IT’S OFFICIAL: GORBACHEV IS BETTING ON BUSH TO PROP UP MOSCOW CENTER, COERCE REPUBLICS ON UNION

(Washington, D.C.): Rarely in recent
memory has a diplomatic punch been more
clearly telegraphed than that Mikhail
Gorbachev intends to lay on George Bush
at their meeting in Madrid on Tuesday. If
President Bush falls for Gorbachev’s line
this time, he stands to give new meaning
to the term “sucker punch.”

In an article buried in the back pages
of the Sunday editions of the Washington
Post entitled, “Gorbachev
to Ask Bush To Help Preserve Union,”
senior Kremlin officials indicated that
the leader of the reconfigured Moscow
center will completely abandon one of the
most sacred tenets of Soviet policy —
non-interference in the internal affairs
of the USSR. To the contrary, the Post
depicts such officials as encouraging the
United States to:

“apply clearer and more
direct pressure on the Ukraine
and other breakaway Soviet
republics to persuade
them to preserve some central
role in military and economic
affairs in the
splintering country.”

From the Horse’s Mouth

Among the highlights of this riveting
article were the following quotes
(emphasis added throughout):

“Now, for the first time, the
West has some leverage.
You are no longer
bystanders….And about the
Ukraine, I would say frankly, we
would appreciate some more
pressure.” (An
unnamed, “knowledgeable
Kremlin official”)

“If anyone now can be
forceful, it is the West. All
former republics badly need
financial assistance, economic
support and help in implementing
their reforms….The
number of options to influence
the situation are
many.” (Vladimir Lukin,
chairman of the Russian
parliament’s foreign affairs
committee)

“The signals you are giving
now are missed by the republics.
They don’t understand diplomatic
language; they’re not used to
operating in the world. You
should make it clear to them that
there are certain conditions
for admission into the world
community. (Sergei
Rogov, Deputy Director of the USA
and Canada Institute)

The West should make clear that a
prerequisite for Western aid is
“some kind of central
management of the economy.
It should be made clear to the
Ukraine and everyone else.”
(The unnamed Kremlin official)

“The problem is not
to support Gorbachev, but to
support stability.
It is not the same thing….There
are some gentle ways. I don’t
think American diplomacy lacks
for experience and sense of
measure.” (Lukin)

“We don’t ask Washington to
support central authority. We
do ask Washington to support certain
rules of the game.”
(The unnamed Kremlin official)

Bye-Bye Moscow Center?

In other words, these representatives
of the reconfigured Moscow center
recognize reality: Unless the
West uses its considerable financial,
political and technological leverage to
coerce the independence-bound republics
of the former Soviet Union into retaining
military and economic ties, the jig is up
for the central authorities.

The Center for Security Policy agrees
with this analysis. It arrives at a very
different prescription for Western
policy, however. The Center believes that
the West’s immense leverage should not
be applied to preserving the Soviet
center but to aiding those
“qualifying” republics that are
engaged in genuine democratic and free
market institution building —
actions which are, themselves, wholly
incompatible with the preservation of
retooled central authority.

For far too long prior to the August
coup, the Bush Administration eschewed
this advice. It argued that the
democratic forces at the republic level
did not constitute real alternatives to
the Gorbachev regime. Moreover, the
Administration strongly preferred to
obtain the benefits it perceived from
doing business with Gorbachev: summit
photo opportunities; dramatic (albeit
flawed) arms control agreements; Soviet
cooperation (such as it was) on regional
problems and the like.

While the folly of such an approach is
patently obvious in the aftermath of the
coup, Gorbachev and company evidently
believe they can extract a similar degree
of support — support which is, if
anything, far more essential to
their continued hold on power than
heretofore — from President Bush by
promising, among other things: support at
the Middle East peace conference; new
arms control regimes (e.g., a ban on
multiple-warheaded ballistic missiles);
and repayment of some outstanding foreign
debts. Moscow center clearly
hopes that the Bush Administration will
fail in the future as it repeatedly did
in the past to recognize that far
better terms may be obtained from
democratic and free market-oriented
republics.

No Hard Feelings But…

The Center urges President Bush to use
the Madrid meeting with Mr. Gorbachev to
make at long last the following points
concerning U.S. attitudes towards Moscow
center:

• The United States believes that
  it can — and should —
  use its economic leverage to
  encourage sweeping structural
  change in the former Soviet
  Union. Gorbachev’s invitation to
  do so simply puts to rest any
  remaining argument against
  engaging in such an effort.
• The United States is concerned
  about the command and control of
  Soviet nuclear weapons, the
  potential for ethnic strife
  inside the former USSR and the
  international implications of
  economic collapse there. These
  and related issues provide ample
  justification on the grounds of
  “legitimate”
  self-interest for U.S.-led
  intervention in Soviet affairs.
• The United States does not
  believe, however, that such
  intervention in the form of
  economic and political pressure
  applied to the Soviet republics
  should be utilized to coerce them
  to remain within a new Union.
• What is of paramount importance
  is that the republics engage in
  the swiftest and most sweeping
  structural reform possible;
  without such change, there is
  little likelihood that they will
  become economically viable (e.g.,
  able to attract and use foreign
  investment). Insofar as the
  preservation of instruments of
  Moscow center’s control — for
  example, a central bank and
  common currency — will simply
  serve to impede this sort of
  change, the United States will
  not press the republics to submit
  to that control.
• That said, the United States is
  confident that by working with
  its allies to use their leverage
  as Gorbachev spokesmen are
  suggesting — albeit for a quite
  different purpose — much can be
  accomplished. Specifically, by
  offering appropriate incentives
  to “qualifying”
  republics engaged in wholesale
  democratic and free market
  institution-building, and
  disincentives to those that are
  not, the West can help create
  conditions inside the former USSR
  that simultaneously advance
  Western interests and those of
  the Soviet people.

Finally, with regard to the question
of whether preservation of
“stability” is a sufficient
justification for propping up Moscow
center’s authority, President Bush should
call to Mr. Gorbachev’s attention the
words of one of the latter’s greatest
friends in the West, former British Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher. On 23
September 1991, she stated:

“True stability lies in
creating looser structures of
inter-national cooperation in
which legitimate nationalisms can
both express themselves and forge
links based on common interests.

“In other words…[an
appropriate concern for]
stability leads directly to
accepting the legitimacy of
nationalism as a basis for
independent statehood. National
pride, in combination with
liberty and the rule of law,
powerfully strengthens democratic
government.