A Baker-Gorbachev Plan? Taking Moscow “Off-The-Hook” In Central America

During the upcoming summit in Havana between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Cuba’s Fidel Castro (2 – 4 April), the world will in all likelihood be presented with newspaper headlines such as: "Gorbachev Proposes Sharp Unilateral Cuts in Aid to Nicaragua: Seen as Baker Victory." Gorbachev will be seen as acceding to the Bush Administration’s recent public demand that Moscow reduce its massive support for the Sandinista regime. This demand is a centerpiece of the U.S. government’s controversial new "bi-partisan" policy toward Central America.

In fact, what is in train appears to be a highly profitable Soviet strategy aimed at strengthening its balance sheets across the globe by shifting the financial burdens of communist empire to Western accounts. Western governments and lending institutions are permitting the USSR to alleviate its crushing economic obligations without contracting Soviet spheres of influence. The practical effects of the West’s aid to destitute Soviet clients is to replace the subsidies they are accustomed to receiving from Moscow.

The Bush Administration may unwittingly be about to hand Gorbachev yet another foreign relations coup. The high profile posture recently adopted by President Bush in demanding reductions in Soviet economic support for Nicaragua suggests that the United States government has already obtained assurances that the USSR would make such "unilateral aid cuts." The public announcement by Gorbachev in Cuba that this demand is being met would be construed as a triumph of U.S.-Soviet diplomacy. If realized, however, such a Baker-Gorbachev plan would amount to a shortsighted publicity stunt for the Administration — one with potentially dangerous long-term consequences for America’s vital interests in its own hemisphere.

The West’s Misguided Largesse

Since 1981, on the order of $1.5 billion in grants and concessional loans have been provided to Nicaragua in hard currency from Western governments, multilateral institutions and banks. (Interestingly, this figure grotesquely dwarfs the total amount provided the contras during the corresponding period.) This financial underwriting of impoverished Soviet client states — principally by U.S. allies — undermines the very fabric of this country’s security interests. It has, nonetheless, been tolerated by successive U.S. administrations who have preferred a "go-along-to-get-along" approach with allied nations.

The Sandinistas will not suffer as a result of the new Baker-Gorbachev plan. Anticipated Soviet cuts in assistance to Nicaragua (possibly on the order of fifty-percent or more) will likely be fully offset by a major financial assistance package from Italy to be announced shortly, coupled with a similar package being actively reviewed in Bonn.

Ditto the Military Dimension

The Sandinistas also need not fear cutbacks in Soviet military deliveries (probably part of next week’s announcement by Gorbachev). Since 1981, the Soviets, East Europeans, and Cubans have shipped prodigious quantities of weapons to the Sandinistas, turning Nicaragua into a gigantic military warehouse. These arms deliveries have been far in excess of any conceivable definition of that country’s legitimate defensive needs. The Sandinistas have used such massive shipments to create the most formidable military machine in the region; today, Managua fields armed forces that dwarf the armies of all the Central American democracies). The political, as well as military, purposes to which such excessive capability can be put is evident in the Sandinistas’ ability to export large quantities of weapons to subversive forces in El Salvador and other countries.

The Soviets’ Script for the Baker-Gorbachev Plan

The Baker-Gorbachev plan will be used by Moscow to accomplish the following:

• the off-loading of a major portion of the financial drain represented by impoverished client states on extremely limited Soviet hard-currency earnings (1988 Soviet expenses in Nicaragua reportedly exceeded $1 billion);

 

• replacement of Soviet financial assistance to Nicaragua by West European and other Free World sources;

 

• lifting in due course of U.S. economic and diplomatic sanctions against Managua and possibly even Havana;

 

• de facto U.S. acceptance of the consolidation of a Moscow/Havana/Managua axis and the attendant U.S. abandonment of the Monroe Doctrine which has traditionally closed the Western hemisphere to intervention by outside powers;

 

• for the first time, with the effective elimination of the contras, unchallenged Soviet access to military bases on the mainland of the Americas; and

 

• successful emplacement of a huge Soviet arms cache in Nicaragua, readily available for use in El Salvador, Panama and elsewhere.

A Global Strategy

Moscow’s "international perestroika" gambit is being replicated across the globe — in Cuba, Poland, Hungary, Vietnam, Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique among others. Such a policy amounts to an effective restructuring and transfer of client-state financial obligations from Soviet to Western books — without losses in Moscow’s political/military control.

Where Do We Go From Here?

It is to be sincerely hoped that President Bush will not permit his stated objectives for this vital region to be subverted in the manner described above. Recent White House statements sharply contradict such a Soviet agenda; the long-term interests of the United States require that the Administration’s policy actions are as good as its words.

In any event, the Congress should hold hearings immediately on the national security implications of any such Baker-Gorbachev plan and the precise extent of "international perestroika" being perpetrated on Soviet terms. The Administration and the Congress should give careful consideration to blocking all Western financial assistance to Managua as well as any significant expansion of East-West economic and financial relations until genuine democracy and free enterprise have been fully established in Nicaragua.