Distressing Signals On Summitry

(Washington, D.C.): The Center for Security Policy views with concern the announcement by President George Bush yesterday that he will hold an informal, "non-summit" meeting with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev on 2-3 December 1989. The following are among the issues raised by this announcement that are likely to prove troublesome for U.S. security policy and interests:

• There are reports that the Bush Administration has been put on notice by Mr. Gorbachev that he wants "patience and cooperation" when he is obliged to take steps euphemistically described as "seem[ingly] inconsistent with his goal of democratizing Soviet society."
  • In other words, Gorbachev is preparing to crack down on dissent and the burgeoning demands within the USSR for democracy and independent national entities and wants assurances that the United States will neither interfere nor make such actions costly to the Soviet leadership.

   

  • Under these circumstances, a policy intended to "help Gorbachev" seemingly at any cost could be interpreted by the Soviets as but a further signal from the Bush Administration that it is prepared to look the other way on the coming repression. This view is likely to be reinforced by the Bush Administration’s willingness to meet with the Soviet president on an urgent basis. It is reasonable to believe that such a perception will help to encourage Moscow’s repression.

   

  • This state of affairs begs several questions: Does the President believe a Soviet crackdown is imminent? What does he intend to do if it occurs? Is the purpose of this meeting the creation of a modus vivendi that will insulate what is being hailed as "the positive momentum" of U.S.-Soviet relations from such an eventuality?

   

  • As a practical matter, there is no such thing as a non-summit. It is naive to think that any meeting of the leaders of the two superpowers — no matter how informal the setting or how hastily prepared — can be prevented from taking on the risky qualities of a summit.

   

  • If anything, as the Reykjavik meeting revealed, the more informal and the less well-prepared the meeting, the greater the danger of ill-considered proposals being taken up and, possibly, agreed to.

   

  • What is more, it is fanciful to suggest that even informal meetings at this level do not have agendas. The Soviets will surely come with an agenda in mind; the United States would be very badly served were its representatives not to do likewise.

 

 

• With this meeting only a month away, the lack of time for systematic preparations is distressing. Typically, that means the process for thoroughly vetting proposed initiatives and other agenda items through a rigorous interagency mechanism is simply short-circuited. In the past, that has produced a host of dubious ideas to which the United States suddenly finds itself wed.

 

• This concern about the Bush Administration’s approach to decision-making is heightened by several previous actions — actions that suggest a pattern of behavior of which the non-summit idea appears to be but the most recent example.
  • These ill-advised decisions include: the recent conventional arms control initiative including unverifiable limits on aircraft and committing NATO to negotiate on short-range nuclear forces; the decision to accelerate withdrawal of U.S. chemical weapons from West Germany when such an action is judged by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to entail "serious risk;" and the confused U.S. role in the recent coup in Panama.

   

  • They all appear to be borne of a process whereby decisions are made by a handful of senior officials in isolation from other govemment experts and with extreme secrecy.

   

  • When combined with publicly misleading statements (such as those made in recent months about the inadvisability of hastily arranged, unstructured meetings between U.S. and Soviet leaders), this process tends to raise unfortunate questions about the integrity, consistency and accountability of U.S. government decision-making.

 

 

• Fully as troubling is the evident lack of coherence about the purpose of this "non-summit." Statements that it did not occur to the Administration that such a meeting might have political benefits for President Gorbachev simply do not ring true.

 

• In the aftermath of recent Administration speeches (notably those made by Secretary of State Baker and those not made — or disavowed — by Deputy National Security Advisor Bob Gates and Vice President Dan Quayle, respectively), it is probable that a central feature of this meeting will be a range of initiatives aimed at "helping Gorbachev/perestroika succeed."
  • This is an area in which Administration policy-making is in particular need of rigorous analysis and deliberation. The United States simply cannot afford to make decisions affecting its vital economic, financial and technological security interests on the fly.

   

  • In the absence of such careful decision-making, this meeting is likely to see some or all of the following: movement toward the waiver of Jackson-Vanik; the USSR’s exclusion from the provisions of the Johnson Debt Default Act of 1934 by negotiating an unfavorable settlement on defaulted Soviet debt to the United States; a commitment to advance Soviet observer status and eventual membership in the GATT, IMF and World Bank; encouragement of U.S. investment in and trade with the USSR through Eximbank and/or OPIC guarantees; relaxation of export controls on militarily relevant high technology; facilitation of Soviet entry into the U.S. securities markets; agreement to provide active American assistance to the strategic Soviet energy sector; and other actions.

 

 

• The Administration’s implication that arms control issues are supposed to be relegated to the formal summit represent either naive or wishful thinking; the Soviets can be counted upon to exploit this meeting as yet another opportunity to aver new flexibility (in all likelihood, as was the case at the recent Wyoming ministerial, without actually adopting it) and to demand U.S. concessions in return.

 

• By the same token, the president’s characterization of formal summit next year as an "arms control summit" is most troublesome. The United States has historically avoided acceding to Soviet pressure to place U.S.-Soviet meetings "at the summit" in an arms control context.
  • It is particularly troublesome that President Bush would choose to do so at this time. The President has already created expectations that a START agreement, chemical weapons treaties and/or conventional force reductions might be available for signature by that time.

   

  • His inference yesterday that the upcoming summit meeting is where major accords should be signed will inevitably be construed as a deadline for completing some, if not all, of these agreements. Past experience has taught that such deadlines greatly complicate the task of maintaining quality control in such negotiations.

 

 

• The choice of venue for this "non-summit" may prove nearly as ill-considered as the meeting itself. Holding the meeting on U.S. and Soviet warships will call enormous attention to the presence of such vessels in the Mediterranean. This happens to be an issue the USSR is anxious to promote as a new area for arms control — either as part of a conventional forces agreement or as a new naval arms control accord.
  • Either way, the constraints on the free transit or number of U.S. vessels permitted to operate in or near European waters is not in the interest of either the United States or its allies.