Why the Russians Do What They Do

AS he sat through one long emergency session of the 15-man Politburo after another, Leonid Brezhnev may well have felt a twinge of envy at Richard Nixon's evident power to make quick foreign policy decisions on his own. Despite his pre-eminence as Secretary General of the Soviet Communist Party, Brezhnev is a member of a collective leadership whose decisions are reached only by consensus. Last week those deliberations were especially arduous, as Russia's ruling council coped with its most complex challenge in a decade: how to respond to the U.S.'s mining of North Vietnamese harbors.

Nixon's move forced the U.S.S.R. to choose between ideological commitment and pragmatic self-interest--and self-interest, apparently, determined that the initial response be a comparatively mild one. The U.S. action had threatened an ally of the Soviet Union that claims to be embarked upon that purest of Communist crusades, a national war of liberation. On ideological grounds, Hanoi clearly qualifies for an extraordinary amount of comradely assistance, and has received it partly because Russia wants to keep North Viet Nam out of Peking's orbit of influence. But an overly harsh Soviet reaction would imperil its more important prospects of improving relations with the capitalist West--and might lead to a military showdown with the U.S. in a part of the world where geography does not work to Russian advantage.

Still another problem facing the Soviet leadership was how Russia, as a world superpower, could give a measured response to the crisis without seeming to be indecisive or impotent. A decade ago, the Soviet Union was compelled by the threat of vastly superior U.S. arms to back down in Cuba. Russia has now reached parity with the U.S. in weaponry, but it has also built up a network of global obligations and offsetting commitments that serve as a check on any adventuristic impulses.

Peacetime Policy. For Brezhnev and the other Russian leaders, the latest Viet Nam crisis could hardly have come at a more crucial moment. Under his guidance, the Soviet Union has begun the broadest peacetime policy of accommodation and conciliation with Western Europe and the U.S. since the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917. Brezhnev's own prestige, and perhaps his position as party leader, is linked to the success of that policy. Within the next few days, two important diplomatic developments are scheduled to take place. One is the visit of Nixon to Moscow; the other, or so the Kremlin hopes, is West Germany's ratification of the treaties of Warsaw and Moscow, which acknowledge Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe (see following story).

Despite the worries in Washington about how the Kremlin would react to the mining, some Sovietologists were not surprised that the initial Russian reaction was a relatively moderate statement of disapproval that jeopardized neither the West German vote nor Nixon's visit. The Soviets did their best to maintain a business-as-usual attitude. For example, Marshal Andrei Grechko, the Defense Minister, flew to Syria for a four-day visit. The reason is that for the past three years, Moscow's foreign policy has been based on three major considerations:

FEAR OF CHINA. The Russians, who keep 44 divisions backed by nuclear missiles near the Sino-Soviet border, have been obsessed by fear of the Chinese threat since the border battles along the Ussuri River in 1969. They are even more alarmed by the prospect of a Washington-Peking alliance that would leave Russia isolated. Hence the Russians are reluctant to undertake any action that could either completely alienate the U.S. or give the U.S. and China a common cause.

CONCERN FOR DETENTE. The Soviets apparently believe that their own position, both economic and political, will ultimately be strengthened by improving relations with Western Europe --provided that those relations do not cause an erosion of Soviet power at home and in the East bloc. Accordingly, the Russians are seeking to present the image of a benign and reliable neighbor to Western Europeans, who fear an eventual U.S. military pullout and are eager to strike as favorable a deal as possible with the Russians while Moscow is still willing to bargain. The underlying Soviet political motive, however, is not exactly benign. It is to stabilize Europe along its present borders and create an atmosphere of relaxed tensions that would accelerate U.S. military withdrawals, thus leaving Moscow the dominant superpower in Europe. Moscow is therefore much interested in the proposed Conference on European Security, at which the nations of Europe, plus the U.S. and Canada, would--if the Russians have their way--agree to recognize the present borders in Central and Eastern Europe that were carved out by the Red Army in World War II.

BETTER U.S. RELATIONS. The Russians still suffer from a deep-seated ambivalence toward the U.S. They do not mind seeing the U.S. bled in Viet Nam, but they also want to create a new basis for doing business with Washington. In any crunch, the Soviets are almost certain to opt for better relations. In addition to their fears of U.S.-Chinese collusion, the Soviets are motivated by economic self-interest in wanting to bring the nuclear arms race under control via the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, now under way in Helsinki. A first-phase pact covering anti-ballistic missiles and an agreement setting ceilings on the number of offensive missiles could be signed at the Moscow summit. The Russians would also like to have U.S. economic and technological help.

To a greater degree than in most other countries, Soviet foreign policy aims arise from domestic needs. One reason for Nikita Khrushchev's fall from power was his boundless, and groundless, belief in the Soviet ability to overtake the U.S. economically. By contrast, Brezhnev, Premier Aleksei Kosygin and other party leaders are aware that their country is falling ever farther behind the West in technology. The Soviet leaders realize that they need Western technology and long-term credit to help overcome their country's backwardness and to open up the rich petroleum and other mineral deposits in Siberia. Russia has an even more basic reason for turning westward: food. Because of frost damage in the Ukraine and other areas, the U.S.S.R. expects an exceptionally poor harvest of winter wheat this year. It needs the pending wheat sales from the U.S., the largest since the cold war began, to help feed its people during the next year.

Marxist Vision. Aside from such considerations, the Soviet response to Viet Nam is likely to be tempered by Moscow's conviction that its side is winning in Southeast Asia. In all likelihood, the Kremlin regards Nixon's quarantine of North Viet Nam as a last-ditch effort that will have no decisive effect on the outcome of the war. Hence the Soviets can afford to be patient; they are confident that Hanoi possesses sufficient equipment and will power to win such decisive victories on the ground that Nixon will have no choice except to sweep up his mines and go home.

Such a scenario fits in nicely for propaganda purposes with Marxist tenets about the death throes of imperialism and the inevitable victory of Communism. Yet even if the situation does not work out exactly that way, it would be quite unlikely that the Soviets would use their own military might in Viet Nam to try to prove the correctness of the Marxist dogma.

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