Will The Cold War Fade Away?

By WALTER ISAACSON

Imagine, just as a mind game, a world without the cold war. What a strange and different place it would be! The bipolar world would grow other centers of power, ones based more on economic than on military might. Although the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. would no doubt remain competitors, their rivalry would begin to resemble the ones that have always existed between powerful nations rather than a Manichaean struggle between two profoundly incompatible views about individuals and society. This could ease the nuclear threat that has long defined the cold war. Instead, that threat could serve to define the common stake each side has in assuring the world's survival.

Such a withering away of the cold war would require a large measure of freedom within the Soviet Union to help dispel Western outrage over the way it treats the people it rules. The Kremlin would have to justify its authority by focusing on the needs and aspirations of its citizens rather than by pursuing expansionist aims. In addition, the Soviets would need to abandon the notion that their security depends on threatening the security of others. Lenin's old dictum of kto-kogo (who-whom) -- or who will prevail over whom -- would have to give way to a concept of live and let live.

Strange and different? Yes, very. But not quite as strange and different as it would have seemed a couple of years ago. Novoye myshleniye (new thinking), Mikhail Gorbachev calls this vision of a new international order. The phrase has become a standard entry in Gorbachev's lexicon, along with another mouthful: obshchaya bezopasnost (mutual security). In the world according to Gorbachev, these concepts mean rejecting the basic zero-sum, cold-war notion that any gain for one side requires a loss for the other, that security depends on making rivals insecure. "Less security for the U.S. compared to the Soviet Union would not be in our interest," he says, "since it could lead to mistrust and produce instability."

This new outlook, Gorbachev argues, is required in an atomic age. "Nuclear deterrence demands the development of new approaches, methods and forms of relations between different social systems, states and regions," he told the Communist Party Congress last year. "It is vital that all should feel equally secure." Says Professor Robert Legvold, director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University: "This is a historic juncture. Gorbachev is the first Soviet leader to link national security to mutual security, to argue that the U.S.S.R. cannot achieve security at the expense of its main rival."

Accepting this rhetoric on faith would be dangerous, but so would dismissing it outright. If only in public relations terms, it makes no sense for the U.S. and its allies to surrender the high ground. To counter the Gorbachev line, the West will need to come up with initiatives and a new terminology of its own. Above all, it must find ways to induce Gorbachev to show his hand, to reveal what changes in Soviet policy he is willing, and able, to make. So far there have been few concrete changes, and some of them -- involving a more sophisticated outreach to other countries -- actually present a new challenge to the U.S. The new era that Gorbachev busily projects would require not merely a new line and a few changes at the top, but a total transformation of the Soviet system, both at home and abroad.

Even to ask whether the cold war is over is a bit like asking, "Is God dead?" Given the brutal nature of the Soviets' aggression and their willingness to impose totalitarian systems around the world, the question can seem blasphemous -- and worse, naive. The cold war, after all, describes not just the interaction between two powerful nations but a holy struggle between two starkly opposed value systems. The phrase, first used in a speech by Bernard Baruch in 1947, implies that the relationship is, in essence, a war -- not just a rivalry between great powers but a struggle that would eventually demand the triumph of one world view over the other.

But will the cold war remain, in that sense, a war? Will the struggle that has bifurcated the world for the past 40 years continue with the same crusading fervor for the next 40? Not necessarily. The cold war has never been a stable phenomenon. Its intensity has waxed and waned over the years. The very term, as traditionally defined, now seems dated. New political and economic forces have emerged; a different set of international challenges has arisen. The Marxist model has lost much of its allure around the globe.

George Kennan, the prescient diplomat who formulated the U.S. doctrine of containment shortly after the end of World War II, ruminated at a reunion of State Department planners about how these global changes have made the East- West ideological struggle less relevant to how the world is ordered. Says Kennan, who in recent years has adopted a more benign view of the Soviet Union: "The whole principle of containment as that term was conceived when it was used by me back in 1946 is almost entirely irrelevant to the problems we and the rest of the civilized world face today." Declares Ohio University Professor John Lewis Gaddis, a noted historian of the postwar era: "What was once an ideological struggle between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. has evolved into an old-fashioned great-power rivalry that is not much different from the rivalry between England and Russia in the 19th century."

That is debatable. But Foreign Affairs Editor William Hyland, a veteran Soviet watcher, agrees up to a point. The ideological component of the East- West struggle has receded, he writes in his new book Mortal Rivals, and that could fundamentally change the way the game is played. "Ideological conflicts brook no compromises," he explains, "but power and interests are negotiable commodities."

Former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was part of a 1980 international commission that endorsed mutual security as the guiding force in East-West relations. After visiting Moscow in February, he came away feeling that the Soviets had in fact adopted this approach. "The Soviets have made a major change in both rhetoric and doctrine under Gorbachev by adopting mutual security," he says. "It runs counter to Leninist doctrine, which was that one had to achieve superiority and threaten others in order to be safe."

Those who dismiss such changes in Soviet rhetoric, says James Schlesinger, the former Defense Secretary and CIA director, are being too reflexive. "These are the very people who argued that the Soviet Union is incapable of making even those changes that have already occurred. Now they're saying Gorbachev is no different from any other Soviet leader."

The change in the Kremlin's rhetoric should not be seen as a sign that the Soviets have abandoned their belief in Communism or become converts to the West. The new tack seems motivated mainly by a realization that military competition and Third World adventurism are expensive and not all that rewarding. Keeping Cuba afloat costs the Soviets more than $4 billion a year; the Afghanistan occupation requires the deployment of close to 120,000 troops; the military budget consumes, according to some estimates, about 14% of total government spending. Gorbachev's domestic objectives will demand a massive reallocation of resources. As he told Britain's Margaret Thatcher in March, "We need a lasting peace to concentrate on the development of our society and to proceed to improve the life of the Soviet people."

There is an even deeper connection between Gorbachev's domestic reforms and his proclaimed foreign policy goals. "I don't remember who," Gorbachev said in his 1985 interview with TIME, "but somebody said that foreign policy is a continuation of domestic policy." That tenet, as he no doubt knew, was from Lenin: "There is no more erroneous or harmful idea than the separation of foreign from internal policy."

American analysts from Kennan onward have stressed their own view of the connection: the Kremlin's totalitarian domestic system, they argue, is a primary cause of its expansionist foreign policy. In order to consolidate and protect its power at home, the ruling elite finds it useful to create a hostile international environment. Richard Pipes, a history professor at Harvard University and hard-line Soviet expert who served in the Reagan Administration, is a noted proponent of this view. Says he: "Aggressiveness is embedded in a system where there is a dictatorial party that can justify its power only by pretending there is a continual warlike situation."

Gorbachev's ability to redirect Soviet foreign policy will thus partly depend on the success of his domestic reforms. If the drive for economic efficiency leads the Soviets to permit a greater degree of internal freedom, the pressure for foreign expansion could diminish. Though doubtful that this is in the works, Pipes concedes, "In the long run, changes domestically could lead to a change in foreign policy. The need for the party to justify itself by alleging a threat from abroad could disappear."

Any lessening of Soviet internal repression could alter the U.S. side of the equation. At the heart of American animosity toward the Soviet Union is a revulsion against its internal system, a belief that there is something cruel and unnatural about the relationship between the individual and the state under the precepts of Marx and Lenin. "Gorbachev seems to be rethinking precisely those things that we don't like about the Soviet Union," says Michael Mandelbaum, a Soviet expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. "If glasnost thrives, the place could change in ways that will make it easier for us to treat it as a legitimate member of the world community."

Ronald Reagan expressed this sentiment in his Berlin Wall speech last month. "We welcome change and openness," said the President, "for we believe freedom and security go together -- that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace." Assistant Secretary of State Rozanne Ridgway, though skeptical about Gorbachev's rhetoric, is likewise upbeat about the consequences if his domestic reforms turn out to be successful. "I can foresee our entire postwar agenda being accomplished," she says, "since much of what we've been trying to do is to get the Soviet Union to become more open to the movement of people and ideas."

But could successful internal changes end up making the Soviets more, rather than less, aggressive -- and eventually more effective in pursuing their global ambitions? "I don't see why we should welcome the prospect of an equally dangerous, equally malicious, equally aggressive Soviet Union with the only difference being that it will have a more efficient economy," says Richard Perle, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense. Henry Kissinger, who believes that the Soviet attempts at reform are sincere, captures the dilemma nicely: "There are two dangers for the U.S. in this program: first, that it may fail; second, that it may succeed." The U.S., Kissinger adds, should not make foreign policy concessions based on a desire to affect Soviet domestic reforms.

Those who fear that successful economic reforms would lead Moscow to renew its expansionist policies argue that, despite Gorbachev's rhetoric, the Soviet quest for security is essentially aggressive. The Russian word for security, bezopasnost, translates literally as "absence of danger." Moscow's way of achieving that state has often been to identify a danger, then crush it. As a largely landlocked nation with a history of being invaded, Russia developed an expansionist desire to control large territories. Over the years, there has been nothing as offensive as Russia on the defensive. Witness the postwar subjugation of Eastern Europe and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.

Moreover, even if Gorbachev is sincere in trying to make a significant change in Soviet foreign policy, he may fail. Traditional views about national security and global ideological struggle are deeply embedded in the Soviet military, the foreign policy establishment and the party hierarchy.

So, for the present, there is a chorus of healthy skepticism worth heeding. "The West is hornswoggling itself because of a passionate desire to believe the situation is radically altered," says Midge Decter, executive director of the Committee for the Free World. "So far it's mostly been rhetoric," argues Vladimir Bukovsky, an exiled Russian dissident now living in Britain. "Soviet leaders have not changed their view of the world." Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a policymaker during the period of detente who is now at the Brookings Institution, says that Moscow's new thinking is merely "old- fashioned thinking with a jazzed up vocabulary. It's old poison in new bottles."

Arthur Hartman, who until earlier this year was U.S. Ambassador in Moscow, is particularly troubled by the unwarranted optimism he believes has erupted. "The little evidence we have is that this guy Gorbachev is a pretty orthodox fellow." Moscow's global ambitions and its "centralized authoritarian rule" seem unlikely to change, he says. "The Soviet Union is our antagonist and will be for the indefinite future."

Such worries about Gorbachev's ultimate goals involve another Leninist byword: peredyshka (breathing space). Both Lenin and Stalin were adept at justifying tactical retreats and temporary accommodations when these suited Soviet aims, only to return to the global struggle when conditions ripened. "The No. 1 question," says James Schlesinger, "is whether Gorbachev's new thinking is intended simply to achieve a respite, a pause, so that the Soviets can repair their economy; then in ten or 15 years go back to the ideological conflict."

The Soviets have previously made similar accommodating noises that turned out to produce breathing spaces of a dismayingly short duration. Lenin used the concept of "coexistence" to justify taking Russia out of World War I. Stalin subscribed to the doctrine of "collective security" against Hitler in the 1930s and then secretly negotiated a pact with the Nazi dictator.

Perhaps the most relevant historical analogy is the thaw promoted by Nikita Khrushchev in the late 1950s, when he was pursuing his internal reforms. That was when the phrase "peaceful coexistence" gained currency. Both sides professed their realization that they had a stake in preventing war. The quest for nuclear parity began with the limited test-ban treaty negotiated under Khrushchev, which led to the era of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and detente under Brezhnev. But Khrushchev's thaw turned out to be more rhetoric than reality. He crushed the Hungarian rebellion, built the Berlin Wall, deployed Soviet missiles in Cuba, directed Moscow's missile buildup and pushed a strategy of fostering pro-Soviet revolutions in the Third World.

Is there, then, any reason to believe that Gorbachev's talk of "mutual security" is more credible? In theory at least, there is one significant difference. The Khrushchev-Brezhnev doctrine proclaimed that the armed truce between the superpowers did not mean the end of the global "war" between Communism and capitalism. As Khrushchev said in 1963, "Peaceful coexistence not only does not exclude the class struggle, but is itself a form of the class struggle between victorious socialism and decrepit capitalism." Khrushchev also put this point in more typically blunt terms: "We will bury you." The "wars of national liberation" that he pursued produced an expansion of Moscow's influence in the far corners of the world.

Gorbachev sounds very different from Khrushchev. As he told an international peace group earlier this month, "Every nation has its own interests, and it is necessary to understand this reality. Refusing to recognize that is denying peoples the right of free choice." He also declared, in last year's Party Congress speech, "It is inadmissible and futile to encourage revolution from abroad."

Such a change would in part be merely a recognition of reality. Moscow's model of Marxism-Leninism has proved to be a failure. In North Korea, North Viet Nam and most of Eastern Europe, societies in which Soviet-inspired socialism has been imposed have fared miserably compared with their capitalist neighbors. Says Hyland: "The Soviet state can no longer offer ideological inspiration to the world." Some Soviets now claim to realize this. As one of * their diplomats based in Washington puts it, "There is less of a temptation to enforce our own model on others, because we are questioning our own model."

Sounds great. But all this can be proved out only in action. Gorbachev's proposed thaw will differ from the Khrushchev variety only if Moscow's apparent flexibility on arms control proves real, and if it reduces its militarist meddling in the Third World.

A group that might be called the hopeful skeptics believes that even limited changes in the Soviet attitude could be useful -- especially if the West is skillful in exploiting them. Even if the Soviets are merely seeking a breathing space, it may be quite long, given what they seek to accomplish. This could lead in unexpected directions. "It doesn't matter that much what present intentions are," Schlesinger says. "When one introduces change and the forces that go with it, one may not be able to return to original intentions."

That could depend on how the West deals with the Soviet desire for a respite. "I can't deny that this may be seen by them as a breathing space," says former President Jimmy Carter. "But sometimes there is a temporary accommodation that turns out to be long lasting, if handled right." Advises Hyland: "It is the task of Western strategy to make Gorbachev pay a price for this interlude -- a price in concessions that will advance strategic stability and the settlement of regional conflicts."

So far, the U.S. has been paralyzed in reacting to Moscow's new line partly because, as on so many foreign-policy issues, the Reagan Administration is divided. On one side are the hard-line skeptics, particularly in the Pentagon and on the National Security Council staff, who dismiss Soviet pronouncements as meaningless. On the other are those who believe that the U.S. should come up with ways to test Gorbachev to see if he means what he says.

The foremost advocate of this "show-me" school is George Shultz. The Secretary of State first met Gorbachev in March 1985 and was impressed with the marked difference in his outlook. "Here's the first postrevolutionary, postwar, post-Stalin leader," Shultz told colleagues, adding that he was "fascinated by what that could mean for the relationship." Most leading members of Congress tend to agree. Says Tennessee Senator Albert Gore: "It's impossible to learn how sincere they are without careful testing."

Of what, exactly? Just what concessions should the West seek as a way to determine how much reality underlies Gorbachev's rhetoric? Among the areas to explore:

Conventional Forces in Europe. Although the Soviets are now hesitating, perhaps in response to Reagan's current political weakness, one test is already close to bearing fruit: Reagan's "zero-option" challenge to eliminate Soviet and American nuclear missiles from Europe. The removal of medium- and shorter-range missiles, however, would weaken the West's capacity to deter a conventional Soviet attack. Thus, the key to the Soviets' intentions, in the words of James Schlesinger, lies in how they answer the question "Are they willing to bring about an alleviation of the military threat against Western Europe?"

The Soviets claim to be. Gorbachev has called for reducing conventional arms to a level of "reasonable sufficiency." Said he: "In the European building, every apartment is entitled to protect itself against burglars, but only in such a way as not to demolish the next-door apartment." His top propagandist, Alexander Yakovlev, is even more forceful about cutting conventional forces. "We are prepared for the most radical steps along these lines," he told New Perspectives Quarterly, a California-based political journal. Encouraging words -- but in more than 13 years of negotiations with the West over mutual troop reductions, the Soviets have not agreed to remove a single soldier from Eastern Europe.

One factor that cannot be changed is geography. If Moscow simply pulls some of its tanks and troops out of Eastern Europe, this will do little to ease the long-term threat that the overwhelming Soviet numbers could pose to Western Europe. What is required is a basic change in the way the Soviet Union deploys its military forces: a shift from an offensive-force posture to one that is structured for defensive purposes. Senator Gore, who visited Moscow in June, reports that the Soviets seem willing now to discuss deployment tactics. "They offered to talk about restructuring of forces on both sides to lead to a defensive posture," he says.

Stragetic Nuclear Forces. The critical question, says Hyland, is whether Gorbachev is willing "to recognize something along the lines of our version of stability." That would require the Soviets to cut their huge arsenal of silo-busting warheads, which pose a first-strike threat that could pre-empt the ability of the U.S. to retaliate. Some Soviet officials say they have come to accept the U.S. concepts of parity and are willing to go further by cutting back to a level of "minimal deterrence." That would involve each side keeping only enough weapons to assure that it could retaliate credibly. The weapons would be deployed in a manner, such as atop single-warhead mobile missiles, that made them less of a first-strike threat.

The main challenge will be finding some accommodation on Star Wars. The Soviets have inched away from their across-the-board opposition to Strategic Defense Initiative research by hinting that they might permit some testing, perhaps even in space. Kissinger argues that finding a middle ground is impossible because Washington's goal is to deploy SDI and Moscow's goal is to do away with the program; a long delay, he argues, would in effect kill it. But Schlesinger, who does not believe that a delay in deploying SDI would necessarily be fatal to the program, says the outline of a grand compromise is already in place: "No deployment of SDI for ten to 15 years, carefully specified limitations on the testing of components outside the laboratory, and a 50% reduction in offensive weapons carefully contrived to reduce concern about a first strike."

The Third World. New military agreements, as important as they are, would not be a true test of whether Gorbachev's words signify a real transformation of the cold war. That would require a tangible change in the Soviet Union's expansionist use of force, especially in the Third World. University of Michigan Professor Matthew Evangelista writes in the Nation magazine that in the new edition of the Communist Party program, "Soviet support for national liberation movements has changed from promises of economic and military assistance to expressions of 'profound sympathy.' "

The Soviets have, in fact, seemed somewhat cautious about the military support they now provide Nicaragua. But so far Moscow has been unwilling to abandon the Sandinistas or other Third World clients, claiming that U.S. aid to anti-Marxist forces prevents peaceful settlement of local conflicts. As Oliver North argued in his testimony last week, Cuban troops, serving as the Soviet "mercenary army," are stationed in Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia and South Yemen. Testing the Soviets' true intentions will be tricky; the manipulation of Third World proxies is not an issue that lends itself to formal negotiations. Assistant Secretary Ridgway has been overseeing a series & of talks, initiated at Reykjavik, aimed at resolving regional disputes. "So far," she says, "nothing new of substance has emerged."

Afghanistan. One clear-cut case is Afghanistan, which Ridgway calls a "symbol of what is troublesome to the West about Soviet conduct." Gorbachev has proclaimed a desire to withdraw from what he called a "bleeding wound," and the Soviets have even hinted that a national unity government might involve inviting back King Mohammed Zahir Shah, deposed in 1973. Yet their highly publicized pullout of 6,000 troops from Afghanistan last fall was an ill- disguised sham. Other soldiers soon took their place. The crucial test is not whether the Soviets will agree to a cease-fire, which would merely ratify the occupation, but whether they will permit a new government not under Moscow's thumb.

The Middle East. The Soviets continue to advocate an international peace conference, and the idea has recently gained momentum. But the U.S. has been wary. Administration officials fear that Moscow, which continues to back the P.L.O., would use such a conference to expand its influence in the region and ultimately control the meeting to favor Arab aspirations. The Soviets sent an eight-member consular team to Israel last week. The mission marks the first time an official Soviet delegation has visited Jerusalem since Moscow severed relations with Israel over the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The Soviets may soon be the only major power to have contact with all of the parties, including Israel, moderate and radical Arab states, and the P.L.O.

Economic Cooperation. How far are the Soviets willing to go to join the international economic community? Here too their words are surprising. They profess to be interested, for example, in participating in such capitalist cabals as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the International Monetary Fund. The question is whether they are willing to make the substantial accommodations involved. Says Peter Peterson, former Commerce Secretary under Richard Nixon and now chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations: "For GATT, this would mean having market prices for commodities in order to prevent unfair dumping practices. For the IMF, this would mean, among other things, being open about the size of their gold reserves."

More than 60 years before the Bolshevik Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of Russia and America that "each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world." Thus it has been for 42 years since the celebratory meeting of Soviet and American troops on the Elbe River at the end of World War II gave way to the deadly distrust of the postwar era.

If, perchance, some of the ideological underpinnings of that struggle are beginning to fade away, the rivalry could become far more manageable. Unlike other great international rivals, the U.S. and the Soviets have little serious conflict over commercial markets. And despite the struggle for political influence, both sides share an interest in calming certain regional disputes, like the Iran-Iraq war.

Even if Moscow's actions fall far short of its rhetoric, there are forces outside the control of either superpower that are fundamentally changing the nature of the cold war. With nuclear weapons an unusable tool, the military might of the two countries has become less important in shaping global relations. In terms of economic influence and total share of global production, the status of the two superpowers is already declining.

In addition, the growing commercial clout of the developing industrial world has made such countries less susceptible to superpower domination. So too has rising nationalist sentiment. "Quietly, erratically, the capacity of the developing regions to resist intrusion and to shape their own destiny has been increasing," notes University of Texas Professor Walt Rostow, who was Lyndon Johnson's National Security Adviser.

Gorbachev has shown that he understands the challenges this phenomenon presents. Unlike his recent predecessors, he has assiduously courted commercial and political relations with Asian countries. In a speech last summer in the Pacific port of Vladivostok, he declared that the "Soviet Union will try to invigorate its bilateral relations with all countries in the region, without exception."

Gorbachev will also be seeking better relations with non-Communist countries in a trip to Latin America that may occur later this year. That would make him the first Soviet leader ever to visit mainland Latin America. As in Asia, he is thus presenting the U.S. with a new type of challenge: a competition for friends and influence that is conducted by diplomatic courtship rather than through wars of national liberation and covert military activities. The old style of Soviet diplomacy, which tended to be clumsy and naysaying, was often actually helpful to America. A more sophisticated and flexible style will mean tougher competition for the U.S. Under what has been dubbed the Reagan Doctrine, the U.S. has attempted to counter traditional Soviet military expansion. But can it now come up with bold diplomatic initiatives that match Gorbachev at his new game?

This question is most critical when it comes to Western Europe. A European missile deal could be seen as "decoupling" the defense of the U.S. from that of its allies. Gorbachev's new accommodating line could also lull the West into a false sense of security and endanger the cohesiveness of the Atlantic Alliance. By employing the very opposite of cold war tactics, the Soviets could conceivably make more headway than ever in pursuit of their long- standing goal: gaining influence throughout Europe.

Given what is now known, the West cannot afford to let down its guard. The Soviet armies and the Kremlin's worldwide apparatus of subversion are not about to melt away. But if Gorbachev can show that he is serious about changing the ground upon which the superpower competition will henceforth be waged, the West should be pleased: the new playing field is one on which the Soviets are still amateurs. For if the rivalry evolves from one based on military assertion into one dominated by the force of ideas, the appeal of values and the potency of economic systems, then the U.S. and its allies have much to gain and little to fear.

With reporting by Strobe Talbott/Moscow