Agenda For The CSCE Meetings In Paris: Three Steps Backward On European Security?

Introduction

On 18-19 November, President Bush and the leaders of thirty-four other countries interested in European security matters will meet in Paris. This meeting will be held under the auspices of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), an organization expected by some to become a cornerstone of a new "post-Cold War" European order. The informal, if not the formal, agenda may be said to include three components:

First, CSCE’s enthusiasts (notably, the Soviet Union, France and certain European neutrals) hope that that organization will come to supplant NATO’s military command structure and the disintegrating Warsaw Pact. In their view, CSCE should become the principal vehicle for preserving peace and for conflict resolution in the region. An important topic for discussion at this meeting, therefore, will be whether the role and mechanisms of CSCE should be enhanced and, if so, through what means (e.g., substantive, diplomatic, bureaucratic, budgetary, etc.)

Second, a highlight of the Paris meeting will be the signing of a new agreement limiting Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE). This accord, with its promise of sweeping — and asymmetrical — reductions in Soviet military personnel and equipment in Central and Eastern Europe, represents the most ambitious multilateral arms control accord ever undertaken. It is already being viewed as a prelude to still more draconian cuts in a CFE II agreement and as a key step in the transition from a Europe with NATO and the Warsaw Pact to one whose security interests are managed by CSCE.

The CSCE meeting, with its high profile and atmosphere of arms control-induced bonhomie, is also likely to serve one other significant purpose. The Soviet Union will try, probably with considerable support from the Bush Administration among others, to use the occasion as a giant fund-raiser, aimed at slowing — if not reversing — the USSR’s disastrous economic decline.

Obviously, each of these three facets of the Paris meetings has significance for U.S. interests in Europe. Unfortunately, it is far less clear that those interests will actually be enhanced by what is likely to ensue from the CSCE meeting.

CSCE vs. NATO

Starting in 1954, when Moscow first proposed a Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Soviet Union has hoped that CSCE would weaken the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and reduce the influence of the United States in Europe. In pursuing this objective, the USSR could usually count on the support of France (which, while a member of the political side of the NATO alliance, had little love for an organization dominated by Washington) and the neutrals and non-aligned (notably, Sweden and Austria).

As the Warsaw Pact has begun to disintegrate in the aftermath of the revolutions of 1989, the Kremlin has become more insistent than ever that NATO must cease to operate as a military alliance. As the threat from the East is perceived to wane, supplanted by a sense of shared European interests in peaceful relations, this Soviet demand is ever more favorably received in Western circles.

By its very nature, however, CSCE cannot serve as an effective substitute for the NATO military command and collective security structure that has kept the peace in Europe for over forty years. CSCE is essentially a diplomatic entity which includes neutral and communist nations. It operates on the basis of consensus; any country, no matter how small or how unjustified its position, can create organizational paralysis.

Even if new institutional arrangements could be fashioned to circumvent this problem, it is inconceivable that an alternative would emerge in which command of nuclear weapons and any veto power would not be shared with the Soviet Union. In all likelihood, such a right would ensure that CSCE could not act when it was most needed, i.e., in the run-up to a conflict. (Some have concerns on this score about the ability of even an organization like NATO; matters would, in any event, be infinitely worse under the sort of lowest-common-denominator approach entailed at CSCE.)

Even after the START and CFE agreements, the Soviet Union will retain enormous nuclear and conventional force inventories. In the absence of genuine democratic and free market systems in the Soviet Union, Moscow will continue to have the political mechanisms needed to order short-warning aggression and the ability to allocate resources to support it. Under such circumstances, the United States and its West European allies are going to continue to require a military alliance like NATO to ensure the effectiveness of collective defense against such aggression.

What is more, CSCE may not provide even a political mechanism which facilitates the emergence of such defense systems in Central and Eastern Europe. The application of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to participate as sovereign states in the Paris meetings could be a case in point. If this request is not honored, it will be but the most recent example of the role CSCE plays in preserving the status quo. All too often, this Establishmentarian approach is pursued in the name of preserving "stability" — despite the fact that, in so doing, the organization is aiding and abetting those who would deny others the liberties and economic opportunities so prized by most CSCE members.

Conventional Forces in Europe

There are numerous, serious problems with the CFE agreement that will be signed in Paris at week’s end. The following are illustrative:

• Obsolete Symmetry: The CFE Treaty’s symmetrical treatment of U.S. and Soviet forces, on the one hand, and of NATO and Warsaw Pact forces on the other, stands in stark contrast to the emerging political situation on the ground. The revolutionary developments in Central Europe and inside the Soviet Union itself have had the effect of fundamentally altering the premises concerning "equality" and "equal levels" that underpinned CFE negotiations.

 

Accordingly, there is no longer any reason why symmetry should be accepted — let alone codified — between Soviet occupation forces in former satellite states and United States forces stationed at the request of democratic allies. Neither should a CFE accord treat levels of U.S. forces deployed to defend such allies in the same way as are those of the Soviet Union postured to suppress their own people at home.

 

• Unwarranted Legitimization of Soviet Forces in Eastern Europe: Eastern Europe’s newly democratic and independent governments have firmly rejected the legitimacy of the Warsaw Pact and of any and all Soviet force presence on their own sovereign territory. Most have fashioned bilateral agreements with Moscow that require a one-year schedule for the more expeditious and complete withdrawal of Soviet arms than that provided for by the seven-year CFE accord.

 

• Undesirable Legitimization of Large Soviet Forces in the Western USSR: Within the Soviet Union’s Western Military Districts, independent, sovereign republics have been declared by the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Moldavia, and the Baltic states — all of which reject the dominance of the Soviet central government and its military apparatus.

 

• East of the Urals Sanctuary: The Soviets are moving tens of thousands of pieces of limited military equipment (including tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers) to sites east of the Ural Mountains, beyond the inspection and destruction zone defined by the CFE Treaty. This action — which invites unanswered questions about who has ordered it and why — significantly reduces the impact of CFE’s reductions on actual Soviet military capabilities. At the very least, it must be assumed that such weaponry will remain available to move west should the Soviet government take a more aggressive turn. In contrast, far smaller quantities of U.S. equipment are being moved, principally to the Middle East and, to a lesser degree, to the United States. As a practical matter, the return of such equipment to Europe would be extremely problematic.

 

• Soviets Entitled to Disproportionate Share of Treaty-Limited Equipment: For the express purpose of reducing the Soviet Union’s predominance within its alliance, the Reagan Administration proposed maximum "sufficiency" levels of 30-40 percent for any one nation’s share in each category of treaty-limited equipment. Incredible as it may seem, the Bush Administration has agreed in the final text to permit the USSR to retain as much as 66% of the limited equipment in the affected region.

The CFE Treaty also suffers from an extreme case of a familiar U.S. negotiating disease — what might be called "end-gameitis." With less than five days to go to the signing ceremony, serious issues (such as those bearing on verification of the accord) remain to be resolved. This is, as the Soviets say, no accident; they have learned that in such circumstances, the United States (and its negotiating partners) typically indulge in feverish concession-making in order to obtain an agreement. The greater the pressure to finish — never more intense than when a summit is hanging in the balance — the more certain it is that whatever quality-control the American team previously exercised will go over the side.

Finally, the CFE agreement is clearly envisioned as the first step in a process that will lead to still further reductions of U.S. forces from Europe and constraints upon any permitted to remain — notably, through naval arms control. These steps, while consistent with the logic and spirit of the present agreement, are neither in the interest of U.S. security nor that of a peaceful European continent. This is so since, even if all U.S. and Soviet troops were removed from Central and Eastern Europe, the underlying geographic asymmetry ensures that Moscow will always be far better positioned to reinsert its power into Europe than the United States will be to resist such a development.

Economic, Financial and Technological Aid to the USSR

In its own way, the Western campaign to assist Mikhail Gorbachev with economic, financial and technological resources is fully as sinister as the counterpart diplomatic efforts at CSCE and misguided military initiatives embodied in the CFE accord. As with CSCE and CFE, the net effect of the fund-raising dimension of the Paris meetings is that it will likely help shore up the central authorities in the Soviet Union at the expense of those pressing for genuine democratic, free market reform at the local and republic levels.

In an address to the Center for Security Policy on 30 October 1990, former Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger put the issue starkly. He asked:

Will we do as Mr. Gorbachev demands — namely, "encourage reform" by giving money and technology to the central authorities he leads? Or will we, instead, throw our lot to the maximum extent feasible with his opponents who are the democratic leaders in the republics, the reformers and the free marketeers? These are the people who know Gorbachev best, have lived under his rule and are arduously seeking something better.

The fact that the West is being asked to choose sides has become even more clear within the past few days. The Washington Post reported in its 13 November 1990 editions that:

…Gorbachev and [Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai] Ryzhkov, while prepared to make concessions to the republics on political matters, are determined to maintain control over the main economic levers, such as banking, monetary policy and the formulation of a central budget. Indeed, they apparently regard the power to allocate economic resources as their trump card in forcing the republics into line and preventing the breakup of the Soviet Union. (Emphasis added.)

Interestingly, on 10 November 1990, Ryzhkov gave the Baltic states a one-week ultimatum to abide by Soviet laws, accept Soviet taxes and participate in Gorbachev’s hard currency fund to be used to pay off Soviet payment arrearages. Should Vilnius fail to meet this deadline, Ryzhkov warned, it would face a renewal of the economic and financial blockade that ravaged the Lithuanian economy and slowed the drive for independence earlier this year.

While U.S. interests in the triumph of genuine democrats and free marketeers over those who seek to preserve centralized rule of the restive peoples of the Soviet Union should be self-evident, the Bush Administration appears determined to provide the authorities in Moscow center with some or all of the following:

• "emergency" food aid assistance and Commodity Credit Corporation credits;

 

• access to higher levels of dual-use technologies, including state-of-the-art engineering work stations with distinct military applications;

 

• accelerated assistance with Soviet energy extraction and production;

 

• a trade agreement granting the USSR Most Favored Nation status, even though conditions recognized by President Bush concerning emigration and Lithuania have not been met;

 

• U.S. Export-Import Bank loans and guarantees and Overseas Private Investment Corporation investment insurance;

 

• access to the U.S. bond market for Soviet securities and expanded call on the resources of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; and

 

• direct aid through the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Should President Bush convey during his meetings with Gorbachev and others in Paris a willingness to provide such assistance to the USSR, the effect would likely be a substantial, further stimulus to expanded economic, financial and technological flows to the Soviet Union from the European Community, Japan, and perhaps even Saudi Arabia.

Such a position in favor of direct aid to Moscow would contrast sharply with the stance the President properly struck just four months ago at the Houston Economic Summit. What is more, thanks to the rapidly declining condition of the Soviet economy, the U.S. taxpayer exposure that would result from such aid would be even greater than that Mr. Bush found unacceptable such a short time ago.

Recommendations

The Center for Security Policy strongly recommends a different approach on each of these three issues. The common theme in the alternative approach is for the United States to use every tool available to it to advance democratic, free market forces and to refrain from taking steps that would undercut such forces.

CSCE: The United States should encourage the participation in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe of all East European nations or Soviet republics wishing to be represented in Paris. This would certainly include the Baltic States, who have made their desires on this point known, and may also involve the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Russia and Moldavia.

Under no circumstances should the United States agree to organizational arrangements or formal work programs that would have the effect of shifting a greater degree of the responsibility for collective security from NATO and its command structure to CSCE (or any subordinate group).

CFE: The United States should not be in the business of signing arms control agreements that might facilitate — or otherwise legitimize — the Soviet Union’s retention in Central and Eastern Europe and the western republics of the Soviet Union of forces and equipment not wanted by the peoples of those regions. What may have been an acceptable agreement prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall and of the declarations of independence of new republics can no longer be viewed as acceptable.

Instead, the U.S. position should mirror the desire of those peoples — namely, to secure the expeditious and complete removal of Soviet forces from all of the occupied countries of Central and Eastern Europe. This should apply as well to those now slated to stay on the territory of the former East Germany through 1994, notwithstanding the agreement Bonn was dragooned into accepting as the price for Soviet "consent" to reunification. Similarly, Moscow’s forces east of the Urals should be constrained in some way to as to mitigate the effect of recent circumvention actions should the rulers of the Kremlin revert to a more aggressive policy line.

In these circumstances, the terms and conditions of a CFE Treaty would be far different than those now contemplated. While the need for an effective Western deterrent to Soviet aggression would remain, as would the requirement for effective verification of treaty provisions, the job of performing both would be much simplified — as would the task of consolidating democratic and free market-oriented governments in each of the affected countries. In any event, the United States should reaffirm its refusal to enter into naval arms control agreements either as a free-standing negotiation or as part of a CFE II accord.

Bailing Out Gorbachev: Finally, Western economic, financial and technological resources should not be provided to the central authorities in the Soviet Union. They should, instead, be supplied — on a disciplined and transparent basis — to those who are demonstrably committed to effecting the systemic, genuinely democratic political and market economic transformation of the USSR.

The success of such individuals, enterprises and officials at the local and republic levels is the best hedge against anarchy or repression inside the USSR. Under no circumstances should U.S. taxpayers’ money be squandered in a futile effort to prop up those in the Kremlin who remain committed to failed policies, who have squandered past assistance and who have been repudiated by their people whenever free elections have been held.