SUPPLEMENTAL CLIPS: WEDNESDAY, 31 JULY 1985

WORLD POLICY JOURNAL

Summer 1985

Pg. 501

FACT AND FICTION

IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY:

REAGAN'S MYTHS

ABOUT DETENTE

Ken Booth and Phil Williams

The Reagan administration's dealings with the Soviet Union have been shaped and justified by a pervasive mythology about superpower relations during the 1970s. With no U.S. administration in recent times has the discrepancy between fact and fiction been so widespread and so apparent. What makes this tendency even more disturbing is that administration spokesmen are incorporating the myths about the past into a new set of myths regarding the administration's own "successful" handling of the Soviet adversary. It is tragic to see a nation like the United States formulating its policies and explaining its behavior by referring to half-truths, fictitious generalizations, and historical distortions. Indeed, as a result of this reliance on mythology, the United States has become isolated from its friends and allies in Western Europe, who, despite a healthy concern about the Soviet Union, assess the costs and benefits of detente very differently from the Reagan administration. Furthermore, the myths cast a shadow over the future of U.S. foreign policy: if the United States cannot accurately see the immediate past, it is unlikely to negotiate the way ahead with any success.

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Ken Booth is a senior lecturer, Department of International Politics, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK. His latest book is Law, Force and Diplomacy at Sea (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985). Phil Williams is a Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London where he is working on a project on superpower detente funded by the Leverhulme Trust. He has recently published a book on The Senate and U.S. Troops in Europe (New York: Macmillan, 1985).

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aggressors and American idealists. These primordial types have been
around for a long time. Ever since 1947, most Americans have seen the
Soviet regime as not simply another adversary in the game of nations,
but as a particularly cunning and brutal enemy, one that cheated and
lied, one that could never be trusted, and one that sought world domi-
nation by any means. Ronald Reagan's view of world affairs as an
eschatological confrontation between heroes and villains fits neatly into
this tradition.

It is a tradition with widespread attraction. Myths appeal to the con-
sciousness of a people by enhancing its cultural ideals or by giving
expression to deep, commonly felt emotions. The Reagan administra-
tion's myths about U.S.-Soviet relations tap vast American reserves of
ethnocentrism and anticommunism. The result has been a distorted
view of the detente of the 1970s.

Ethnocentrism implies national bias, self-centeredness, a sense of
national superiority, the tendency to assess others only in terms of one's
own values and behavior, the habit of being culture-bound-in sum,
the inability to put aside one's own cultural attitudes and imaginatively
recreate the world from another perspective. Although ethnocentrism is
to some degree a universal phenomenon, the American right is more
prone to it than most sections of Western opinion-indeed its ethnocen-
tric incomprehension is on a par with that of xenophobic Great Russian
Marxists. And along with the American right's negative image of the
adversary comes an extremely positive image of America. This means
that on matters of security U.S. policies are seen as purely defensive. The
new right is incapable of understanding that from the Soviet viewpoint
certain U.S. "defense" policies might appear threatening. Thus the
right's view of international "reality" is partial in the extreme.

This distortion is made worse by the virulent anticommunism that is
deeply embedded in American society. U.S. public support for detente
was always fragile. Indeed, one can argue that the U.S. detente policy
of the early 1970s was simply a temporary reaction against the costs of
the Cold War and of the containment policy as it had been
implemented in Southeast Asia. During the late 1960s and early 1970s,
there happened to be a window of opportunity for substantial improve-
ment in U.S.-Soviet relations, and President Richard Nixon and Secre-
tary of State Henry Kissinger had the sense to seek to exploit it. But
American backing for detente did not last long; even during the Nixon

presidency it came under attack. The subsequent drift back to Cold War
policies by the Carter administration, and then the Reagan administra-
tion's enthusiastic embracing of those policies, might therefore be
understood not as an aberration but as a return to the traditional
approach: namely, containment of, rather than engagement with, the
Soviet Union. With enunciation of the "Reagan Doctrine" we have yet
a further reversion to Cold War policies, this time to the 1950s idea of
"rolling back" communism. The difference is that 1980s rollback is not
a "reckless-and toothless-call" to reclaim Eastern Europe, but is
instead a real challenge to "the peripheral acquisitiveness" of the Soviet
empire in the Third World.² So far, it has not directly involved U.S.
troops, but in places as far apart as Nicaragua and Afghanistan, Angola
and Kampuchea, it has been far from toothless.

This move back to the most vigorous form of containment was given
added impetus by what one might call "displacement." The 1970s were
traumatic and frustrating years for the United States, during which it
lost its hegemonial position in the international system. Not only did
America, for the first time in its history, lose a war, but it also had to
adjust to the emergence of economic competitors in Western Europe
and Japan. The Teheran hostage crisis was the final humiliation. Under
these circumstances, the natural target for all of America's frustration
and resentment was the Soviet Union.

The Reagan administration's myths about detente helped to heighten
and channel these feelings. In this connection, what is important about
these myths is not their truth or reasonableness, but their social function
of group consolidation-their ability to articulate a widely held
ideology and thereby to muster support for administration policies.
When administration spokesmen talk about the 1970s, they are not
engaged in the pursuit of historical truth; they are administering a loy-
alty test. When they call upon people to accept their version of detente,
they are essentially asking for a political commitment. In effect, they are
conducting a catechism: the enunciation of standard positions is
expected to elicit a set of received ideas. Yes, the Soviet Union is our
enemy; yes, this is where liberal policies get us; yes, American primacy
in world affairs is necessary. The latest addition to the loyalty test is one's
advocacy of the Strategic Defense Initiative.

As a result, the "true believers" in the myths of detente are almost
immune to rational argument on these matters. This was the "sad con-

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## DETENTE...Continued

clusion" that Michael Howard drew from his involvement in the U.S. debate about Soviet intentions. Unfortunately, he wrote, "no amount of argument or evidence to the contrary will convince a large number of sincere, well-informed, highly intelligent and now very influential people [in the United States] that the Soviet Union is not an implacably aggressive power quite prepared to use nuclear weapons as an instrument of its policy."³

International politics are so ambiguous and complex that it is not surprising to find policymakers and the public clinging to simple models—especially if these models are psychologically appealing. What we are presented with are usually not deliberate falsehoods, but rather a series of half-truths, distortions, and overgeneralizations based on tradition or convenience. Ever since the onset of the Cold War—if not since 1917—the United States has operated on the basis of what is sometimes described as an "inherent bad faith model" of the Soviet Union.

But under the Reagan administration, this tendency has become dangerously exaggerated. Statements by this administration depict the problem as not simply what the Soviet Union does but what it is: its very existence is seen as an affront to freedom and decency. This encourages a crude type of worst-case thinking. Soviet actions that are ambiguous are given the most negative possible interpretations, while conciliatory moves are dismissed simply as responses to U.S. strength. Examples of these kinds of assessments include the "rush to judgment" about allegations concerning Soviet cheating on arms control and the argument that the Soviet Union returned to the arms control talks only in response to President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. While the SDI did play some part in Soviet calculations, Moscow's boycott of the negotiations had never been more than a short-term tactic—not least because of the propaganda loss that would be incurred if the Kremlin were seen as permanently obstructing arms control. The Reagan team rejects this interpretation, insisting that the Soviet return to the table is a vindication of American policies of strength. This argument, used to justify other military programs, is too valuable for the administration to relinquish it.

Closely related to this worst-case style of interpretation is the tendency to see Soviet behavior as more coherent, centralized, and Machiavellian than it really is. Whereas U.S. actions are often regarded as a series of ad hoc measures emanating from a chaotic policy-making process, those of the Soviet Union are considered to be part of a long-term design,

unhindered by inefficient and overly bureaucratic decision-making procedures. In dealing with the Soviet Union, such oversimplifications are relatively easy to sell because of the closed nature of the Soviet system. What this approach overlooks, however, is the Soviet propensity to make mistakes and to take actions that prove extremely counter-productive.

Yet for the intellectually lazy, both inside and outside the administration, simple fictitious interpretations are easier to grasp and more persuasive than complex arguments. If a strong, convenient myth fulfills its purpose—whether to sell Star Wars, adopt a stronger line against the Soviet Union, or justify a military program—so much the better. As Robert Kaisser has recently argued:

> Reagan and Weinberger have demonstrated once again that any allegation of this kind [about the Soviet arms buildup] repeated often enough and from authoritative quarters becomes an accepted fact. Who now doubts that the Soviet Union has indeed engaged in a relentless buildup, one that has intensified since the SALT I & II treaties were signed?⁴

The evidence all points in the opposite direction, as we shall shortly see. But in this and other areas, U.S. foreign policy and much of the public support for it are being shaped by fictions rather than facts.

### Myth 1: "We Build, They Build; We Stop, They Build"

This often quoted remark by Harold Brown, former Secretary of Defense, encapsulates a widespread belief: that during the 1970s the United States neglected its defenses and allowed the Soviet Union to achieve strategic superiority. This was the theme that the Committee on the Present Danger propagated so successfully in the latter half of the decade. The thesis contains two distinct elements, one concerning the degree of U.S. restraint, the other the scale and pace of the Soviet buildup. Both are frequently exaggerated.

One of the most pernicious myths now in favor states that during the 1970s America unilaterally opted out of the arms race.⁵ This was not the case. It is true that over the course of the decade the United States did not deploy nearly as many new missile systems as the Soviet Union did, but this was largely because the U.S. strategic offensive program of the late 1960s had been so successful. The Minuteman, Polaris, and

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Poseidon deployments provided the basis from which the United States could modernize its strategic capability without necessarily introducing new missiles. Consequently, much of the U.S. effort through the 1970s focused on warheads, especially MIRVs (Multiple Independently targetable Re-entry Vehicles).

Consider the following strategic force improvements the United States made between 1970 and 1980:

* It deployed 550 new multiple-warhead Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

* It deployed 496 new multiple-warhead Poseidon sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) on 31 submarines.

* It deployed 216 new multiple-warhead Trident I SLBMs on 13 submarines.

* It deployed 1,140 new nuclear short-range attack missiles on B-52 and FB-III bombers (from the Soviet viewpoint, these missiles were strategic).

* It accelerated the development of the MX missile, a ten-warhead ICBM.

* It completed research and development and initiated production of air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs).

* It doubled the yield and destructive power of Minuteman III warheads by beginning the deployment of 900 new Mark 12A re-entry vehicles.

* It upgraded the guidance system of Minuteman IIs with new NS-20 inertial systems to improve accuracy.

* It upgraded the hardness of Minuteman silos to reduce vulnerability to nuclear attack and installed titanium shrouds on missile nose cones to reduce vulnerability to electromagnetic pulse from nuclear explosions.

* It replaced and modernized the B-52's weapons, engines, airframes, navigation systems, avionics, and electronic countermeasures.

* It deployed 62 FB-III bombers.

* It improved Minuteman rapid retargeting capability.

The massive scale of this effort is completely glossed over by those officials who label the 1970s as a "decade of neglect."

A related point, de-emphasized by the Reagan administration, is that many of the U.S. deployments currently taking place grew out of research and development strongly supported by successive administrations during the 1970s. The Trident, MX, and cruise missile programs

are the most notable examples. All these major weapons systems flourished while the United States was supposedly disregarding its defense needs.

In tandem with the downplaying of U.S. strategic force modernization during the 1970s, there has been an exaggeration of the Soviet military buildup, an exaggeration that continues to this day. As long ago as 1978, Bernard Brodie commented: "Where the Committee on the Present Danger in one of its brochures speaks of 'the brutal momentum of the massive Soviet strategic arms buildup—a buildup without precedent in history,' it is speaking of something which no student of American strategic arms buildup in the sixties could possibly consider unprecedented."⁶

To criticize the tendency of some Americans to exaggerate the scale and pace of the Soviet arms buildup is not to deny that during the 1970s Moscow did transform its strategic arsenal. Indeed, by the end of the decade there were areas in which Soviet strategic forces surpassed those of the United States. But overall, it was far from clear that Moscow had achieved or even sought strategic superiority. Those who made this case interpreted the figures one-sidedly, and endowed Soviet advantages in certain areas with a political significance they did not deserve.

One myth strongly embraced by some circles was that of the "window of vulnerability"—the idea that the Soviet Union could destroy a large portion of the land-based Minuteman force in a preemptive strike. This was strategic theory pushed to a ludicrous extreme. For Moscow to attempt such a strike, the Soviet leaders would have to make a series of outrageously optimistic assumptions not only about the performance of their own systems but also about the U.S. reaction. Besides assuming that the United States would not launch on warning or under attack, they would have to ignore the possibility of a retaliatory strike from the U.S. submarine force. Those in the American strategic community who were impressed by the "window" argument, however, asserted that the United States would be deterred from retaliating by the prospect of a second Soviet strike on U.S. cities—a point that overlooks the fact that even a counterforce strike against U.S. Minuteman missiles would have horrendous consequences for the U.S. population. A further Soviet strike against American cities would only heap massive destruction on massive destruction. Knowing this, the Kremlin could hardly count upon American restraint. Surely, given their historical experience, the

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Soviet leaders recognize that there is an important gap between formal strategic logic and political reality.

Yet the American strategic debate did not acknowledge the existence of this gap. The result was an increasing U.S. emphasis on doctrines of nuclear war-fighting and on war-fighting weapons systems. The Carter administration enunciated a countervailing strategy that called for a range of nuclear options; and in its 1982 Defense Guidance Statement, the Reagan administration seemed committed to the 'notion that the United States should be able to prevail in a protracted nuclear war.

The "window of vulnerability" argument also helped the administration to sell its nuclear weapons buildup. But when the argument ceased to fit well into the Reagan program, the administration did not hesitate to drop it. Having decided against Carter's plan to deploy 200 MX missiles in a mobile basing mode because of opposition from environmental groups, the administration had trouble finding a basing mode acceptable to Congress. These growing congressional doubts encouraged the administration to appoint a special commission on strategic forces, headed by Brent Scowcroft. The Scowcroft Commission's report, which advocated the deployment of the MX in existing Minuteman silos, was crucial in establishing a workable consensus-but it did so only by admitting that vulnerability was a long-term rather than an immediate problem.

The American right seems relatively untroubled when it has to make such inconsistent or illogical arguments in order to justify continued military buildups. The deployment of the MX in fixed sites may yet provide one of the most compelling arguments in favor of the Strategic Defense Initiative-the need for active defenses to ensure the survivability of American retaliatory capabilities. As one window has been temporarily closed, the administration claims that another is opening up.

What is striking about the current campaign for the SDI, however, is the way the administration is using Soviet spending on ballistic missile defense to justify what is almost certainly a much more ambitious American program. On the basis of past experience, such claims need to be treated with considerable caution, if not skepticism. After all, careful examination shows that the strategic balance at the end of the 1970s was far less unfavorable to the United States than many critics of detente have admitted. Instead, as Zbigniew Brzezinski has described it, it was

a balance of "ambiguous equivalence"-a term that indicates that Soviet advantages existed in some areas, U.S. advantages in others.

But the right ignored America's strengths and focused on the Soviet Union's. Critics of SALT II, for example, attacked the treaty on the ground that it ratified the Soviet advantage in heavy missiles with a much larger throw-weight than American ICBMs. Yet, as one recent comparison of Soviet and U.S. missile forces noted, "U.S. weapons are smaller because they have miniaturized, computerized guidance packages, more efficient rocket engines, thinner but more effective heat shields, greater accuracy and more compact, efficient hydrogen weapons." In other words, the relative size of Soviet and American missiles reflects U.S. technological prowess and relative Soviet backwardness. This crucial point was completely obscured in the SALT II debate by those who wanted the United States to match the Soviet Union option for option and capability for capability. Those who hold such a position have an overmilitarized view of the superpower relationship; they seem to believe that the only thing that matters is the exact state of the nuclear balance, thus endowing it with a political and geopolitical significance that it does not deserve.

If the Soviet "superiority" of the late 1970s was in fact nonexistent, the momentum and indeed the scope of the Soviet strategic buildup were also exaggerated. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has released figures showing that it consistently overestimated Soviet military spending through the latter part of the 1970s. If one studies the CIA's 1983 revised estimates, the following picture emerges:

* The Soviet military buildup of the 1960s and 1970s actually slowed down significantly after 1976.

* Between 1977 and 1981 Soviet procurement of new weapons measured in dollar terms did not grow at all.

* Soviet total defense costs slowed down markedly after 1976. For the previous decade it had grown at constant rates of nearly 5 percent annually, measured in rubles, but it declined to only 2 percent after 1976.

* The slowdown in defense cost growth rates was distributed unevenly, but between 1977 and 1981 the procurement of military hardware did not grow at all in dollars. Strategic offensive weapons-which aroused such disquiet in the United States-were being produced and deployed at "relatively relaxed rates" after 1976.

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* It was previously assumed that the defense share of gross national product (GNP) increased from 12 or 13 percent during 1970-78, to 13 or 14 percent during 1979-81. The present view is that the share was 13 or 14 percent during 1970-78 and remained unchanged from 1979 to 1981.

These figures show that the Soviet military buildup was much slower in the late 1970s than most Americans believed, and believe; they show that the growth of Soviet spending was less than that of the United States; they call into question the view that the Kremlin does not consider costs as a major factor in its decisions about the military; and they add further weight against the argument that the defense sector in the Soviet Union is impervious to the problems of the economy.

It is not surprising that the Reagan administration has paid little attention to these revised estimates. They do not accord with Secretary of Defense Weinberger's rhetoric about the inexorable Soviet drive for strategic superiority. Therefore they are ignored—an excellent illustration of the gap that can exist between fact and fiction.

But what of the conventional balance? Surely the incantations about Soviet superiority at this level can be believed? Yet here again, despite the administration's frequent assertions to the contrary, the situation is less than clear-cut. As Joshua Epstein has argued, there is frequently a "failure to count what counts": tank comparisons in Europe, for example, reveal a massive Warsaw Pact predominance but fail to consider the NATO advantage in antitank systems and close air support.⁹ More generally, there is a somewhat disingenuous attitude toward questions of quantity versus quality; "when the [U.S.] Services ask for money, they want quality, but all too often they assess the Soviet threat as though quantity alone mattered most."¹⁰ In the opinion of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the West always exaggerated Soviet conventional strength—and continues to do so.¹¹

This is understandable: selling oneself short while portraying the adversary as ten feet tall can be an effective tactic in mobilizing public and congressional support for increased defense expenditures. The Reagan administration's approach, however, consists not only of overselling the threat but also of overselling the remedy. On the one hand, it exaggerates Soviet military strength in order to win domestic support for its own weapons programs; on the other hand, it argues that its efforts to increase U.S. military power allow it to deal with the Soviet

Union from a position of strength. When such double-think comes out of the mouths of apparently authoritative administration spokesmen, it is accepted by the American population.

Myth 2: During the 1970s, the Soviet Union Was Embarked Upon a Major, High-Risk Geopolitical Offensive That Yielded Tremendous Gains

Many Americans also swallow the underlying assumption of the Reagan administration's foreign policy—that the Soviet Union, by its very nature, is a predatory state with expansionist designs. The argument goes like this: until the 1970s, Soviet designs were held in check by America's superior military strength. But as a result of the Soviet attainment of strategic parity with, and subsequently superiority over, the United States, this constraint was removed. Moscow then exploited a "window of vulnerability" at the strategic level to create a "window of opportunity" in the Third World. Not only was it able to project its military power to a much greater extent than ever before, but it was also willing to incur the risk that this might provoke a confrontation with the United States.

By such indicators as arms transfers, overt support for "national liberation struggles," and backing for surrogates, Soviet activism in the Third World did increase during the 1970s. But Moscow was usually only building on what it had done earlier, and the beneficiaries of this activism often felt that the amount of support they were offered was meager. And it is by no means a foregone conclusion that this exaggerated increase in activism was connected to changes in the strategic balance. While the Soviet Union has indeed demonstrated a willingness to exploit opportunities to extend its influence, this opportunism has gone hand in hand with an aversion to taking high risks.

Except for the discredited Khrushchev period, Soviet foreign policy behavior has traditionally been cautious. This tradition continued through the 1970s as a result of both policy and circumstances. In the first place, by 1972 or 1973 the Kremlin had rejected the idea of committing Soviet forces in support of foreign policy objectives and decided to limit direct Soviet involvement to advisors, weapons, and logistic support. If combat forces were required, they would be provided by "revolutionary" states: Cuba ended up taking the chief paladin role.¹²

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In addition, Washington was taking a somewhat more cautious tack on foreign policy: Vietnam, Watergate, the congressional assault on the Imperial Presidency, and a prudent assessment of costs and benefits had altered both the domestic political climate and the approach to actions abroad. As a result, the Soviet Union could pursue certain foreign policy objectives without fear of a direct clash with the United States. The most obvious example of this was Angola. By cutting off covert aid to the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the Front for the National Liberation of Angola (FNLA), Congress made clear to Moscow that continued Soviet support for the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which had begun in the early 1960s, and the deployment of Cuban troops in Angola would not result in a superpower military confrontation. Similarly, there was no real prospect of a superpower clash over Soviet and Cuban involvement in the Horn of Africa.

Nor was Afghanistan a high-risk adventure for the Soviet Union. The country was clearly within the Soviet sphere of influence when Moscow intervened in 1979. In fact, as early as 1956 Senator Henry Jackson was complaining about Soviet influence in Afghanistan, arguing that the West had stood idly by and done nothing to counter it.¹³ Given the long period of Western inattention, the coming to power of a pro-Soviet faction in the 1978 coup, and the domestic constraints Washington faced, it is hardly surprising that Moscow felt it had considerable freedom of action. The intervention was widely portrayed as one step in a Soviet drive toward the Persian Gulf. But it is more likely that the Soviet leadership, faced with serious instability in a country where it had much at stake and with the threat of Marxist dominoes falling backwards, was simply trying to maintain its sphere of influence.

Thus the argument that the Soviet Union was willing to take high risks during the 1970s is unconvincing. The only possible exception came during the 1973 Middle East War when Moscow threatened military intervention. But in its preparations for intervention, Moscow took no irrevocable steps. Its threat was intended primarily to convey concern about the survival of the Egyptian Third Army in the face of Israeli violations of the cease-fire agreement, and to urge the United States to exert more control over Israel.

Once the assertion about Soviet risk-taking is set aside, however, there is still the argument that Soviet actions were part of a coherent program

of territorial expansionism designed to outflank the United States and undermine Western interests in the Third World. The case for this fails on several points. First, outside of Afghanistan, the Soviet Union did not engage in direct territorial intervention. Second, the areas where the Soviet Union did become involved were areas that the United States regarded as peripheral. They only became important after Soviet involvement had focused attention on them. Third, the Soviet Union was responding to situations that it had not created. In Africa, for example, several opportunities sprang up because of the collapse of the Portuguese empire. In Southeast Asia, an opening came in the dismal aftermath of the Indochina war. In Central America—to the very limited extent that the Soviet Union was involved—the instability that existed was the result of a long history of social injustice, suppression of political and human rights, and great disparities in wealth.

This brings up a related question—whether or not the Soviet Union made substantial gains during the 1970s. At first glance, one might assume that it did. Access to Cam Rahn Bay in Vietnam, for instance, strikes some as an important long-term asset for the Soviet navy. But to make this assessment, one must assume that Soviet-Vietnamese connections will remain close—an assumption one cannot confidently make when it comes to Moscow's dealings with any Third World country. Indeed, it is not clear that the phrase “long-term” can be used about Soviet relations with Third World states. Soviet relations with particular countries have frequently collapsed: Indonesia, Sudan, Egypt, and the Somali Republic are the most notable examples. And the balance sheet in Soviet-Vietnamese relations is certainly not encouraging to the Kremlin. In some respects the Vietnamese find the Russians useful, but they have no special affinity for these “Yankees without dollars.” From the Kremlin's viewpoint, Vietnam is a costly ally, both economically and politically: it drains Soviet resources, while its imperialism provokes other, more prosperous Asian nations to look to the West for shelter.

The investment of Soviet effort and resources in Africa also resulted in gains that, if not ephemeral, are at least limited. Angola, Ethiopia, and Mozambique all require considerable Soviet expenditures, and their long-term commitment to the Soviet Union is uncertain. Angola has frequently looked for a wider opening to the West; Ethiopia is in ruins; and Mozambique has even had to sup with the hated South African regime, and recently entered a military assistance relationship with the

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United States. These uncertain relationships do not constitute a secure foothold from which the Soviet Union can hope to dominate the continent. The forces of nationalism in countries that have recently emerged from under Western domination militate against long-term gains for Moscow: the last thing African states want is to shake off one set of imperialists only to take on another. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that one prominent commentator on African affairs has suggested that "the outstanding feature of the Soviet Union's encounter with Africa is that after more than a quarter of a century of active, political, and military involvement, it has made so little impact on the Continent and failed to consolidate even the few initial gains it had made to advance its strategic interests as a superpower."¹⁴ Limited Soviet influence is likely to remain the case in Africa.

And what of the ultimate Soviet Third World "adventure" in the 1970s, the intervention in Afghanistan? Here again the picture is a bleak one. After more than five years of involvement the Soviets are bogged down in a war that seems unwinnable. The evidence suggests that if they pulled out now the Marxist regime in Kabul would collapse just as Saigon did after the U.S. withdrawal. And like the Americans in Vietnam in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Soviet Union does not seem able to gain a military victory—yet it believes it cannot afford to lose. The Kremlin would almost certainly like to withdraw, leaving a friendly "neutral" government in Kabul, but it is worried about the diplomatic repercussions and the risk that the Reagan administration would seek to foster an anti-Soviet regime in Afghanistan.

The little band of Third World countries with which the Soviet Union developed significant relations in the 1970s does not add up to a springboard for world influence. And great opportunities are not opening up elsewhere. The Soviet Union does share mutual concerns with some Third World countries that work against Western interests, but this is different from "influence." For the most part, despite all their efforts since the 1950s, the Soviets still have limited clout in the Third World. There is an enormous gap between Soviet aspirations and Soviet achievements there. And what gains the Soviet Union has achieved have often been the result of short-sighted U.S. policies. In Angola, for instance, American ineptness increased the opportunities for Moscow: initial U.S. support for the FNLA and the tacit U.S.-South African alignment helped to legitimize Soviet support for the MPLA in the eyes of many

African states. More recently, in Central America, the Reagan administration has shown hostility to any form of government that does not accord with American preferences—a stance that can only benefit the Soviet Union. Having pushed Castro toward Moscow in the late 1950s, the United States is simply repeating the process with the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

None of this is to condone complacency about Soviet behavior in the Third World. Clearly there could come a point at which Western interests could be seriously endangered—if, for example, countries possessing strategic minerals fell firmly under Soviet control. But those interpretations of Moscow's actions in the 1970s that presume a grand expansionist design and significant geopolitical gains are oversimplified. Instead of achieving great gains, the Soviet Union for the most part suffered frustration. Overall, the 1970s must be counted as a decade of failure for Soviet Third World policy.

## Myth 3: During the 1970s, the United States Was Unable or Unwilling to Compete with the Soviet Union

The myth about Soviet success has a corollary—that during the 1970s the United States opted out of the competition for power and influence in the Third World. This argument—a geopolitical equivalent of the claim that the United States opted out of the arms race—provides another key element in the Reagan administration's persistent mythology.

At first sight, this assertion might be persuasive. Successive administrations in the 1970s found that they lacked the domestic support to respond vigorously to Soviet moves in the Third World. What they would actually have done is an open question—certainly in terms of its capacity for military intervention the United States was hampered. But to conclude from this that Washington simply stopped competing with Moscow is to overlook major aspects of U.S. foreign policy during this period.

One manifestation of a continuing competitive approach to U.S.-Soviet relations was Kissinger's Middle East diplomacy, whose goal, especially after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, was to exclude the Soviet Union from the region. Kissinger himself has acknowledged that his strategy "sought to reduce the Soviet Union's role in the Middle East" because

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the "respective interests in the area" of the two superpowers "could not be reconciled."¹³ He has also suggested that this policy was facilitated by the fact that it took place within the overall detente relationship, and that the policy serves as a counterargument to criticisms of detente. As he stated, "The Mideast is an important refutation of the facile slogan that detente was a 'one-way' street."¹⁶ As it turned out, his strategy was so successful that since the middle or late 1970s Soviet policy in the Middle East has been a protracted and unsuccessful attempt to regain the influence it had before the 1973 War. By disengaging Egypt from the Soviet Union, Kissinger limited Moscow's options in an area that is geographically much closer to the Soviet Union than it is to the United States. The United States may have avoided directly confronting Soviet interventionism in Africa and Afghanistan, but it did compete diplomatically—and successfully—in areas like the Middle East that were of much greater geostrategic significance to both superpowers.

It also continued its policy of containment. But unlike earlier periods, during the 1970s Washington did not depend completely on its own strength; it preferred instead to rely on local powers to provide a degree of order in crucial regions. This was one of the main themes of the Nixon Doctrine, which underlay the attempt to establish the Shah of Iran as America's "surrogate gendarme" in the Persian Gulf. The Shah's regime, however, was increasingly alienated from the Iranian population, which resulted not only in the loss of an American proxy but also in the new regime's hostility toward the United States. These developments had little to do with Moscow, but they did undermine the U.S. position in a crucial region and thus were thought to require the United States to develop its own capacity for military intervention in Southwest Asia. In other words, it was not that the United States failed to compete during the 1970s, but that in this area at least the instrument it chose for the competition was inherently flawed.

Elsewhere the United States was more successful. It maintained firm control in its own sphere. Marxist Chile was destabilized. Even more important, in terms of U.S. relations with the Soviet Union, was the growing link between Washington and Beijing. During the early part of the decade, the "China card" was used against the Soviet Union in a fairly subtle way. For example, Kissinger responded to Soviet actions of which he disapproved by making increasingly positive public statements about the People's Republic of China. The Carter administration fur-

thered the process of normalization with China; and although Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was apprehensive that this might appear to be directed against Moscow, other members of the administration did not share these qualms. As one observer has noted, "The Carter administration's gradual shift away from even-handed treatment of the two Communist adversaries was beyond doubt and could not but cause deep resentment in the Kremlin."¹⁷ Following the deterioration in Sino-Soviet relations during the 1960s, the Soviet Union had become increasingly obsessed with China, for a mixture of ideological, military, territorial, and racial reasons. To make matters worse, now this other socialist superpower was edging closer to the Soviet Union's Number 1 enemy. Once again, the United States seemed to be holding far better diplomatic cards than those available to the Soviet Union.

Clearly, during the 1970s U.S. policymakers still considered themselves to be involved in an adversary relationship with the Soviet Union. And although there were certain aspects of the competition that the United States was finding difficult, there were other areas in which Washington was able to grasp the initiative and embark on diplomatic or political offensives. Nevertheless, many people have accepted the idea that Moscow was solely responsible for the demise of detente. This is another of the Reagan administration's favored myths.

Myth 4: The Demise of Detente was Solely the Result of Soviet Behavior

Obviously Soviet actions in the Third World—and American interpretations of these actions—played a major role in the decline of detente. But the deterioration of superpower relations had more complex causes. Both sides, not just the United States, had many expectations that went unfulfilled. Much of the trouble in the relationship arose from ambiguities in, and indeed contradictions between, the conceptions of detente held by the two superpowers. The Soviet Union wanted the economic benefits that would come from lowered tension and the political equality that would imply a right to become involved in Third World conflicts in the same way as the United States. In contrast, the dominant view in Washington—and over the course of the decade there were many views—was that detente would induce Soviet restraint, what Stanley Hoffmann termed "self-containment."¹⁸

Divergence also grew in an area where at first there had appeared to

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be agreement—the desire of both superpowers to avoid crises. The 1972 agreement on Basic Principles of Relations was central to this aspect of detente. Essentially, this accord, along with several other agreements, attempted to establish a crisis prevention regime. The problem was that the two superpowers had very different notions of which crises should be prohibited or avoided.¹⁹ The United States wanted an all-embracing regime that would restrict superpower competition; the Soviet Union was interested in avoiding a much narrower range of contingencies—those situations that might result in a direct superpower confrontation. Moscow saw such a crisis prevention regime as consistent not only with its new status as a superpower but also with its continued commitment to Third World revolutionary movements. In Washington's eyes, however, a crisis prevention regime was another part of a U.S. attempt to encourage Soviet restraint.

A third area of divergence concerned trade. The Soviet Union anticipated that trade and technology transfer would be one of the major benefits of detente; the United States viewed trade as a potential bargaining tool, to be used to induce the degree of restraint it wanted from Moscow. As a result, Washington linked trade not only to Soviet foreign policy behavior but also to Soviet domestic politics.

Thus from the early 1970s onward, despite certain areas of agreement, the superpowers had some very disparate expectations about detente. Furthermore, neither fully appreciated how fundamental these divergences were. The outcome was that each side believed the other had not lived up to its half of the bargain. According to the current mythology in the United States, of course, it was only the Soviet Union that betrayed detente.

The specific elements of this "betrayal" include the Soviet Union's arms buildup, its activism in the Third World, and its failure to live up to its commitments—the Basic Principles of Relations, the Helsinki Final Act, and various arms control provisions. The Soviet arms buildup and Third World activism have already been discussed. On the question of Soviet "deception" the record is mixed. True, the Soviet Union has not fulfilled all its commitments under the Helsinki Act, but on other agreements the West has little cause for complaint. Much has been said about Soviet "cheating" on arms control, for example, but the Reagan administration appears to have made a "rush to judgment" on this matter: as more evidence comes out, the Soviet case looks stronger.²⁰ On

the Basic Principles—and Moscow's commitment to detente as a whole—the Soviet Union cannot reasonably be accused of deception or bad faith.²¹ The false and inflated Western expectations about detente in the early 1970s were based on the always dubious assumption that detente meant the same thing to Soviet spokesmen as it did to the West.

This was never the case. The Soviets have based their view of the superpower relationship on the concept of "peaceful coexistence" set down in the Basic Principles—a notion that emphasizes keeping the superpower competition at levels below armed conflict. The Basic Principles also included, at U.S. insistence, the injunction that neither side try to gain unilateral advantage over the other. Insofar as this meant avoiding each other's areas of vital interest, Moscow could argue that its activities in Africa and Southeast Asia were permissible. For Brezhnev, Soviet support for national liberation struggles was consistent with the notion of peaceful coexistence; the Kremlin made no secret of the aid it had given to the MPLA since the early 1960s, for example. Those in the West who believed that detente meant an end to superpower competition and then were surprised by Soviet behavior in Angola were primarily victims of their own wishful thinking. To the extent that there was deception in superpower relations during the 1970s, therefore, it was not carried out by the Soviet Union: it was self-deception on the part of the West.

This self-deception diminished, of course, as the decade wore on. The resulting changes in American attitudes and actions provoked suspicion and anxiety in the Soviet Union about the U.S. commitment to detente. Indeed, as time passed, the belief grew in Moscow that it was the United States that was preventing and even reversing the further relaxation of tensions. Although this was an almost perfect case of mirror-imaging, the Soviet case against the United States had more validity than is usually acknowledged.²²

Since even an imperfect detente seemed preferable to Cold War, Moscow clung to detente after it had been abandoned by Washington; yet for the Soviet Union the results were increasingly disappointing. This was obvious in the case of limited trade and technology benefits. The 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment—which linked Soviet most-favored-nation status to increases in the number of Soviet Jews allowed to emigrate—hit the Soviets particularly hard. It meant that the 1972 Trade Agreement did not enter into force, that Export-Import Bank

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loans were not forthcoming, and that most-favored nation status was not granted to the Soviet Union—though it was to China.

Much more important, though, was the fact that the U.S. position on arms control also struck the Kremlin as increasingly unfavorable. During the SALT process certain aspects of American negotiating behavior— notably the habit of developing new systems and justifying them as bargaining chips, and the tactic of raising new issues at late stages of the negotiations—raised doubts in Moscow about the seriousness of the U.S. commitment to arms control. The stiffening of U.S. attitudes on a comprehensive test ban, on military disengagement in the Indian Ocean, on limits on conventional arms transfers, and on the banning of antisatellite weapons has provided further cause for Soviet complaint. Washington's handling of SALT II was especially troublesome. Even before coming to Vienna to sign the treaty, Carter announced his decision to deploy 200 MX missiles. And in his subsequent attempt to win Senate ratification, he agreed to a 5 percent increase in the defense budget.

Furthermore, from the Soviet perspective the NATO decision to modernize its long-range theater nuclear forces could only be seen as a U.S. move to circumvent the SALT restraints by deploying weapons that were not intercontinental in range but were "Russostrategic"—that is, clearly capable of hitting the Soviet homeland. Having relaxed its own defense efforts since 1976, Moscow was also gravely concerned by the steady U.S. commitment to modernize its strategic forces and the corresponding shift in U.S. military doctrine away from deterrence and toward limited nuclear options and countervailing strategies.

Added to all the above were a clutch of other Soviet grievances against the United States. Washington's Middle East strategy, which sought unilateral advantages, was mentioned earlier. Then there was the normalization of U.S. relations with China: to the extent that it promised China industrial and military modernization—both of which would end up threatening the Soviet Union—it could hardly be seen as compatible with detente's ostensible goal of "relaxing tension." The same was true of Carter's human rights emphasis. Whatever motivated this campaign on the U.S. side, Moscow saw it as a deliberate political offensive—an attempt to meddle in internal Soviet affairs and perhaps to subvert the Soviet position in Eastern Europe. As time passed, American criticism of the Soviet Union became increasingly outspoken. This was particularly the case over Soviet support for national liberation movements—

but had not the United States, in the Basic Principles agreement, accepted the principles of "peaceful coexistence," which legitimized such behavior? On top of this there was the bizarre episode over the Soviet combat brigade in Cuba: an issue fabricated by the right to undermine SALT II and seized upon by some liberals as a way of establishing their hard-line credentials before they came up for reelection.

For Moscow, late 1979 must have been an enormously disquieting period. The United States appeared to be abandoning detente and reverting to policies of confrontation. Whether more favorable U.S.-Soviet relations would have discouraged Moscow from invading Afghanistan is perhaps doubtful, especially if the costs of not intervening seemed overwhelming. Nevertheless, it seems clear that the SALT debate had done a great deal to erode any inhibitions Moscow might have accepted in order to maintain a harmonious relationship with Washington.

Although Afghanistan was what finally killed detente for the United States, the approach to U.S.-Soviet relations initiated by Kissinger and Nixon had already been rejected by key American groups and individuals who saw the process as favoring the Soviet Union. Their influence led to U.S. actions that in Moscow's view did serious damage to detente: America's military buildup, its lack of commitment to arms control, its political competition in most parts of the world, its unwillingness to follow through on its commitments, and its double-dealing. All these actions added up to a picture of American deceit and betrayal. By 1979, Soviet hopes for detente were dashed. "Needless to say," as Marshall Shulman has rightly pointed out, the Kremlin did not see the increasingly confrontational U.S. actions that occurred through the 1970s "as responses to Soviet behavior but as indications of a militant American intent."²³ We do not have to accept every detail of the Soviet interpretation of these events, but if we fail to accept the validity of the Soviet perspective, we will miss an important aspect of the reality of the 1970s: both superpowers were responsible for the collapse of detente.

By publicly subscribing to the myths described above, by presenting detente as an experiment that failed, the Reagan administration justifies its own military programs and confrontational behavior toward the Soviet Union. It would be naive to suppose that there is no element of manipulation in the right's interpretation of the 1970s. All governments are in the public relations business—some more than most—and they

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will use arguments and rationalizations to mobilize the support they need. But it would be a mistake to see the myths of the Reagan administration simply as deliberately contrived and cynically exploited for political interest. To those who espouse them they are "facts." If they were simply propaganda or falsehood, they would be easier to counter than they are. But what we have been bombarded with are distorted images that still bear enough relation to reality, and appeal strongly enough to the American people, that they have tremendous staying power. If U.S. foreign policy is to deal more effectively with its allies and the Third World, as well as with the Soviet Union, these myths must be dispelled.

## Rethinking U.S.-Soviet Relations

The story of superpower relations during the 1970s is one of unfulfilled promise. The "era of negotiations" represented an effort to inject a degree of moderation and rationality into the superpower relationship. The Carter administration attempted to continue this program, largely by defining the limits of American power in an era of "global interdependence." This image of a new era of world politics, however, was not powerful or appealing enough to withstand the ups and downs of the 1970s or the assault of the American right. By the end of the decade, old Cold War rallying cries were once more in vogue.

Yet this reversion to traditional Cold War policies has been far less successful than the Reagan administration's rhetoric implies. Mistakes have been made and many opportunities missed. Especially in the Third World, the administration's perception of virtually any challenge to the status quo as either inspired by or beneficial to the Soviet Union has led to a more interventionist and confrontational U.S. posture. The current treatment of Nicaragua is just one example of this tendency. These types of unwise responses are based on unfounded myths rather than on careful readings of particular situations. The Soviet Union has not created the problems of the Third World: while Moscow may have an interest in exploiting particular situations, the Kremlin's ability to expand its influence is limited, and its record—as we have seen—is generally poor.

Not only is the Reagan administration's interpretation of all regional developments in an East-West framework inaccurate, it is often counterproductive. By indiscriminately labeling vastly different regimes as

"Marxist" or "Leninist"—the increasingly favored term—or by overstating the Soviet potential for influence-building, Washington causes itself more harm than good. Exaggerating the "Soviet threat" forces U.S. decision-makers into psychological corners, diverts time and effort from more pressing national and international concerns, undermines chances to move relations with local countries in a more favorable direction, facilitates miscalculations, and—most ironic of all—creates opportunities for Soviet involvement that might not otherwise have existed.

The label "Marxist" now covers a multitude of political positions—positions that Washington should be able to accommodate. After all, the United States has managed to have "normal" relations with a variety of more or less bloody non-Marxist authoritarian regimes, and over the past 50 years has become more relaxed about dealing with socialist governments. Had it not, it would have deprived itself of some of its most important allies. Yet many U.S. policymakers and opinion-leaders are still unable to see that the United States can live with some Marxist regimes, and should find ways to cope adequately with them all.

This inability is just one part of the overall inadequacy of the Reagan program. As some sections of the American foreign policy community and many of America's friends abroad recognize, there is an urgent need for the present administration to acknowledge the existence of complex local conditions and pluralistic forces in the Third World, instead of simply superimposing on it the template of U.S.-Soviet confrontation. Some governments do play up to the administration's exaggerated portrayal of the Soviet threat—but this is usually an attempt to secure U.S. financial support. Few foreign policy analysts outside the United States would agree with the administration's assessment of the extent or success of Soviet meddling in the Third World.

Some of the administration's misinterpretations of Soviet behavior stem from its unwillingness or inability to follow the oldest diplomatic and strategic maxim: "know thy adversary." Such knowledge requires empathy—a self-conscious effort to share and accurately comprehend the internal frame of reference of another individual, government, or nation. Empathy does not, as Ralph White has argued, necessarily imply sympathy.²⁴ Indeed, we in the West have some ethnocentric values—such as respect for individual liberties—for which we need not apologize and which we are duty bound to defend. Thus it is perfectly possible to try to empathize with Soviet ways of thinking, while being critical of the

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Soviet political system and especially of the Soviet leadership's treatment of dissidents.

But the ideological and nationalistic blinders of the new right have inhibited the development of this important component of rational policy-making. Because of its inability or unwillingness to get inside the adversary's head, the administration will continue to fail to appreciate how much the Soviet Union fears the West in general and the United States in particular. Without such understanding, it will be difficult to achieve positive results in critical areas like arms control.

This inability to empathize is by no means a strictly American short-
coming: over the years, Soviet leaders have shown a possibly greater ina-
bility to understand their adversary. Thus neither superpower seems able
to see itself as the other sees it. In the United States, however, this
problem is compounded by the domestic political system, which by its
very nature tends to preclude a constructive, long-term relationship with
the Soviet Union. The election cycle, the adversarial character of the
internal debate, and the demands of consensus-building all put a
premium on simple images and the provision of instant diplomatic
gratification. These elements of American politics, combined with the
traditional anti-Sovietism of the American political culture, foster Cold
War thinking and inhibit more conciliatory approaches toward the
Soviet Union. It is always easy—and usually politically profitable—for
politicians to whip the public into an anti-Soviet hysteria; in contrast,
the proponents of detente policies are almost invariably vulnerable to
charges of weakness and appeasement. Furthermore, realistic and com-
plex views of the Soviet Union cannot compete with the simple and
demonic image that the right projects. The "window-of-vulnerability/
window-of-opportunity" argument, for example, was powerful in its
appeal precisely because of its simplicity: instead of considering the
complex sources of Soviet conduct, the right deduced Soviet behavior
solely from Soviet capabilities.

The right is aided in its campaign by a Soviet leadership that often
appears to be its own worst enemy. Luckily for Ronald Reagan, Moscow
can usually be relied upon to do something that supports the right's
allegations. The imposition of martial law in Poland in December 1981,
the shooting down of KAL 007 in September 1983, and the shooting of
a member of the U.S. military mission in East Germany in March 1985
all served to sustain anti-Soviet feelings and give credibility to the

Reagan administration's mythology about detente. Until Washington establishes a better working relationship with Moscow—a relationship based on a more accurate appreciation of Soviet hopes and fears, strengths and weaknesses—the superpower relationship will remain vulnerable to such periodic outbursts of irrationality and confrontation.

To avoid such confrontations—which in a time of tension could escalate to dangerous levels—Americans must reformulate the problem of U.S.-Soviet relations. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington, the U.S.-Soviet conflict is not an eschatological contest between traditional heroes and villains. On the contrary, the superpowers share a common problem: how can two nations, burdened by nuclear overkill and locked for the foreseeable future in an adversarial relationship, manage to live together without military confrontation? Given the nature of war in the nuclear age, they have no alternative but to try to live together in reciprocal security. Whether they like it or not—and many on both sides do not—the United States and the Soviet Union are strategically interdependent; their futures lie together.

As a start, reciprocal security requires a commitment to the relaxation of tensions. The only alternative is a Cold War posture, which always contains some risk of a world-shattering breakdown of relations. Europeans tend to appreciate the need for reciprocal security relations better than Americans do. Despite the "death of detente" between the superpowers after 1979, detente never really broke down between the two halves of Europe. Both East and West Europe have recognized the value of maintaining the links established in the previous decade. But in response, the superpowers have attempted to keep their blocs under close control—witness the Reagan administration's attempts to prevent West European involvement in the construction of the Siberian gas pipeline, and the Soviet pressures on East European leaders to cancel the visits to West Germany they had scheduled last fall.

Those West Europeans who have objected to the Reagan administra-
tion's presentation of the "Soviet threat" in Europe have been labeled
"neutralists" or "pacifists." Few are. Most simply formulate the problem
and solution of East-West relations differently from the American right.
But the Reagan administration has attempted to lead the free world by
a loyalty test, insisting on obedience and orthodoxy from its allies. Many
have succumbed—enthusiastically, as in Margaret Thatcher's case—and
have accepted the main features of Reagan's policies. This behavior is

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neither democratic nor rational; the biggest does not always know best. The history of the cruise and Pershing missile deployments in Europe is an excellent illustration of the problems that can arise when policy is based on gestures of commitment rather than well-reasoned discussion. Loyalty tests are no substitute for sophisticated analysis. Sensible policies can emerge only through consultation among allies with different viewpoints. Such an approach is imperative if the West is to develop a viable relationship with the Soviet Union for what seems destined to be the prolonged leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev.

As Marshall D. Shulman indicated well over a decade ago, the West needs a "philosophy of coexistence."²⁵ We still do not have one. One cannot really conclude that detente failed in the 1970s, for it was never seriously tried. From the start, few in the West could agree on what it really meant or how it should be approached. Few in government were so convinced of detente's validity that they were prepared to see it through. Furthermore, the inevitable setbacks suffered by detente were used by the American right to discredit the whole enterprise. And when detente failed to deliver instant gratification, too many Americans hurriedly reached out for the psychological security blanket of nostalgic Cold War ideology, which combined moral self-righteousness with military strength and American preeminence.

In comparison, the long-term philosophy of detente that we need must be immune to the awkward problems that will inevitably arise. Without a longer-term perspective, we can expect repetitions of the MIRV experience of the 1970s in which both sides augmented their strategic forces without any gains in security: the only increases were in defense outlays and mutual suspicions and anxieties. At present, the administration's commitment to the Strategic Defense Initiative is leading the world down a similar—but more costly and dangerous—road. The fact that both the United States and the Soviet Union are now working on anti-Star Wars technology to penetrate the mythical systems of the future is yet further proof of the futility of trying to manage superpower relations with short-term technological fixes. If the SDI ever does materialize, we can confidently predict that never in the history of military strategy will so much be spent by so many to achieve so little.

Despite the administration's claims about the success of its foreign policies—its assertions that the United States is "standing tall" again — the policies shaped by the mythology of the 1970s have generally worked

against America's long-term interests. Not only have these policies embittered U.S.-Soviet relations, but they have also alienated Washington's own allies. The United States has lost the opportunity to halt the deployment of costly major weapons systems, and instead has entered a more destabilizing phase of the arms race that includes a potentially more provocative conventional NATO posture and the prospective militarization of space. And Washington has undermined many important international political structures—the United Nations, the World Court, and the Law of the Sea.

The flaws in the Reagan administration approach to foreign policy are numerous: it sees international politics and American prestige in crude power terms, focuses on the military dimension of affairs, and places a narrow short-term definition of American interests before everything else. Nevertheless, the administration continues to be popular at home. This reveals more about the poor quality of the U.S. foreign policy debate than about the sophistication of the Reagan approach. On many issues, the right has limited the debate by single-handedly setting the agenda. Moreover, President Reagan has been fortunate to have confronted such a weak political opposition: along with the rightward drift of the late 1970s there was a retreat by liberals and the centrists, which left the political stage dominated by ideologues armed with Cold War clichés. Furthermore, the president has skillfully equated his own views with the interests of the nation, making any challenge to his vision seem unpatriotic. The timidity of his critics has meant that, apart from the issue of aid to the contras in Nicaragua, the president has had remarkable success in pushing through his ideas.

The Reagan administration's apparently unflagging commitment to its distorted vision might lead one to expect the poor state of superpower relations to continue indefinitely. Yet some signs suggest that a favorable turn might be possible. President Reagan seems committed to emerging from his second term as a "peacemaker," and his counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev, seems determined to give the Soviet Union more decisive leadership, if not different policies. New opportunities for economic cooperation may open up as Moscow's growing interest in economic revitalization and new U.S. economic problems increase the importance of East-West trade. Allies of both superpowers have expressed their desire for improved U.S.-Soviet relations, including some degree of arms con-

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trol. And recently there has even been a creeping nostalgia in the United States for some form of detente.

Several of these conditions are similar to those that, in the late 1960s, set the stage for detente in the early 1970s. It is time, then, to resuscitate the notion of detente and to give it a new respectability by refuting the right's mythology. To work out a long-term, stable relationship with the Soviet Union, we must get the history of the past 20 years correct. The problem is only exacerbated, of course, by the distorted "history" propounded in Moscow. But we have to start somewhere, and this is a case where clarity should begin at home. Bad history makes bad strategy. Our job in the West is to ensure that the myths about detente do not harden into received historical "truth," serving as a permanent basis for ever more wrong-headed policies.

This will be an immense task. Although President Reagan has committed himself to improving U.S.-Soviet relations, he has nonetheless continued to perpetuate the fictions that undermine the political basis for detente. Indeed, neither this discrepancy nor the myths themselves have been seriously challenged within the United States. Because the right has been so successful in establishing the terms of the debate—and especially in portraying detente as a failed experiment—insufficient attention has been given to the achievements of the 1970s. The "lessons" promulgated by the right are not the only ones we can draw from that era. For example, the decade of detente highlighted the need for viable and unambiguous crisis prevention regimes in the Third World, demonstrated that the Soviet Union can be serious about arms control, exposed the lack of a long-term posture of coexistence in the grand strategy of the United States, and revealed the benefits of a more stable relationship, greater cooperation, and interdependency between East and West. As a result of the right's domination of the U.S. debate, however, these positive lessons have been virtually ignored and detente has almost been stricken from political discourse. Unless this trend is reversed and the right's myths about detente are vigorously challenged, there will be an endless cycle of mistrust that will not only undermine the prospects for arms control but also distort the larger debate about the meaning of, and requirements for, security in the world. Fortunately, although Reagan has revitalized the consensus behind Cold War policy, his actions have not been as unwise as his words: the "Vietnam syndrome" has continued to exert a strong influence over the American public.

American liberals should seek to build on any nostalgia for detente that still exists, to give the idea new respectability, and to create a new consensus behind a concept that is both realistic and indispensable.

Many of America's foreign friends have felt a sense of despair and outrage about the character and direction of U.S. foreign and defense policy since the late 1970s. After the investment of enormous amounts of effort, money, and time, the world is no more secure—and in some areas a great deal less so—than it was five years ago. This is tragic, at a time when so much needs to be done in so many areas of international and national life. Today, the United States is more isolated in world affairs than its official spokesmen will recognize or accept: its self-image as the champion of democracy, freedom, and the oppressed is rarely shared by its allies. Instead, what they often see is hypocrisy. Washington cannot castigate the Soviet Union for its intervention in East European affairs and human rights abuses, for instance, if at the same time the United States intervenes in Nicaragua and supports repressive dictators around the world. Indeed, because of such policies, the United States is suffering from a serious credibility gap.

Unhappily, the actions that might close this gap may not be feasible under the present administration. A change of direction may have to wait upon a change of personalities. Certainly a powerful president could help to shift attitudes; this will doubtless be a major challenge for the next occupant of the White House. But in the meanwhile, the incumbent should not be given up for lost. If President Reagan is truly committed to a place in history as a peacemaker, then the greatest contribution that America's foreign friends and his domestic critics could make is to help him distinguish between fact and fiction in the super-power relationship.

## Notes

¹ The analogy has been strong in the thinking of such individuals as Richard Perle and Eugene V. Rostow, together with other members of the Committee on the Present Danger. See Robert Scheer, *With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush, and Nuclear War* (New York: Random House, 1982), pp. 14, 37–38.

² Charles Krauthammer, "The Reagan Doctrine," *Time*, April 1, 1985.

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³ Michael Howard, *The Causes of War* (London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1983), p. 139.

⁴ Robert Kaisser, "The Mythology Clouding the Arms Debate," *The Washington Post*, March 8, 1985.

¹ This "decade of neglect" argument has been reiterated most recently by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger in his *Annual Report to the Congress Fiscal Year 1986* (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, February 1985). See especially the chart on p. 49.

⁶ Bernard Brodie, "Development of Nuclear Strategy," *International Security*, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Spring 1978), pp. 65-83.

⁷ "U.S.-Soviet Military Facts," *The Defense Monitor*, Vol. 13, No. 6 (1984), p. 2.

⁸ See the important article by Richard Kaufman, "Causes of the Slowdown in Soviet Defense," *Soviet Economy*, Vol. 1, No. 1 (January-March 1985), pp. 9-31.

⁹ Joshua Epstein, "Statement on the Fiscal Year 1985 Department of Defense Budget Request," in *Hearings Before the Committee on the Budget, United States Senate, Ninety-Eighth Congress, Second Session*, February 23, 1984 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1984), Vol. 4, p. 323.

¹⁰ *Ibid.*, p. 324.

¹¹ See, for example, McNamara's interview with Robert Scheer, "The Declining Strength of the Soviets," *The Guardian*, August 9, 1982.

¹² See Michael MccGwire, "The Overseas Role of a 'Soviet Military Presence'," in MccGwire and McDonnell, eds., *Soviet Naval Influence: Domestic and Foreign Dimensions* (New York: Praeger, 1977), pp. 31-57.

¹³ P. J. Ognibene, *Scoop: The Life and Politics of Henry M. Jackson* (New York: Stein and Day, 1975), p. 159.

¹⁴ See Colin Legum, "The Soviet Union's Encounter With Africa," in R. C. Nation & M. V. Kauppi, eds., *The Soviet Impact in Africa* (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1984), p. 9.

¹⁵ Henry Kissinger, *Years of Upheaval* (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1982), p. 943.

¹⁶ *Ibid.*, p. 944.

¹⁷ Dimitri Simes, "Soviet Policy Toward the United States," in Joseph Nye, ed., *The Making of America's Soviet Policy* (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984), p. 317.

¹⁸ Stanley Hoffmann, *Dead Ends* (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1983), p. 90.

¹⁹ See Alexander George, *Managing U.S.-Soviet Rivalry: Problems of Crisis Prevention* (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983) for a fuller analysis.

²⁰ See P. Pringle, "Russian Radar 'Not Illegal'," *The Observer*, March 24, 1985.

²¹ This argument is elaborated in Kenneth Booth, *Strategy and Ethnocentrism* (London: Croom Helm Ltd., 1979), pp. 48-51.

²² The argument is well made in Marshall D. Shulman, "U.S.-Soviet Relations and the Control of Nuclear Weapons," in Barry M. Blechman, ed., *Rethinking the U.S. Strategic Posture* (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1982), pp. 77-100.

²³ Shulman (fn. 22), p. 85.

²⁴ See Ralph K. White, *Fearful Warriors* (New York: Free Press, 1984).

²⁵ Marshall D. Shulman, "Toward a Western Philosophy of Coexistence," *Foreign Affairs*, Vol. 52, No. 1 (October 1973), pp. 35-58.

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SAIS
REVIEW

Summer/Fall 1985

Pg. 221

JAPAN'S GROWING INVOLVEMENT
IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Marvin Ott

THE LAST TWO YEARS HAVE WITNESSED the first systematic effort since World War II to define Japanese foreign policy interests in global terms, including an attempt to extend the reach of Japanese foreign policy beyond its established emphasis on relations with the United States and the nearby countries of Asia to other areas—especially the Middle East. Throughout most of the postwar period, Japanese foreign policy was notable for its absence of political initiative and its almost total preoccupation with commerce. With single-minded determination, Japan focused on postwar economic reconstruction and the development of overseas markets for its manufactured products; on political and security issues, Tokyo was with few exceptions content to follow the U.S. lead. To borrow a phrase, "the business of Japan was business." By the end of the 1970s Japan's prosperity, accompanied by American economic difficulties, led to growing pressures from Washington for Tokyo to assume a greater international burden. The sheer size and dynamism of the Japanese economy precluded Tokyo's sitting on the sidelines of international affairs.

The 1982 election of Yasuhiro Nakasone led Japan toward center stage as Nakasone attended summit meetings with other leaders of the industrialized democracies and implemented a burst of diplomatic initiatives toward the Chinese, Koreans, Indians, Pakistanis, and Southeast Asians.

Marvin Ott is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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