Alexei Arbatov What Lessons Learned?

Commentary Alexei Arbatov What Lessons Learned? Looking back at the recent history of Soviet-U.S. relations is not only fascinating but instructive when coping with current and future issues. Ambassador Jack Matlock’s chapter on the last, but crucial, turning point of the cold war in 1980–1983 is written with impressive knowledge, thoughtfulness, and a subtle touch of personal experience and involvement. In the early 1980s, as the two superpowers and their allies were sliding into yet another round of dangerous confrontation, no one could imagine that only a decade later the cold war would be over and communism would collapse, while Russia and the West would embark on an unprecedented course of economic, political, and military cooperation with the goal of becoming strategic partners and even allies. Likewise, very few in the early 1990s would have predicted that ten years later Moscow and Washington would again enter a state of high tension and bitter controversy across a broad range of issues, treating each other with distrust, misunderstand- ing, and revived stereotypes of the cold war. Understanding the domestic and external driving forces of these inexorable dynamics and learning what is good or bad for Soviet- U.S. relations is a great challenge for thinkers in both countries. Jack Matlock’s essay is a valuable contribution to this endeavor. Why did the de´tente of the first half of the 1970s collapse and give way to a new phase of the cold war in the first half of the 1980s? Matlock quite correctly points to the 1979 Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the U.S. reaction to it, as well as the U.S. failure to ratify SALT II, which shocked the Soviets. Furthermore, he rightly explains that Americans reacted vehemently because ................. 16548$ COM1 11-06-07 10:07:40 PS PAGE 40 What Lessons Learned? 41 they viewed the invasion of Afghanistan as final proof of the deep and unacceptable divergence between U.S. and Russian definitions of de´tente. The United States considered that de´tente implied a broad cooperation on economic and security issues, restraint in arms buildup and intervention abroad, and Soviet softening on human rights and freedom of immigration. In contrast, Moscow believed de´tente meant U.S. credits and economic assistance unlinked from Soviet domestic affairs, security cooperation in Europe, final legalization of U.S.-Soviet strategic parity through SALT II, and unrestricted expansion of Soviet influence in the third world through ‘‘support for the national liberation movements.’’ Each side’s understanding and conduct of de´tente gravely disappointed the other; hence their return to a new round of confrontations between President Ronald Reagan during his first term and Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko on the Soviet side. But there was much more to the U.S.-Soviet rift of the early 1980s. The beginning of the last two decades of the cold war saw an unprecedented U.S. military decline following its crushing defeat in Vietnam. The U.S. defense budget was cut by 35 percent between 1968 and 1976, U.S. armed forces were reduced from 3.6 million to 2.1 million, and nuclear and conventional modernization programs were curtailed. In 1976, the U.S. military had 400,000 troops in the Asia-Pacific and other regions, a reduction of 65 percent from its 1968 level. There were growing controversies with NATO allies in Europe over such issues as the neutron bomb and the Persian Gulf. The post–Vietnam War syndrome against military intervention abroad, the failing economy and high inflation at home, and the widening split between public opinion and the administration over foreign policy and arms control culminated in the humiliation of U.S. diplomats taken hostage in Iran and the failure of the U.S. res- cue operation in April 1980. Ronald Reagan entered the White House with a clear mandate to restore American prestige and power abroad as well as self-respect, prosperity, and unity at home. In stark contrast, during these decades the Soviet Union was ex- ................. 16548$ COM1 11-06-07 10:07:40 PS PAGE 41 42 Alexei Arbatov periencing the peak of its power and foreign expansion not just since World War II but even as far back as the 1917 Bolshevik Revo- lution. By the early 1980s the Kremlin had seemingly fulfilled Len- in’s goal of making the backward rural country in the eastern backyard of Europe one of the world’s two superpowers. Having built the second largest highly centralized and militarized economy in the world with a GNP equal to 60 percent of U.S. GNP, the USSR surpassed the United States in military expenditures and possessed the most powerful army in the world, numbering 3.9 million troops and exceeding the U.S. nuclear arsenal by 40 percent (45,000 versus 24,000 nuclear weapons, respectively). The Soviet foreign military presence of 800,000 personnel in Eastern and Cen- tral Europe, Mongolia, Afghanistan, North Korea, Vietnam, Aden, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola, Cuba, and Nic- aragua, as well as naval and air force deployments in the Mediterra- nean, Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, expanded its reach across the globe. The Soviet defense industry was turning out massive quantities of weapons and equipment, lagging behind the United States only in the construction of aircraft carriers, heavy bombers, and nuclear- powered cruisers. In Europe, the Warsaw Pact had tripled Soviet superiority over NATO in conventional arms. The USSR had more weapons in certain categories than the rest of the world put to- gether, including strategic and tactical nuclear munitions, surface- to-surface ballistic missiles of all ranges, surface-to-air missiles, tanks, nuclear-powered submarines, and military space launchers. The Soviet Union led the world in foreign arms sales ($30 billion) and was the only country in the world that had active ABM and ASAT systems, a permanent space station in orbit, two nuclear test sites, and three missile space ranges. Yet beneath the surface of this impressive military power and foreign influence were serious signs of the deep internal deteriora- tion of the Communist empire. In fact, just as Soviet power reached its pinnacle, it began its decline toward eventual collapse one decade later. Besides the USSR’s wide rift with China and instability ................. 16548$ COM1 11-06-07 10:07:41 PS PAGE 42 What Lessons Learned? 43 in the occupied countries of Eastern Europe, which led to a Polish crisis in 1980, the deepening inefficiency of the Soviet economy undercut the foundations of the Communist regime and its huge defense establishment. But the sheer magnitude of Soviet Union resources dedicated to defense (approximately 12 percent of GNP and 40 to 50 percent of the state budget, compared with 5 percent and 20 percent, respectively, in the United States) was not the whole problem. As a matter of fact, the radical 90 percent reduction in Soviet defense expenditures from 1992 to 1998 did not lead to economic growth, but further exacerbated the country’s economic crisis. The crisis grew out of the organization of the Soviet economy. Massive military production, which relied on centralized planned allocation of material and human resources and strict control over prices and incomes, had become inefficient by the late 1960s. The extra revenue from foreign oil sales following the 1973 OPEC embargo had disappeared by the late 1970s. There were no sources of intensive growth through efficient capital investment or the in- troduction of high technology because there was no self-generating consumer market economy. The state-owned and state-planned economy could achieve efficiency only through meticulous regula- tion. Growing shortages of consumer goods and services, the rapidly declining quality of state social safety nets (communal services, housing, health care, and education), the falling standard of living of the general population, cultural stagnation, and massive legal emigration from the Soviet Union were irreversibly eroding the ideological foundations and political dominance of the regime. The system was collapsing because of the widening gap between its out- dated economic, political, and ideological mechanisms, and the de- mands and expectations of its urban educated populace. During the 1970s, the liberalization of Soviet society, if not the Soviet state, became intertwined with de´tente in foreign affairs and the avalanche of contacts, goods, and information coming from abroad. In another unique development of the late 1970s, the ................. 16548$ COM1 11-06-07 10:07:41 PS PAGE 43 44 Alexei Arbatov Kremlin’s foreign policy and defense programs were challenged from inside for the first time. Some departments of the foreign ministry, the academic community (the Institute of U.S. Studies, IMEMO, and the Institute of Europe), professional journals, public organizations such as the Committee of Scientists for Peace, and even members of the CPSU Central Committee began to doubt the wisdom of the intervention in Afghanistan, the massive military buildup and deployment of SS-20 medium-range missiles, the of- ficial stance on Reagan’s SDI, START and INF talks, and the reduction of conventional arms in Europe in the early 1980s. Public challenges would not arise until the Gorbachev era, but in closed sessions and in the Aesopian language used by the mass media, it was apparent that a pluralism of opinion on the most im- portant issues of national security was developing. These alterna- tive assessments undermined the traditional monopoly of the military establishment and the aging Communist leadership. Whereas formerly the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Council of Ministers, and Gosplan (the State Planning Committee) had ruled with a Stalinist iron fist, by the 1980s they had been transformed into a forum of competing lobbying groups and vested interests.

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