soviet
economic system that could make the USSR a more appropriate poten-
tial international partner. Among the specific measures we would
expect to see would be meaningful price reform, real competition in
production and distribution, sharp limitation of central planning, and
the elimination of the state monopoly of foreign trade.
Glasnost has clearly stimulated a great deal of critical self-
examination of Soviet society and history, including, to a lesser extent,
criticism of past Soviet international behavior. The Soviet past has
become appreciably more transparent, but the present decisionmaking
process on foreign policy and military issues of greatest concern to the
West remains as much a "black box" as it was in the past. Moreover,
the limits of glasnost and the process itself continue to be controlled
from above, with no effective constitutional guarantees of continuity.
So long as glasnost is not institutionalized, it will remain tenuous,
requiring for its preservation individual risk-taking and periodic acts of
civic courage. The "Andreeva affair" in the spring of 1988, when
glasnost was choked off for more than a month by fear that the "party
line" on reform might be changing, suggests that the practitioners of
glasnost may not always be ready or willing to rise to the occasion.
The adoption of appropriately drafted constitutional amendments in
themselves would tell us little; we would be looking for evidence of
effective implementation in the actual workings of the political process,
including open debate of alternatives and leadership accommodation to
opposing views.
There are, of course, no constitutional guarantees against aggressive
foreign policies. The "popular will" is not always benign toward
foreign nations. Political pluralism and economic efficiency might
combine to nurture great power ambitions. But in a pluralistic politi-
cal system with a regime of institutionalized constraints on decision-
making, state leaders have limited capacity to allocate shares of GNP
that are blatantly disproportionate to declared goals for military and
foreign policy ends, to reverse policy directions covertly, and to violate
39
Self-determination in Eastern Europe
Far-reaching arms control agreements that would fundamentally
alter the East-West security regime in Europe will inevitably run up
against limitations imposed by the satellite status of Eastern Europe.
Western willingness to move toward a security regime in which there
was sharply reduced reliance on nuclear weapons for deterrence and in
which stationed forces (including American troops) were substantially
reduced would depend not only on appropriate Soviet force reductions
and restructuring, but also on fundamental changes in the nature of
the USSR's relations with its Warsaw Pact allies.
The corollary of change required in the Soviet domestic political sys-
tem is the evolution of the socialist states of Eastern Europe toward
greater self-determination. From the perspective of Western security,
the basic requirement is the end of Soviet hegemonial control over
Eastern Europe, such that its territories and resources are no longer so
freely at the disposal of the Soviet Union for potential hostilities
against the West. This need not require the dissolution of the Warsaw
Treaty Organization-for which the dissolution of NATO would surely
be the price-but it does presuppose an evolution of Soviet political
relations with increasingly autonomous allies that would substantially
reduce decisionmaking asymmetries in the two alliance systems.
WHAT CAN THE WEST OFFER IN RETURN?
These would be very profound changes indeed, and if the Soviet
Union moved very far in these directions, its leaders would not do so
merely to impress the West for public relations purposes. Most of
these changes, especially in the domestic political and economic system
and in Eastern Europe but also, up to a point, in military and foreign
policy, would have to be driven by irresistible internal needs and priori-
ties, if they were to occur at all. Although Gorbachev has skillfully
exploited Western sympathy for his internal reform program to
advance his foreign policy interests, he is not seeking to reform the
Soviet Union as an exercise in foreign policy, or as a favor to the West.
However, the Soviet leadership's expectations about the Western
response, especially about Western propensities to exploit or recipro-
cate Soviet change, could greatly affect the pace and scope and, in
some instances, even the direction of their own moves.
Initially, the West, and particularly the United States, could offer
assurances that its leaders have no interest in undercutting perestroika,
or to back the Soviet Union to the wall during a period of adversity
and difficult domestic change; in short, that they prefer to deal with
41
BUILDING ON THE OLD AGENDA
We have suggested that the new, broad conceptual dialogue with
Moscow should proceed in parallel with the ongoing discussion and
negotiation of issues on the current U.S.-Soviet agenda. The new Bush
administration will hardly be starting from scratch in developing an
approach to the Soviet Union. Both sides agreed to a practical, four-
part agenda several years ago, and it has provided the organizational
basis for the most recent summits and for the extensive ministerial
meetings between Secretary Shultz and Foreign Minister Shevard-
nadze. That agenda includes arms control, regional conflict, bilateral
relations, and human rights. Further discussion of the large range of
issues developed under these four headings, as well as on a fifth,
Eastern Europe, with high destabilizing potential, will provide a bridge
from the established practical agenda to the broader dialogue appropri-
ate for exploring the new limits of the possible that may be emerging
in relations with the USSR.
Arms Control and the Military Competition
Security issues have always been central to U.S.-Soviet relations,
and regulation of the military competition will almost certainly con-
tinue to be the primary area of U.S.-Soviet political engagement in the
emerging phase of their relations. In arms control, there is chiefly the
unfinished business of START and the launching of the conventional
arms stability talks (CST).
To maintain a suitable international environment for exploring what
a strategy of step-by-step engagement is capable of producing, it will be
important for a new administration to try to keep the nuclear arms
control regime from unravelling. The legal basis of that regime-
consisting of lapsed, unratified, and contentious treaties of the 1970s-
is now in great disarray. It is primarily the prospect of a new START
agreement that keeps the tenuous arms control regime reasonably
stable.
A START agreement more or less along present lines would
preserve and, from the Western vantage point, marginally improve the
U.S.-Soviet strategic balance that provides the nuclear underpinning
for extended deterrence. Although it surely would be preferable for the
United States to resolve all outstanding strategic force modernization
issues before concluding a START agreement, achieving a consensus
on modernization has proven politically elusive, largely because of
uncertainties about arms control. So long as a new agreement left suf-
ficient headroom for the United States to move in the major alterna-
tive strategic modernization directions being considered, completing the
43
savings to be realized from trimming some excess manpower and equip-
ment from the swollen Soviet conventional force structure. No doubt
with political effects on the West very much in mind, the Soviets were
willing to include in the unilateral reductions cuts in Soviet tank forces
in Eastern Europe and the western military districts of the USSR suf-
ficiently large that they could not reasonably be dismissed as cosmetic.
This development has complicated the preferred Western strategy,
which is to seek reductions in Pact, especially Soviet, tank and artillery
holdings down to levels just slightly below NATO's, thus obviating the
need to make more than token reductions on the NATO side and
avoiding the issue of substantial reductions in stationed U.S. forces. It
has also dealt a blow to chances that NATO governments will go ahead
with the modernization and deployment in Europe of an extended-
range Lance surface-to-surface missile. At a minimum, it has assured
that any effort to go forward now with Lance modernization will again
bring up the NATO debate on extended deterrence and the relationship
between the conventional balance and reliance on nuclear weapons in
NATO strategy.
Gorbachev has imparted political momentum to negotiations that
before December 7 seemed fated to endure a prolonged phase of incon-
clusive maneuver. His announcement of substantial unilateral reduc-
tions has won a higher degree of credibility for his previously expressed
willingness to accept deep and asymmetrical cuts in Soviet ground
forces and to restructure remaining ones so as to weaken their capabil-
ity for large-scale offensive operations.
The change in the political atmosphere surrounding the opening of
the CST negotiations makes even more urgent a high-level NATO
dialogue on how to define Western interests in the new circumstances.
Failure to do so would impede the West's ability to develop politically
viable and strategically sensible responses to Soviet proposals. It
would leave the initiative in Soviet hands and, in the end, probably
invite precisely the kind of alliance dissension that avoiding the issue
tries to skirt.
The new administration should consider early on whether it wishes
to call for a new, concerted look at alliance security interests and
objectives in the altered circumstances of the late 1980s. Changes now
occurring in the USSR, and especially the potential for even more far-
reaching change in the future, indicate the need for such a review. The
Western dialogue with the Soviet leaders on alliance issues—
conventional arms control being the quintessential alliance security
issue-requires alliance consensus.
A decision to initiate a systematic broad security review, in effect to
review the Harmel Doctrine adopted in the late 1960s, carries real
45
What is different in the Gorbachev era? Just as before, the USSR
continues to be the ultimate "enforcer," limiting change in Eastern
Europe. But now, an avowedly reformist Soviet leadership is also the
most important agent for change acting on the region from the outside.
The countries of Eastern Europe confront bleak economic prospects,
demoralization, and generational leadership change, all of which com-
bine to present grave threats to stability. The elites of Eastern Europe
are increasingly aware that their countries are falling steadily behind
both the West and the newly industrialized countries of the world;
there is a widespread sense of desperation because solutions within the
framework of the present systems seem SO unpromising. Poland is, of
course, the extreme case, but structurally the dilemmas confronting the
other socialist countries are the same.
Against this background, a reforming Soviet Union is proselytizing
its fraternal East European comrades, carefully to be sure, to embark
on Gorbachev-style reforms. At the same time, at least verbally, Mos-
cow is displaying a growing reluctance to contemplate forcible interven-
tion. Soviet forces in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary are
to be reduced over the next two years, with the prospect of further cuts
under the provisions of a CST agreement.
This new Soviet posture presents a deeply contradictory set of pros-
pects. The example of Soviet reform may spur and accelerate change
in Eastern Europe. Soviet force reductions and perceptions of Soviet
reluctance to enforce limits may encourage Eastern European elites
seeking greater autonomy, or new political forces seeking to alter the
system, to aggressively test what the traffic will bear. Gorbachev's zeal
for reforming socialism and his preaching of "New Thinking" in inter-
national relations could combine to increase the chances of destabiliza-
tion and, in the end, of Soviet intervention, in Eastern Europe.
For the West, this paradoxical situation sharpens the long-standing
dilemmas of policy toward Eastern Europe: how to promote the politi-
cal independence and self-determination of the countries of Eastern
Europe, diminishing the security threat to the West from the USSR's
massive military presence in Eastern Europe, without triggering a
Soviet military intervention. Such an intervention would victimize the
people of Eastern Europe, disrupt any ongoing reforms in both Eastern
Europe and the Soviet Union, probably divide the alliance on how to
respond, and, possibly, threaten the peace of Europe.
In these altered circumstances, some changes at least in emphasis
are in order in the traditional Western policies that have evolved to
deal with this continuing dilemma. The West should tie the prospects
for far-reaching change in European security arrangements more
47
commitments, and a process of cutting losses, most dramatically SO in
Afghanistan. If fully implemented, the Soviet decision to withdraw its
military forces from Afghanistan may turn out to have been a
watershed event. Ensuring the completion of the Soviet withdrawal
will almost certainly be the first priority issue on the U.S.-Soviet
regional conflicts agenda under the new administration. In Angola the
Soviets have cooperated in facilitating an agreement, under U.S.
auspices, among Angola, Cuba, and South Africa that is consistent with
objectives the United States has sought for many years. And in Cam-
bodia, both superpowers have been using their influence with the con-
tending parties to secure withdrawal of Vietnamese military forces.
These are important developments for which there are many rea-
sons: Some may turn out to be transitory, some more fundamental.
U.S. assistance to insurgencies resisting Soviet-supported Marxist
regimes has surely been an element; so has a Soviet reassessment of
the damage that these excursions have done to broader Soviet interests
with the United States and others; but so, too, has been a Soviet recal-
culation of the elusive nature of benefits to be gained from supporting
inherently weak, unpopular, poor, and unreliable clients.
The United States should continue in the next administration to
exploit opportunities to cooperate with the Soviets in facilitating
regional settlements consistent with U.S. interests that local conditions
make ripe and to test Soviet intentions in still other areas of conten-
tion where the United States and Soviet Union have some influence
they can bring to bear. This means not only being prepared to engage
the Soviets diplomatically where appropriate, but also to help perpetu-
ate the conditions that have helped bring the Soviets to make new
cost-benefit calculations in the Third World: continued U.S. support,
as long as needed, for insurgencies against pro-Soviet regimes that
employ external Communist military forces to keep them in power. To
be effective, this U.S. support must be politically sustainable, especially
at home, and be so perceived both in the region and in Moscow.
Where the role of external Communist forces has been clear and where
the deep indigenous roots of resistance have been evident, as in
Afghanistan, congressional and public support for U.S. military aid to
the resistance has been strong and U.S. staying power unquestioned.
Where these conditions have not obtained, or when there has been
great domestic controversy about them, as in Nicaragua, congressional
and public support has been inadequate to sustain effective U.S. policy.
In Angola and perhaps also in Cambodia, the long and what seemed
to many inconclusive U.S.-Soviet dialogue on regional settlements has
finally begun to bear fruit. The sides have shown considerable flexibil-
ity and ingenuity in the variety of modalities they have devised for
49
Whether the Soviet Union's willingness to pay a substantial price
for liquidating lost causes, as in Afghanistan, or reducing the costs of
inconclusive or unpromising ventures, as in Angola, will be generaliz-
able to other areas remains to be seen. The formula for success seems
to require unpromising conditions for the Soviets on the ground, to
which the United States can contribute; greater extra-regional Soviet
interests that a local settlement would serve, where the United States
looms very large; and a readiness on both sides to find negotiated
modalities for Soviet or Soviet-client military disengagement.
Bilateral Relations
Three major sets of issues are contained in this basket: exchanges
and contacts, economic relations, and human rights. The first of these
can be disposed of quickly. The break in exchanges and contacts that
occurred after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has been repaired
and then some, and there is now a large and growing set of programs
underway. With further improvement in the general climate of East-
West relations, the organized and unorganized streams of personal con-
tacts and exchanges should broaden and deepen. As in the past, such
contacts and exchanges provide the West on balance with greater
opportunities for influencing Soviet development than vice versa. And
under conditions of glasnost in the USSR, the United States is in a
better position than ever before to press for maximum reciprocity in
exchanges.
Whatever changes may take place in the next few years in East-
West economic relations, they will not play the same role in this new
phase of U.S.-Soviet relations as they did during the period of detente.
At that time, expectations about economic relations were central to the
strategies of both sides. The Soviets offered and much of the West was
inclined to buy an implicit trade of Soviet forbearance in exploiting its
newly gained military advantages in return for Western economic con-
cessions. Now it is Gorbachev who is seeking to ease competitive pres-
sures in the military arena, both for its own sake and to improve the
general environment for perestroika. The West may still seek to use
economic instruments to affect Soviet policy, but the emphasis is likely
to be on Soviet domestic policy or relations with Eastern Europe.
Until recently, Gorbachev appeared to be assigning a less central
place to resource transfers from the West in his domestic programs
than did Brezhnev, perhaps because he sought to avoid dependence on
the West. The Kremlin's decision during the second half of 1988 to
establish substantial credit lines with a number of European banks,
primarily to finance modernization of Soviet consumer goods
51
The main economic policy issues for the United States in the new
phase are, with one exception, familiar old questions to be revisited in
altered circumstances:
Should unilateral U.S. and COCOM (Coordinating Committee
for Multilateral Controls) controls on technology transfer to the
USSR be loosened?
Should the Jackson-Vanik Amendment be repealed and Most
Favored Nation (MFN) status granted to the USSR?
Should the U.S. Export-Import Bank credit window be
reopened?
Should we continue in effect to subsidize grain sales to the
Soviet Union?
Should we pressure our allies for a common credit policy toward
the USSR?
Finally, Soviet bids for a role in the international trade and banking
systems raise a new issue:
Should we attempt to deny Soviet Union membership in
GATT, IMF, the World Bank, or other international economic
organizations?
Specific positions on these issues will depend heavily on cir-
cumstances and agreements among the allies that cannot now be fore-
seen, but what follows are some principles for making choices in
economic policy that are in accord with a strategy of step-by-step
engagement:
1. The provision of economic benefits and the levying of economic
sanctions constitute the second most important instrument of leverage
on Soviet policy and behavior, after security measures, to be found in
the Western arsenal. This instrument has often been misused in the
past and few successes can be chalked up to its account, but its poten-
tial remains great by virtue of the productivity gulf between East and
West and the Soviet Union's fervent desire to close that gap. Accor-
dingly, as far as it is politically possible, the West should husband that
scarce resource, expending it prudently in exchange for an equally valu-
able Soviet quid pro quo. That means, it seems to us, that the West
should seek to phase the extension of economic benefits with indica-
tions of substantial change in the structure of East-West relations and
in the nature of Soviet society.
In the past, efforts to apply Western leverage have attempted to
match concrete Western economic packages with Soviet behavioral
modification. Almost uniformly, these efforts were unsuccessful. The
Soviets were always reluctant to allow specific linkages of their
53
with Western interests, and East-West tensions are melting in the
warmth of Soviet rhetoric. As long as Soviet policy continues on its
present course, it should be easier for the alliance to agree on the
desirability of further progress in the same direction. A generalized
linkage of improvements to economic benefaction to the Soviet Union
should then be a manageable alliance objective.
Is the effort worthwhile at all, in view of the unfortunate history of
leverage attempts? But Western governments and businessmen seem
eager to explore the economic opportunities presented by perestroika
and "New Thinking." To forgo an attempt to develop an alliance
economic strategy now is to risk an uncontrolled effusion of the poten-
tial energy of Western leverage under the pressures of competitive
response to Soviet blandishments. At least let us try.
2. The chief U.S.-Soviet bilateral economic issues on the agenda of
the last decade-Jackson-Vanik and Stevenson amendments, MFN and
Eximbank credits-should be handled on these principles. An
appropriate starting point, it seems to us, can be found in the apprecia-
tion of both the achievements and limitations of Soviet policy change,
as well as in the recognition of the readiness of our allies to extend
credit to Moscow on favorable terms. The positive turn in Soviet pol-
icy suggests that an American policy oriented simply to denial of
economic benefits to the USSR is obsolete; however, the limited pro-
gress of Soviet internal reform, as well as other factors noted earlier,
caution against premature Western commitment to all-out support of
Gorbachev's cause. European banks and governments are even less
amenable than they were a few years ago to arguments about the
undesirability of lending to Moscow. Under these conditions, there-
fore, Washington could end U.S. denial of Soviet access to U.S.
government loans and guarantees. Such a move would represent a con-
ciliatory gesture to Moscow, and it might also improve Washington's
ability to seek a coordinated alliance credit policy. Granting the USSR
MFN treatment need not be immediately on the agenda, but could be
visible on the horizon, if and as Gorbachev makes good on the human
rights promises of his December 7, 1988, UN speech.
3. In the initial phase of our rapidly evolving relations with the
USSR, we should still seek to minimize the transfer of military-
relevant, dual-use technology. We should emphasize in concert with
our allies sustainable export controls, recognizing that this probably
means reducing their number and maintaining the lists under frequent
review.
4. In response to continued positive change in Soviet domestic and
foreign economic organization, we should move to greater accommoda-
tion with Soviet wishes for increased involvement in international
economic organizations (IEOs), provided that the integrity of the IEOs
55
has grown greatly as the communications revolution and Soviet
glasnost have dramatically increased the exposure of Soviet
citizens to the outside world.
We can nudge the pace of internally driven change by holding
Soviet leaders up to the highest standards of their self-
proclaimed, new-found commitment to human rights. We
should welcome evidence they are living up to those standards,
condemn departures from them, and highlight remaining obsta-
cles. In this connection, the nationalities ferment unleashed by
reform in many parts of the USSR could present the West and
particularly the United States with delicate human rights policy
challenges, where it will be necessary to balance our fundamen-
tal commitment to self-determination against concern that
explosive protest could play into the hands of "law and order"
anti-reformers in Moscow.
In the long run, the evolution of human rights in the Soviet Union
will determine the upper limits on progress toward a more cooperative
East-West relationship generally, including security relations. Funda-
mental alterations in the existing international security regime will be
warranted only in the advanced stages of a process of gradual systemic
change in the Soviet Union itself, in which the overall condition of
human rights will be the most sensitive indicator.
REPRISE
To sum up, there are real and promising changes occurring in the
Soviet Union, and in Soviet foreign policies. Although future prospects
of Soviet reform and the implications for East-West relations in the
long term are uncertain, a strategy of step-by-step engagement holds
out good promise of early progress.
Where long-standing Western interests in managing East-West rela-
tions more safely, reliably, and at lower cost intersect with current
Soviet interests in providing a more congenial environment for peres-
troika, the case for engagement is compelling and unambiguous. But
while exploring the limits of Soviet cooperativeness, we should guard
against Soviet backsliding, avoid advance payments against unrealized
promises, hedge against uncertainties, and build progressively on
successes. Far-reaching alterations in existing Western security struc-
tures, alliances, and strategies, especially in Europe, will be warranted
only in the advanced stages of a process of systemic change in the
Soviet Union itself, in its relations with Eastern Europe, and in its pat-
terns of international behavior.
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506
0275
February 9, 1989
ACTION
MEMORANDUM FOR BRENT SCOWCROFT
NB
SIGNED
THROUGH:
ROBERT BLACKWILL
FROM:
CONDOLEEZZA RICE CR
SUBJECT:
Rand Report: "Managing U.S. -Soviet Relations in
the 1990s"
The letter attached at Tab III from Arnold Horelick of the Rand
Corporation forwards a recent Rand report, "Managing U.S.-Soviet
Relations in the 1990s." The executive summary is appended at
Tab II. I am making the summary available to the relevant NSC
staff members.
The report lays out three alternative futures for the Soviet
Union (limited reform, retreat and reaction or radicalization of
reform). The authors then identify four alternative Western
strategies for dealing with the USSR at this juncture:
-
Perestroika is irrelevant or dangerous: Impeded Soviet
modernization
-
Perestroika is benign: Help Gorbachev
-
The Soviet future is uncertain: Wait and see
-
The future is uncertain but the West should engage the USSR
e
The report adopts the fourth option as the most realistic
RECOMMENDATION
That you send the acknowledgement attached at Tab I thanking
Arnold Horelick for the report.
Approve Disapprove
Attachments:
Tab I
Letter to Arnold Horelick
Tab II
Executive Summary
Tab III Rand Report