Squeezing the Soviets

An angry Carter struggles to put new pressure on the Kremlin

Crossroads. Watershed. Turning point.

These are all terms being used by U.S. experts as they grope for some way to define and explain the momentous events that have suddenly engulfed the international arena. What is clear is that the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan has heightened world tensions to their most serious level since the Viet Nam War, and perhaps even before

Soviet forces continued to subjugate Afghanistan last week, and some crack units took up stations perilously close to the Iran and Pakistan borders. At the same time, a flotilla of five Soviet warships was spotted steaming through the Sea of Japan, apparently on its way to reinforce the Soviet fleet contingent in the Indian Ocean. No less worrisome were the medical bulletins from Belgrade, reporting on the rapidly deteriorating health of Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito, 87. Without Tito, who broke with the Kremlin in 1948, Yugoslavia might fall prey to internal conflicts that could inspire another Soviet intervention. This very specter seemed to rise last week with reports of troop movements inside the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe.

But another possibility was also rising: that the aggression by the men of the Kremlin is causing a global reaction of such force that it may halt or at least squeeze the voracious Soviet bear. Outrage mounted in the U.S., while at the United Nations the U.S.S.R. suffered a humiliating defeat in which it was abandoned by dozens of its Third World friends. By week's end it had become clear that, though the invasion of Afghanistan had stunned the world, the world's reaction had startled the Kremlin. A drive to boycott the Moscow Olympics was gathering momentum, and that would badly tarnish the sports spectacle on which Soviet leaders have been counting to gain a measure of international respectability. On Sunday Jimmy Carter announced that he had sent a message to the U.S. Olympic Committee proposing that the Games be moved, postponed or cancelled unless the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan "within a month."

No one has been more intensely involved in the urgent task of analyzing and evaluating the new crisis and planning a counteroffensive than Carter. Instead of stumping through Iowa in a last-minute effort to woo supporters for this week's important Democratic Party caucuses, the President barely got out of the White House last week (34 members of his staff and family, however, campaigned extensively for him in Iowa). Believing that the world may be at a juncture from which a new global balance of power could emerge, Carter is determined that America must take the lead and chart a course into the suddenly uncertain and perilous future.

Throughout the week, he telephoned foreign leaders, conferred with his top advisers and with some of the nation's most experienced experts on international relations. Drawing on this counsel, the President drafted a major foreign policy speech that will, according to White House Press Secretary Jody Powell, examine "the implication of these crises for American policy at home and abroad." It will call for a sustained, long-term response to what the White House has increasingly come to regard as a major Soviet challenge.

This new formulation of U.S. foreign policy, which may become known to history as the "Carter doctrine," was to be unveiled Jan. 23 in a televised presidential address to a joint session of Congress. Carter's foreign policy speech would ordinarily be part of the State of the Union message. However, the domestic sections of the constitutionally required annual assessment were scheduled to be sent, in typescript, up to Capitol Hill two days before the speech. By thus splitting the State of the Union address, Carter left no doubt that his new top priorities are foreign policy and defense. This amounts to an almost total reversal of the stress on domestic issues that characterized last year's State of the Union speech.

Congress is expected to applaud nearly unanimously the President's shift in emphasis. As the legislators return to Washington from their month-long recess and the chance to meet with their constituents, they will be bringing with them some of the fire and resentment Americans feel over the Soviet aggression in Afghanistan and over Iran's abuse of the 50 U.S. hostages. Indeed, last week's New York Times-CBS News poll revealed that 67% of the respondents thought the U.S. should "get tougher in its dealings with the Russians"; only 53% felt this way in June 1978. Even more significant, a solid plurality believed, for the first time in two decades, that the U.S. is not spending enough money on defense needs.

This new mood, according to Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd of West Virginia, will affect the whole new session of Congress. For example, according to Byrd, the concern about the Soviet Union's expansionism could help to pass Carter's major energy bills and the windfall-profits tax on oil companies. It will also eliminate just about all opposition to a 5% increase in the Pentagon budget. "The Soviets took care of that--in Kabul," said Byrd. A senior Defense Department offcial agreed. Said he, beaming: "We're going to get all the money we now need. The Congress will throw it at us. Our problem will be to see that we spend it for the right things."

Round the globe, other nations were also anxiously reassessing the international situation in the wake of the Soviet move into Afghanistan. One nearly universal conclusion: the U.S.S.R. is an aggressor and must be so branded. All Washington's allies, though hesitant about joining the U.S. in retaliatory measures, sharply denounced the Soviet action. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said: "We cannot just stand back and see Russia do what they have done in Afghanistan." West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, in an address to the Bundestag, used some of his strongest language so far to condemn the Soviet aggression. He warned that it not only "directly affects the interests of the Third World and adjoining countries" but also "has an unavoidable effect on Europe and us in Germany." In Melbourne, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser asserted that the Soviet action "poses dangers to world peace greater than any in the past 35 years." He called on the nations of the world "to show that a line can and will be drawn against Soviet expansion." Even Indira Gandhi, India's newly re-elected Prime Minister, who at first seemed to back the Soviet move, told a New Delhi press conference last week that no "country is justified in entering another country."

But the most startling manifestation of global outrage was last week's (United Nations General Assembly vote on a resolution denouncing the Soviet invasion and calling for "the immediate, unconditional and total withdrawal of the foreign troops from Afghanistan." By the overwhelming ratio of 104 to 18 (with 30 either abstaining or absent), the resolution passed, handing Moscow its most serious U.N. setback since the 1956 condemnation of the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Dozens of Third World states that have long followed the Moscow line almost automatically on international affairs last week went on record against the U.S.S.R. Commented a senior West German official in Bonn: "That's the advantage of Afghanistan."

Despite all the talk in recent years about the world's having changed into a place with several centers of power, the dominant relationship still is that between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Thus it was to Washington that other nations were looking for leadership. The Administration was clearly angry. Even Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, whose penchant for using delicate diplomatic language is legendary, sounded stern. Said he: "The Soviet Union clearly crossed a threshold in its action." He warned that "they are going to have to pay a cost as long as their troops stay in Afghanistan. In addition, they are going to have to realize that this kind of action is going to be met by a firm and protracted response so that such adventures will not happen in the future."

But it was Carter who used almost every opportunity to blast the Kremlin. To a White House Conference on Small Business, for instance, he said that "we are outraged that ... armed forces of the

Soviet Union have launched a massive invasion of the small, nonaligned country of Afghanistan." Later, at a ceremony in which he gave 20 scientists the National Medal of Science, he lashed out at the Soviet Union for its lack of freedom. Declared Carter: "Even with its efforts to identify scientific talent early and to develop it, [the U.S.S.R.'s] repressive political system still stunts scientific progress."

Moscow responded with even more vitriol. In a statement to Pravda, Soviet Communist Party Leader Leonid Brezhnev accused Washington of launching "a shameless anti-Soviet campaign," being "outright hypocritical" and telling "mountains of lies" about the Soviet action in Afghanistan. Said the Kremlin's aging chief: "The impression is increasingly forming in the world of the U.S. as an absolutely unreliable partner in interstate ties, as a state whose leadership, prompted by some whim, caprice or emotional outbursts ... is capable at any moment of violating its international obligations."

As Carter worked on the speech that would provide his answers, he immersed himself in history, reading up especially on how previous Presidents and other world leaders had responded to similar crises. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was in and out of Carter's private office as many as a dozen times daily, while Secretary Vance, according to an aide, just about "moved over to the White House." Other top aides served as sounding boards for the President's ideas, as did veteran foreign policy experts from outside the Administration, like Clark Clifford, the former Secretary of Defense, who has counseled every Democratic President since Harry Truman.

Alternating with Carter's planning sessions came a series of actions designed to start mobilizing the nation and its friends in the face of the Soviet threat. Early in the week Carter played host to Spanish Premier Adolfo Suarez at a 90-minute working lunch in the Cabinet Room. The Spanish leader had flown to Washington specifically to demonstrate support of the U.S. during the Iranian and Afghan crises. On Wednesday, Carter huddled for half an hour with Egyptian Vice President Hosni Mubarak and examined the possibilities of regional cooperation to restrain possible Soviet advances in the Middle East. The two men also discussed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's offer to provide U.S. military forces with facilities in Egypt.

To East Africa and the Middle East, Carter dispatched a new team of military experts, as a follow-up for an earlier group, to take a detailed second look at airfields and ports that might be used by U.S. troops during an emergency. Meanwhile, the President's special envoy for the Middle East, Sol Linowitz, prepared to depart for that troubled region this week to meet with the area's leaders.

The U.S. also dusted off a 1959 treaty with Pakistan, which declares that in the event of "aggression against Pakistan," the U.S. "will take such appropriate action, including the use of armed forces, as may be mutually agreed upon." In addition to reaffirming the U.S. commitment to Pakistan's security, Carter will soon ask Congress for $400 million in economic and military aid to Pakistan over the next two years.

On other fronts related to the new effort to squeeze the Soviets, White House staffers were about to begin talks with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the CIA'S new charter. Carter now wants the charter to relax some of the restrictions that impede covert operations. The CIA will be needed to play a key role in many potential anti-Soviet moves, such as supplying the Afghan rebels with arms. For this reason, the White House is also seeking repeal of a 1974 statute, passed near the height of the anti-CIA campaign on Capitol Hill, that requires the President to consult with eight separate congressional committees before ordering the agency to engage in secret operations overseas.

The success of the Administration's moves against the Soviets will depend in part on how much cooperation Washington gets from its allies. So far, however, their talk has been matched by very little action. After a hastily arranged four-day swing through Western Europe, Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher returned to Washington last week with just a few concrete promises. The nine-member European Economic Community pledged not to undermine the U.S. grain embargo against the Soviet Union, for example, but did not agree to reduce any of its own grain sales. Moreover, action on such commodities as poultry, pork and butter is only going to be "reviewed" by the allies, as is the possibility of more strictly limiting the sale of high-technology items to the Soviets. On the parallel matter of possible economic moves against Iran, each of the allies merely offered "to do what was possible to carry out the spirit of the sanctions."

Thus with the exception of the British, who have already declared themselves ready to take economic measures against both the U.S.S.R. and Iran, little other immediate help seems likely. West German Chancellor Schmidt even confirmed that he had no intention of delaying his long scheduled state visit to Moscow this March. Tokyo, too, seems ready to back the U.S. with little more than rhetoric, and even that is now being couched with traditional Japanese delicacy. Said Japanese Foreign Minister Saburo Okita last week about moves against Iran and Moscow: "All Japan can do is to express displeasure by taking appropriate measures. But such Japanese action would not, in any sense, be tantamount to rigid sanctions or retaliation." In fact, Japanese officials indicated that they would do little to impair their lucrative economic relations with either Iran or the U.S.S.R.

To explain Western Europe's excessive caution, Karl Kaiser, director of the West German Association of Foreign Affairs, stressed "a natural and inevitable difference in perception." He noted that "the U.S. is a world power and looks at the issue globally, while Western Europeans inherently are more concerned with the European situation." In Bonn's case, there is a legitimate fear that a drastic deterioration of East-West relations could create new pressures on West Berlin, make it more difficult for West Germans to visit relatives in East Germany, and lead to a cutoff of the steady repatriation from Poland and the U.S.S.R. of tens of thousands of ethnic Germans. There is also a compelling economic consideration: last year's West German-Soviet trade totaled $7.6 billion. As for Paris, it insists as usual that it will pursue its own policy toward Moscow rather than follow the U.S. lead. Declared French Foreign Minister Jean Franc,ois-Poncet: "France is not America's farmyard."

There is an irony to this lack of allied support. For some time, the West Europeans, and particularly Germany's Schmidt, have sharply criticized Carter for being soft and indecisive. But now that the President has begun acting like the leader of the West, key allies are balking. Said Schmidt to an aide: "Carter is running around, tightening here, tightening there, without knowing what the results will be, without stopping to think what the effects could be on Western Europe."

This allied passivity, some argue, may be an early form of "Finlandization." But whether it genuinely reflects popular attitudes is open to question. In fact, there were mounting signs last week that the West German and French public sided with the U.S. Said Political Scientist Pierre Hassner: "Public opinion is ahead here. The people are really taking these events seriously, and the governments of France and West Germany look as though they are clinging to old notions. They are out of touch with their people on this issue." Across the border, Frankfurt's respected Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung editorialized that "the question now is whether the friends and allies of the U.S. will show the required degree of solidarity, even if it is at their expense. At least an attempt must be made to contain Soviet arrogance."

Implicit in the process of forging a new approach to America's foreign relations is a scrutiny of the policies that have guided the Administration up to now. One unavoidable question: To what extent did Washington itself bring on the current crisis? Some experts charge that the Administration underestimated the Kremlin. They argue that Secretary of State Vance and his Soviet affairs specialist, Marshall Shulman, dismissed Soviet interference (either direct or with Cuban proxies) in Angola and Ethiopia as simply opportunities that were too tempting for Moscow to ignore. The long-range consequences of such moves would not necessarily be serious, the State Department often said, because the Soviets had on several occasions been expelled from countries they had seemed to be dominating. Chief examples: Egypt, Sudan and Somalia.

One of the most forceful critiques of such assessments of the Kremlin comes from Malcolm Toon, a recently retired career diplomat who served as U.S. Ambassador in Moscow for three years. Says he: "We have tended to shove aside our real perception of the Soviet threat. We have underestimated the competitive aspects of the relationship and overestimated the cooperative ones." He urges the U.S. to have no "illusions that the Soviets are, like us, interested in world peace and reducing tensions."

Apparently Toon was nudged out of his Moscow post last October because Washington was annoyed by his repeated warnings of potential Soviet aggression. He told TIME: "It seemed obvious to us in Moscow that the Soviets regarded Afghanistan in their vital interest and would move in with all their power to protect that interest." The State Department, however, asserts that Toon's cables called a Soviet invasion "very unlikely."

The Administration also might be faulted for sending unclear signals to Moscow and frequently changing direction. For example, Carter, in a major foreign policy speech at the U.S. Naval Academy in June 1978, simultaneously warned the Soviets of U.S. strength and appealed for compromise, leaving observers wondering whether he was waving a saber or an olive branch. The dovish stance he seemed to be taking when he canceled the B-1 supersonic bomber and indefinitely postponed production of the neutron warhead appeared to be contradicted by his approval of the MX mobile missile and his frequent denunciation of Soviet human rights violations. Part of the problem has been that Carter has been receiving almost diametrically conflicting advice from his two top foreign affairs aides, the generally conciliatory Vance and the relatively hard-line Brzezinski.

Many experts believe that Carter's zigzagging policy has confused, irritated and at times infuriated the Soviets. But it is also possible (and the two points are not contradictory) that the fumbling U.S. policy led Moscow to conclude that it might be able to take advantage of a President who appeared so unsure of himself.

Another element that may have contributed to the current crisis is the Administration's declining ability to use force. The steady drop in defense spending for almost the entire decade after 1966 has limited the President's capacity to deter or respond to Soviet adventurism. Similarly, the President has been deprived of considerable flexibility in pursuing policy because of the statutes, enacted in the mid-1970s, that restrict his deployment of U.S. troops overseas and his covert use of intelligence agents. Indeed, the erosion of American strength is a fact that is now openly trumpeted by Moscow. A communique issued two weeks ago by the Kremlin at the conclusion of a visit by French Communist Party Boss Georges Marchais proclaimed: "The principal fact of the current world situation is the change in the balance of forces. That is a powerful encouragement for the development of the class struggles in the world."

Administration aides do not deny that mistakes have been made. But they stress the gains achieved by Carter, especially in the Middle East. Says White House Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan: "Imagine the position that our country would be in today in responding to the situation in Iran and Afghanistan if Egypt and Israel were headed toward another war. Or if we lacked a solid relationship with the Saudi Arabians. Or if we had not yet normalized our relations with the People's Republic of China." Still, the Soviet march into Afghanistan jolted Carter so badly that he seems to have recognized the inadequacy--even the inherent contradictions--of some of his previous policies. Tempting as it might have been last week, he indulged in no recriminations against those whose advice he had followed. There was too much work to be done on formulating a new policy toward the Soviet Union.

This new U.S. policy, like every other foreign policy, will be composed of a mixture of those instruments that influence the behavior of nations. The precise mix--running from reward to punishment, moral suasion to force--is what gives a policy its distinctive character. In international relations, the toughest instrument is, of course, armed might. With world tensions now running very high, the ability to apply force would appear to be an especially useful foreign policy instrument. Said a State Department official last week at Foggy Bottom: "There are no doves left in this building."

In confronting potential Soviet aggression, the key military consideration for the U.S. is the President's ability to dispatch well-equipped troops to endangered areas quickly. Carter would have great difficulty doing this today. Although the U.S. has a very powerful Army, Navy and Air-Force, it actually is short of the ships and planes needed to transport large numbers of troops rapidly overseas. It also lacks sufficient quantities of ammunition, weapons, fuel and other battlefield supplies. It is to end these shortages that the Administration, after several years of delay, has asked Congress to move quickly to appropriate some $10 billion over the next five years for a Rapid Deployment Force. If Congress approves the new program, the first new forward-deployed supply vessels could be ready in 1983.

Before then the U.S. could attain the ability to fight at short notice in troubled areas by establishing new military bases overseas. Henry Kissinger has suggested that "in addition to whatever arms we give Pakistan, we ought to discuss with Pakistan the possibility of establishing some American air and maybe naval bases in that country." He feels that the presence of U.S. troops will reassure New Delhi that the military supplies that would be shipped to Pakistan would not be "suitable for a war of aggression against India." The use of military force is almost always a last resort. Indeed, the main efforts of the nation's diplomats almost certainly would be to check Soviet expansion without having to order Americans into battle. There are a number of methods available. Among them: > Washington could orchestrate a broad anti-Soviet diplomatic offensive. To sustain this, the U.S. would have to court much of the Third World assiduously, playing on its fears of Soviet aggression and stressing the advantages of friendship with the U.S. A major obstacle to forging such an anti-Soviet front in the Third World, however, is the still volatile Arab-Israeli situation. Especially troublesome has been the inability, so far, of Egypt and Israel to agree on a formula that would grant Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip the autonomy mandated by the Camp David accords. Says former Under Secretary of State George Ball: "As long as that West Bank thing continues to fester, there isn't a chance of our having decent relations with the states in the Middle East."

>Washington could mount economic pressure on the Soviet bloc. Says Harvard Soviet Expert Adam Ulam: "We might stop helping the East European clients of Russia and thereby put more pressure on the Soviet economy." In his memoirs, Kissinger noted that the West has never seriously tested whether the Soviets would prefer economic development to foreign adventures. For such a policy to have impact, however, the NATO allies would have to cooperate on economic measures to an unprecedented extent. > Washington could further cement its ties to Peking in order to create new uncertainties on the U.S.S.R.'s eastern border. During his visit to China earlier this month, Defense Secretary Harold Brown pointedly stated that Moscow's new aggression could prompt the U.S. and China to coordinate their military as well as their diplomatic response to the Soviet threat. Indeed, Washington is already buzzing privately with some talk of a U.S.-Chinese military tie. Congress seems ready, moreover, to grant Peking most-favored-nation trade privileges.

The Soviets may have invaded Afghanistan because they thought the risks were small, and they may have been startled and dismayed by the world's strong reaction. In light of the past week's events, however, it is just about impossible to imagine the Kremlin misreading the mood of the Administration and the nation.

Jimmy Carter not only is angry but intends to stay that way, according to his White House aides. Says one: "Even if the Soviets get out of Afghanistan quickly, he wants to keep many of these punitive measures in place for a long time." Indeed, even a withdrawal of the Soviet invading force, which would presumably occur only after the imposition of total Soviet authority, would neither erase the original aggression nor make the U.S.S.R.'s jittery neighbors rest any easier. A re-establishment of stability in Southwest Asia can only come from a sustained effort by the U.S., its allies and other concerned states. For this, Jimmy Carter must take the lead--something he now seems ready to do.

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