Moscow Center’s Food Aid Crusade: Where’s The Beef?

The Center for Security Policy today called for a careful and expeditious review of the Soviet Union’s claims of imminent famine and inability to pay for imports of foodstuffs before the U.S. taxpayer is asked to underwrite a crash emergency food aid program for Moscow. The Center is concerned that the so-called "emergency" situation may actually amount to yet another pretext for the central authorities in the USSR to curb economic and political reform; worse yet, it may eventually serve as a justification for a military crackdown.

"I’m afraid that what you’ll see is our money, our food being squandered, or worse going to the wrong sorts," Frank J. Gaffney, director of the Center said on CNN last night. "What we would be doing by helping to prop up Gorbachev under these circumstances would be to weaken the chances for a successful, democratic evolution inside the Soviet Union."

Also appearing on the CNN Prime Time News program, Center Board member Roger Robinson, former chief economist at the National Security Council, noted, "The Congress should become involved in this issue when it reconvenes. There should also be a full interagency review by the Administration. We haven’t seen that take place yet. Finally, there is the issue of whether the Soviets can afford to pay for this grain. I think that we can make a case that they can."

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Soviet Union harvested a bumper grain crop this year of 235-240 million metric tons, up over 10 percent from last year’s 210 million metric tons. Unfortunately for the Kremlin, Soviet farmers have, in part, balked at supplying their produce to Moscow center since local authorities and more free-market oriented entrepreneurs are willing to pay producers higher prices than those set by central authorities — which have remained largely unchanged for over 15 years. This fact is in sharp contrast with the frequent assertion that transportation and other logistic distribution bottlenecks are the major causes of current food shortages.

In short, the republics and localities in the Soviet Union view forced delivery to Moscow as tantamount to confiscation of their own precious resources. As a result, Moscow and Leningrad, long the beneficiaries of a food distribution system that gave them priority over the non-metropolitan parts of the USSR, are now uniquely disadvantaged in food deliveries.

What is more, in anticipation of the economic disruptions caused by the on-again-off-again approach of Mikhail Gorbachev to economic reform, many Soviets in recent months have systematically stocked their apartments with up to 2-3 years supply of select foodstuffs and other basic necessities. As a result, a majority of Soviet citizens can scarcely be considered to be in jeopardy of imminent starvation.

With respect to food supplies being sent to the Soviet Union, the CIA estimates that as much of 50 percent of all Soviet food imports are rotting at their ports of entry for a variety of reasons. This point was acknowledged just two days ago by German Chancellor Helmut Kohl who noted that German attempts to deliver food to Soviet citizens have thus far had only limited success. Characteristically, such a state of affairs has not deterred the Germans from announcing a further $480 million pledge of food from emergency stocks in Berlin. Nor has it kept the EC from announcing its intention to offer a $1 billion financial aid package to Moscow next month "to put goods in the shops."

Worse yet, President Bush has expressed a willingness to add food aid to his increasingly desperate campaign to prop up President Gorbachev. On Monday in Paris, Mr. Bush said:

We would always be open-minded on humanitarian aid if there’s a real need there. We have certain inhibitions under United States law. But if there are food shortages, for example, and the United States was in a position to help, clearly we’d want to try. And that’s the right and humane thing to do, as a country moves towards us and relations are greatly improved, and I would want to try to help….I worry about the Soviet people during the bleak winter coming up, if indeed it proves to be as severe as some of the reports indicate….And you also want to help new friends, when you find them — if they’re in jeopardy. (Emphasis added.)

 

If the President is to be taken at his word, however, the question of Soviet need does require thorough examination. This is all the more true given the other, genuine requirements for such emergency assistance from scores of Central European and Third World countries — to say nothing of American citizens who are unable to cope adequately with rising food and energy prices during a harsh winter.

"Like a giant welfare cheat, Gorbachev is trying to muscle the Soviet Union to the head of the line for U.S. emergency assistance, pushing aside the more urgent and deserving needs of men, women, and children from some 40 less-developed countries in desperate economic straits," said Jennifer J. White, Senior Associate at the Center. "Many of these are countries whose governments have already undertaken the difficult choices associated with the transition to political pluralism and free market reforms."

Apart from the needs-test, Americans should rightly challenge the contention that the Soviet Union is unable to shift its budget priorities or use its wealthy resource base to pay cash for American agricultural products, rather than rely on the generosity of already-beleaguered U.S. taxpayers.

"It should be kept firmly in mind that the USSR is a relatively rich country in terms of its oil, gas, gold, diamonds, platinum and other highly marketable commodities," noted Robinson. "Moscow center’s decision to continue squandering national wealth on a bloated military sector — which still absorbs over 20 percent of annual GNP — an array of neer-do-well client-states worldwide, and numerous other expensive activities inimical to vital Western security interests is a major reason why Gorbachev is touring Western capitals with tin cup in hand."

The Center also notes that the Soviet Union has reaped roughly $4 billion just since August from windfall profits generated by the jump in oil prices caused by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Gorbachev’s panhandling has already brought in some $20 billion in pledged credits and aid from Germany, Italy and others since June. Thus, a rigorous analysis of the Soviet Union’s ability to dedicate available hard currency — such as an estimated $12-15 billion currently on deposit with Western banks — is essential to a determination whether U.S. taxpayer grants or subsidies of any kind to the USSR are warranted.

The Center believes that, before the American people are obliged to bail out Moscow center, a serious national debate should be held on the political, strategic and economic justification for such new, and seemingly open-ended, taxpayer losses. Specifically, the Bush Administration must answer the following illustrative questions:

• What are the indigenous structural and price reform measures that have yet to be taken that would help alleviate distribution and hoarding problems in the USSR?

 

• If the Soviet government is unable — in large measure due to an emerging economic civil war between Moscow center and the reformist republics — to control its own food distribution network, what guarantees are there that Western donated food would reach the truly needy?

 

• Under present circumstances, how could we be sure that Western food would not be diverted to feed Soviet apparatchiks or soldiers? Or to line the pockets of the corrupt central authorities?

 

• On what analytical basis is it said that the Soviet Union cannot afford to purchase U.S. agricultural products and foodstuffs by simply restructuring Moscow center’s spending priorities?

 

• Has there been any conditionality imposed whatever by the Bush Administration, or are the only spending priorities undergoing restructuring those of the United States?