East-West Relations: After The War

By STANLEY W. CLOUD

The cold war officially ended two weeks ago with the collapse of the coup in Moscow and the subsequent rout of the Communist Party by reformers bearing the twin banners of democracy and Mother Russia. If it had been a hot war, some soldier might have rushed into an American general's tent, crying, "Sir, Moscow has fallen!" As it was, there was just the quiet realization that the world had changed utterly and that where East-West relations are concerned, the past was no longer prologue.

For two generations, Americans have largely defined their country and, to some extent, themselves in terms of the cold war. From McCarthyism to backyard bomb shelters, from the arms race to the space race, from Alger Hiss to the Marine spy scandal -- whatever else might have changed, the cold war abided. Moreover, it all too often metastasized into an honest-to-goodness shooting war, as in Korea and Vietnam. Now, however, only the most troglodytic right- wingers refuse to acknowledge that a new era has dawned. Says former CIA Director Richard Helms: "Years ago, when I was at the agency, from time to time I'd ask people, 'How would you feel if the Soviet Union just broke up, if there were chaos and no one was in control?' Well, now we're finding out."

For Helms and many other Americans, victory in the cold war has its frightening aspects. The Soviet implosion could leave a destabilizing void in international affairs. "If there are 15 different republics, who sits at the U.N. Security Council?" wonders Robert Hormats, a former Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs. "If there's no Soviet Union, who's the other ((Middle East peace)) sponsor? We've never seen the dissolution of an empire of this magnitude." Indeed, as a senior White House official put it last week, "it's a case of the U.S. deciding what it means to be the only superpower. For the past year, we all thought the new world order meant a partnership with the Soviet Union. Well, what if there's no partnership? What if it's a newer world order, one in which we're the only superpower? What are our responsibilities then?"

Among other things, there is a growing awareness that too little thought has been given to the kind of country the West would like the Soviet Union to be. A noncommunist federalist union, similar to the U.S. but dominated by Russia? A collection of separate, unallied states? A loose economic community of independent republics, with separate governments and defense forces but the Soviet nuclear arsenal controlled by a central authority?

The last possibility seems to be the one preferred by many officials in the Bush Administration, although wait-and-see is the only currently announced policy. "An ideal Soviet Union," says one of the Administration's Soviet experts, "would be a European version of the Organization of African Unity -- that's the best they can do." Helms predicts "a very disorderly world" just ahead, but he would like to see an "arrangement where the basic elements of the Soviet empire remained in some confederation." Others think such weighty analysis is premature. Says an exultant Burton Pines, senior vice president of the conservative Heritage Foundation: "We won! We won! And I think we ought to be able to take time out for a victory celebration."

Understandable as that sentiment may be, President Bush and his aides last week went out of their way to avoid the appearance of gloating. Whether they were discussing economic aid for the Soviet Union or U.S. recognition of the independence-seeking Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, Bush and his top advisers, vacationing in Kennebunkport, Me., sought to project what one aide termed "incredible calm and confidence." For the most part, they succeeded. The closest Bush came to patting himself on the back was when he said, "It has been fantastic. I'm wondering what we're going to do for an encore next August." Otherwise, the President played golf and had separate meetings on the Soviet crisis with Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and British Prime Minister John Major.

Bush, with support from Britain, Canada and Japan, continues to insist that large-scale aid for the Soviets be withheld until he sees significant new economic reforms, including steps aimed at the creation of a free market. The Administration argues that without such reforms, substantial new aid would be futile. That is also the official position of the Group of Seven industrialized democracies. Senior officials in Germany, France and Italy, three G-7 countries for which Soviet instability would carry particularly grave consequences, seized on the dramatic developments of the past two weeks to push for significantly higher levels of aid. But the U.S.-backed position prevailed last week at a meeting of senior G-7 officials in London. Asked about the aid question at a Kennebunkport press conference, Bush said he would continue to oppose large increases until "the cards are all laid down on the table."

The President was similarly cautious on U.S. recognition for the three & breakaway Baltic states, which were forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union during World War II. Although Canada and several other countries granted formal recognition last week, Bush, reluctant to rekindle Moscow's old fears of U.S. meddling, delayed. His hope was that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev would formally acknowledge Baltic independence. If Gorbachev fails to do so, senior White House aides say, Bush will act unilaterally as early as this week.

For all of Bush's skill in foreign affairs, there was something pinched in his response to the news from Moscow. It is one thing to be prudent; it is another to seem almost indifferent to one of the great, defining events of the century. "There's no point in arguing," says Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "This is a historic opportunity that shouldn't be missed." Several experts, including Graham Allison of Harvard University and Robert Hunter of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, have called for an updated version of the Marshall Plan to help the Soviets out of their economic crisis. Hunter calls his proposal "the Democracy Fund" and fixes the initial installment at $10 billion. "It could be the greatest bargain in history," he says. Adds Muravchik: "The time is ripe for dramatic initiatives, even at a time of domestic U.S. deficits . . . Chances like this don't come often in a lifetime."

The soaring federal deficit, which is expected to reach about $362 billion next year, is a major constraint on outright U.S. aid. So are the current political instability and the slow pace of economic reform inside the Soviet Union. Thus some economists argue that the best approach is to let private investors provide capital for economic recovery. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration has agreed to ask Congress to provide most-favored-nation trading status to Moscow, and there is a growing feeling inside the G-7 that the Soviets are now entitled to full-fledged membership in the International Monetary Fund.

Even many of those who back the President's go-slow policy argue that the U.S. ought to deliver large-scale agricultural assistance in the event of food shortages this winter. Given the food surpluses currently being warehoused at federal expense, a program of that kind would cost the U.S. Treasury little or nothing. The U.S. and the G-7 have taken modest steps in that direction and last week decided to accelerate their planning. But through it all Bush has been decidedly sotto voce.

The Democrats in Congress may try to force his hand on the aid question when they return from vacation this month. Les Aspin, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has proposed diverting $1 billion from the defense budget in order to provide humanitarian assistance to Moscow. Other Democrats have begun to revive the idea of a "peace dividend" -- major defense savings that could, if last year's budget agreement were amended, be diverted to other purposes at home and abroad. But the growing deficit, including the cost of the savings and loan bailout, makes such a dividend as elusive as ever.

For that matter, the Soviet collapse does not mean the end to all foreign security threats. "Psychologically, we don't have to worry about the red terror, nor do we huddle beneath our desks in schools during bomb drills," says Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia. "But that doesn't mean we can live in splendid isolation. Tensions abroad may justify further defense spending. The nuclear menace won't disappear. I don't see dictators going away."

Still, the possibilities inherent in the cold war's end are tantalizing. Abroad, there could be breakthroughs in areas where U.S.-Soviet competition has traditionally driven events notably in the Middle East and Indochina. Another possibility is that the world's few remaining communist governments might eventually follow the Soviet Union down the path to democratic reform. At home, a long list of neglected problems -- education, poverty, crime, crumbling highways and bridges, the spiraling costs of health care -- await action and funding. But President Bush, as usual, prefers to play the custodian rather than the innovator.

Before his recent summit meeting with Gorbachev in Moscow, Bush had decided to stand pat on domestic policy as he gears up for his 1992 re-election campaign. Subsequent events have not changed that plan -- at least not yet. For now, says an aide, "Bush's political standing starts with getting the economy right and getting foreign affairs right." That formula seems to be working: a TIME/CNN poll taken last week gave the President a formidable 68% approval rating.

Bush's continuing popularity is clearly bad news for the Democrats, whose 1992 election chances have been further dimmed by the dramatic events in the Soviet Union. Says Democratic political consultant Greg Schneiders: "It seems that no matter what happens these days, it helps Bush." None of the likely Democratic candidates have much to say on foreign affairs, even though the gulf war and Soviet upheaval have captivated the public throughout most of this year. The party can only hope that the voters' attention turns back to domestic affairs next year -- and that its candidate has a sensible program to offer. Otherwise the Democrats face a chilling worst-case scenario: that the party of F.D.R. and J.F.K. may one day join the party of Lenin and Stalin on the ash heap of history.

With reporting by Michael Duffy/Kennebunkport, Laurence I. Barrett and Bruce van Voorst/Washington