An Editorial Where's the Threat?

By John T. Correll, EDITOR IN CHIEF

RITING in the Washington Post February 14, Patrick about self-rule. They are pulling out because they were beaten, WCockburn of the Carnegie Endowment for International unable to subdue the Afghan rebels after eight years of trying. Peace declares that Kremlinology is a dead art. Mr. Cockburn Mr. Gorbachev will take the cheers where he can get them, but argues that we no longer need to analyze scraps of information this is not the conclusion he would have chosen to the Afghani- or search for subtle clues to understand Politburo intrigues. stan adventure. The pullout will be seen within the Soviet The increasing openness of information in Moscow, he says, is power structure and among Third World client states as a making it possible "to report Soviet politics much like any- defeat. where else" as the "great fortress" built by Lenin and Stalin is Mr. Gorbachev's own explanation of the reform movement is dissolved. in his 1987 book, . Some interesting points shine This is but one example of the bright new image that the through the propaganda. "Any hopes that we will begin to is projecting to the world. General Secretary build a different, nonsocialist society and go over to the other may encounter resistance at home to his camp are unrealistic and futile," he writes. "Those in the West programs of ("openness") and perestroika ("restruc- who expect us to give up socialism will be disappointed. It is turing"), but the reaction abroad has been enthusiastic and high time they understood this and, even more importantly, loud. Mr. Gorbachev has been given credit beyond his due for proceeded from that understanding in practical relations with progress in arms control. His international reputation as a the Soviet Union." peacemaker will no doubt be enhanced further as Soviet inva- He says that the "inevitable evolution" of human society sion forces withdraw from Afghanistan. progresses from feudalism through capitalism to socialism. Against this backdrop, many people will be inclined to dis- Revolutions and liberation movements will emerge to hustle miss warnings of a Soviet military threat as a fantasy. The real the evolution along, he says, but the "hand of Moscow" has fantasy is believing that the Soviet Union has suddenly turned nothing to do with this. He acknowledges some "difficulties benign. In its latest analysis of Soviet military power, the and complexities" in Hungary in 1956, in in Defense Department reports that "we have seen no evidence of 1968, and in Poland in the 1950s and 1980s, but reminds us that the USSR changing the offensive nature of its force structure "a return to the old order did not occur in any of the socialist and deployment patterns. Military output has not been re- nations." duced, nor has military spending decreased." Remember how the Kremlinologists, before they became Available facts indicate that the Soviet military machine is obsolete, kept telling us that a primary Soviet objective was to bigger and more threatening than ever and that force moderni- drive a wedge between the and Europe? In his zation is proceeding full tilt. Growth is especially noticeable in book, Mr. Gorbachev makes a special pitch to those who share ground forces, which now total 211 active divisions. More "a common European home" that reaches "from the Atlantic amply provisioned than ever, these forces are prepared to to the Urals." sustain combat for sixty to ninety days in Europe and for more Western Europe, he urges, should "quickly get rid of the than 100 days in the Far East. The Soviet Union maintains fears of the Soviet Union that have been imposed on it," 50,000 tons of poisonous substances, the world's largest chem- disassociate itself from "the dangerous extremes of American ical weapon stockpile. The current five-year plan (1986-1990) policy," and reassert the independence that has been "carried ensures that military-related industries will continue to ex- off across the oceans." He sympathizes with Europeans about pand. the "onslaught of mass culture from across the Atlantic . . . The Soviet Union remains an imperialist, totalitarian state. primitive revelry of violence and pornography and the flood of As Mr. Gorbachev comes close to admitting, the Soviet econo- cheap feelings and thoughts." my is a basket case. Communism is in retreat wherever people Lest anyone take this as naked anti-Americanism, he adds have free choice. Without the intimidating threat of Soviet that "our idea of a common European home certainly does not military power, how long would the non-Slavic socialist re- involve shutting its doors to anybody. True, we would not like publics and the satellite nations of Eastern Europe stay in the to see anyone kick in the doors of the European home and take Kremlin's fold? Would Western Europe treat Soviet initiatives the head of the table at somebody else's apartment. But then as gingerly as it does today? On what basis would a peaceful that is the concern of the owner of the apartment." Soviet Union hold its position as a superpower? To help build the common European home, Mr. Gorbachev There is, of course, a genuine element of change in perestroi- says "we are raising the question of broad scientific and tech- ka. Mr. Gorbachev has some real problems, and the present nological cooperation." He regrets that "artificial barriers are apparatus isn't helping him solve them. The main change, being erected in this area" and says his concern applies "first though, will be in approach and tactics. The Soviets do not and foremost to electronics." (Score another one for the seem to be moving an inch on basic objectives. All of Mr. Kremlinologists, who said that the Soviets would use glasnost Gorbachev's voluntary moves have been to strengthen Soviet and perestroika as smokescreens to acquire Western technolo- power, not to weaken it. He did not agree to the European gy, especially electronics.) missile drawdown—a Western proposal—as a concession to It seems abundantly clear that the Soviet Union does not the West, but rather because he believed that it was the course mean us well and that it has plenty of wherewithal to do us of greatest advantage to the Soviet Union. harm. In the old days, the Kremfinologists used to call that a The Soviets are not leaving Afghanistan because of idealism threat. • 6 AIR FORCE Magazine / June 1988