The Washington Post
Sunday, August 19, 1990

Henry Kissinger

# The Game Has Just Begun

The president's courageous decision to deploy a major military force in Saudi Arabia has raised not only the prospects of success but also the stakes of defeat. The United States has in fact passed the point of no return.

It therefore becomes crucial to assess how success and failure are to be defined. The U.N. Security Council has unanimously demanded the unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi forces and the restoration of the legitimate government. The United States has justified its interdiction of the sea lanes as a response to a request of the exiled Kuwaiti government.

In these circumstances, should Iraq manage to remain in Kuwait or exercise indirect control through some puppet, the American show of force will turn into a debacle. If in the end Iraq controls Kuwait and U.S. forces stay in Saudi Arabia, the crisis will have ended in a demonstration of the irrelevance of America and of world opinion. In any event, neither Arab nor American politics would long sustain significant troop deployments in Saudi Arabia. The argument that we have saved Saudi Arabia will be overwhelmed by the perception of an American failure that would shake political, economic and financial stability everywhere. Indeed, even attainment of the U.N. objectives might provide only a breathing space if Saddam Hussein remains in office and Iraq continues to build up its nuclear and chemical weapons potential.

Time is not on our side. American staying power in the face of public, regional and allied pressures is usually inversely proportional to the scale of our deployment. Thus, if after a certain interval the conflict appears to settle down to a siege, the United States will be obliged to consider new measures to bring it to a conclusion.

Success for Iraq in Kuwait would usher in a series of upheavals certain to culminate in a general Middle East war. A government as cautious and as dedicated to anonymity as Saudi Arabia's would never have asked for the assistance of foreign troops had it not considered the very survival of the state at stake. Nor would the Arab summit have condemned a brother country. Nor would Egypt, Syria and Morocco have sent troops to assist Saudi Arabia. Likewise, in the developing world, where so many countries have more precarious and even more recent frontiers as well as covetous neighbors, a victory by Iraq could inaugurate a time of troubles.

The vital interests of the industrial states are affected most directly. If Iraq succeeds in making the annexation of Kuwait stick, it could determine the price of oil by black-mailing the states of the Arabian peninsula—which together with Kuwait and Iraq control some 40 percent of the world's oil reserves—into reducing their oil production.

The United States had three choices in dealing with the crisis: it could passively endorse whatever consensus emerged in the United Nations; it could support whatever the industrial democracies—all of which are more

dependent on Mideast oil than the United States—were prepared to do in concert; or it could take the lead in opposing Saddam Hussein and try to organize international support for an effort in which the United States would bear the principal burden.

There were ample excuses for avoiding a decision. The most fashionable is the argument that the defense of the area should be an Arab matter. But in the end, alibis cannot change the consequences of failure to resist. None of the Arab states is strong enough even in combination to defeat the Iraqi army, toughened in a 10-year war, supplied with advanced military technology during that time by the Soviet Union and France and buttressed by economic assistance from the other industrial democracies, including the United States. Such an argument marks the reemergence of American isolationism, especially among the conservatives. Allowed to prevail, it would conclude with America's abdication at the very moment when the old East-West conflict has been won.

Another argument to avoid a U.S. role is that even if Iraq controlled all the oil in the Gulf, it would still have to sell it in a world market governed by the laws of supply and demand. But were Iraq to achieve its strategic design, it would be able to determine the level of supply by taking production away from sparsely populated principalities in the Arabian peninsula without hurting its own population. The ability to cause a worldwide economic crisis is not the sort of power to be left in the hands of a ruler who has attacked two of his six neighbors, is engaged in mortal conflict with two others and has used poison gas against his own dissident population.

The administration must have concluded that anything other than a leadership role for the United States would have ended with making Iraqi domination of Kuwait permanent and led to the collapse of the moderate governments in the region including Egypt. Having committed the United States to a leadership role, President Bush made another crucial decision. The American military role could have been confined to interdiction at sea and a token force on the ground to make clear that an attack on Saudi oil fields would lead to war with the United States. President Bush and his advisers opted for a massive deployment. They seem to have reasoned that the U.N.'s unexpected sanction might change Saddam Hussein's calculation. He may well not have originally intended to seize the Saudi oil fields. Had there been no meaningful resistance, he would not have needed to do so. The rulers of the Arabian peninsula—in Saudi Arabia as well as in the Emirates—would have yielded to Iraqi pressures or been overthrown, more likely both.

But once the sanctions were voted, Saddam Hussein's calculus was bound to change. So long as oil prices remain steady, the sanctions are likely to be sustained for many months. And prices will remain at more or less present levels if Saudi Arabia increases its production

by 2.5 million barrels. The remaining 1.6 million barrels of the 4.1 million barrel present shortfall caused by the loss of oil from Iraq and Kuwait, can be pieced together (at least until the winter) from Venezuela, the Emirates, Nigeria and other small producers. But if Saudi production can be destroyed or even severely reduced, the absence of Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil will lead to an explosive rise in oil prices. With Saudi production crippled and a worldwide depression looming, it would become increasingly difficult to maintain sanctions; Saddam Hussein would win the endurance contest.

President Bush and his advisers must have concluded that once they committed military forces, the best hope of ending the crisis quickly was to assemble an overwhelming force to overcome such a threat and to be able to go further if necessary, but the administration needs to calculate very carefully the window of opportunity it has available to achieve its objectives.

The administration must take care not to wallow in the wide domestic and international support it now enjoys. For the perfectly legitimate concern about the probability of success expressed by talk show hosts and newspaper columnists coupled with insistent reassurances by administration spokesmen will over time weaken the credibility of the American enterprise. The longer it lasts, the more American governmental procedures and Congressional inquiries will take their toll. At some point the familiar question of the light at the end of the tunnel is bound to surface.

The situation within the Middle East is also likely to grow more precarious the longer the crisis festers. The impact on the Arab world of anti-Western propaganda from Baghdad and the skillful linking of the issues of Kuwait and of Palestine must not be underestimated. A coup in one of the emirates or sabotage in the oil fields would send another shock through the region and the world economy.

The time required for the sanctions to work must be balanced against the factors undermining international cohesion. Such an analysis must keep in mind that the acid test of the sanctions will be not how much oil is prevented from leaving the region but how few supplies are allowed to enter Iraq. Iraqi oil exports are relatively easily blocked. But Iraq's frontiers are long, and less bulky goods such as food can seep in. And the likelihood of this happening will grow the longer the crisis lasts and the more Iraq's neighbors conclude that they may have to live with the Iraqi dictator, however dangerous he may be.

A sharp and short crisis is far more in the interest of all concerned with moderation than a long siege. I am not in a position to know whether sanctions can work within the time constraints outlined here. I also realize that the United States must consider the risk that a more aggressive course might take away some of the current international support. At the same time, that support would not survive the appearance of an American defeat. The United States stands to lose the most from a long siege—whatever the relative immediate economic impact on Europe.

(continued)

and Japan. An ignominious withdrawal following the debacle in Lebanon—and any withdrawal however dressed up without achieving our objectives would be ignominious—would end America's stabilizing role in the Middle East. And no other country could take its place. It would gravely weaken the Bush administration's capacity to overcome the economic crisis that would inevitably follow.

It would be a mistake to focus only on America's difficulties. In the end, Iraq is a heavily indebted developing country with a population of only 16 million that has just ended a debilitating 10-year war with Iran, and which has hostile relations with four of its six neighbors. It is in no position to enter into a protracted conflict with the United States. Saddam Hussein proved during the Iran war that he is prepared to negotiate when necessary. His most recent offer agreed to the principle of withdrawal from Kuwait, albeit under outrageous conditions. It may be the beginning of an attempt at negotiation obscured by bluster once the reality of the stark choices before Iraq sinks in. Then the offer to withdraw may reemerge stripped of its absurd baggage.

But the United States cannot afford to be diddled, and it simply cannot afford to lose. If it should be concluded that sanctions are too uncertain and diplomacy unavailing, the United States will need to consider a surgical and progressive destruction of Iraq's military assets—especially since an outcome that leaves Saddam Hussein in place and his military machine unimpaired might turn out to be only an interlude between aggressions.

It would be irresponsible for an outsider to press for a course of action in a situation so dependent on information not available to the kibitzer. But it is important to understand that America has crossed its Rubicon. All those concerned with global peace and world economic well being should subordinate whatever tactical misgivings they may have to standing behind the only policy that can now succeed.

© 1990, Los Angeles Times Syndicate

Henry Kissinger

Washington Post

# The End of NATO?

Tuesday, July 24,1990

Rarely has a group of leaders met after having so completely achieved its objectives as did the participants at the NATO summit in London. With communism collapsing as an operational philosophy, even in the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact disintegrated and Germany unifying, the Cold War had clearly ended. All of this has now further culminated in Mikhail Gorbachev's agreement to the membership of a unified Germany in NATO.

In the euphoria of these events, a word of caution may seem captious. But I cannot avoid the uneasy feeling that while the West is celebrating, its underlying cohesion is being hollowed out.

It is true that existing institutions must be changed in light of the dramatic developments of the past year.

But contrary to conventional wisdom, and at the risk of causing pain to some valued friends, I have come to the reluctant conclusion that progress toward German unification has been more rapid than progress toward solutions of the underlying structural problems. Indeed, there is a danger in the London communiqué issued by NATO that the world it envisages will be safe only on the assumption of a permanent Soviet weakness, that over time Germany will be torn between its ties to the West and its temptations toward the East and that America may become progressively irrelevant to the evolution of Europe.

One reason for the allies' avoidance of these trends is the degree to which Gorbachev has mesmerized Western public opinion.

Gorbachev will undoubtedly go down in history as a seminal figure who changed forever the destiny of his people. But do we really understand what is required to help him through the wrenching process underway in Moscow? And are Western leaders helping him in the long run by choosing sides in the arcane power struggle taking place in Moscow? Does explaining so many of the provisions of the summit communiqué as "facesavers" without much substance help or hurt? If they are really empty, will Gorbachev's opponents be fooled? And will not Gorbachev, who is after all an experienced statesman, seek to give operational meaning to words intended for public effect? In so fluid a situation, is not the only sound course for the Alliance to put forward a program sustainable on its merit by any foreseeable Soviet leader?

There was a tendency in London to seek to co-opt traditional critics and to reassure the Soviet leadership by falling in with the premises of 30 years of anti-NATO propaganda. Several allied briefers argued that the communiqué would enable Gorbachev to tell his colleagues that NATO no longer posed a threat to the Soviet Union.

But in what way was NATO ever a threat to the Soviet Union? The end of the Cold War does not require a denial of a history of 40 years of crises, repressions and documented assistance to global terrorism. What it does require is an answer to two questions: Toward what threat and with what means is the alliance to be directed? And what is to be the political role of NATO?

With respect to security, the London communiqué announced drastic reductions in conventional weapons and a new nuclear strategy. But since the communiqué did not define to what Soviet threat these changes are to be geared, the various measures in the conventional field—the reduction of forces, the ceiling on German forces, the lowering of readiness and a greater reliance on reinforcements—are hard to assess.

In any event, the domestic turmoil in the Soviet Union makes a conventional attack highly unlikely for the foreseeable future. But even after a strategic arms agreement, the Soviet Union will retain a nuclear arsenal 10 times larger than the combined British and French nuclear forces, and this will pose the most plausible Soviet threat.

In this context, the new NATO nuclear doctrine is puzzling. The London summit announced the modification of the doctrine of flexible response, the readiness to withdraw all short-range nuclear weapons from the continent and a commitment to use nuclear weapons only as a last resort.

But why has flexible response suddenly become so controversial? All it ever asserted was that NATO would use the minimum force to repel aggression. Therefore, even in nuclear war a series of firebreaks would be attempted before the ultimate recourse. In what way does the new doctrine differ? Indeed, what is the new doctrine? What does last resort mean? Whose last resort? Germany's? The United States? What change does Gorbachev see in the new doctrine, since he mentioned it as one of the reasons for shifting his position on German membership in NATO? Will any nuclear weapons remain under the direct control of the NATO commander?

We are in fact in the midst of a process of denuclearizing Europe—largely driven by German domestic politics—which has shifted from the withdrawal of intermediate-range missiles to the withdrawal of medium-range weapons and now to the nuclear artillery. After all short-range nuclear weapons have been eliminated, only nuclear bombs on tactical aircraft will remain. How soon before they too come under attack? Indeed, what is the rationale for maintaining them?

Moreover, denuclearization is unlikely to be the end of the story. If Germany is serious about banishing the risk of nuclear war from its soil, it will come to interpret the doctrine of last resort as meaning no first use of nuclear weapons. Then America will be asked to risk nuclear devastation on behalf of a country not prepared to run such risks for itself. Is that not precisely the definition of the decoupling of the United States from Europe, which 40 years of NATO policy has sought to avoid and of Soviet policy to achieve? Are we then back to the doctrine of massive retaliation, from which every American administration since the 1950s has sought to escape because of the lack of credibility of the choice it posed between suicide and surrender? Would the American people in their post-Cold War mood

support such a policy?

In any event, Britain and France have dissociated themselves from the new nuclear concept. Other Europeans seem confused, oscillating between seeing in it nothing significantly new and equating it with no first use of nuclear weapons. Is such ambiguity helpful for deterrence? Does it not accelerate the delegitimization of nuclear weapons in the eyes of European and American publics? Does it mask an underlying assumption that there is nothing to worry about because the Soviet Union will remain permanently weak—a curious position for Allied leaders who keep proclaiming their commitment to the success of a perestroika designed to make the Soviet Union strong?

What about the enlarged political role for NATO? Only two concrete political proposals relevant to the Alliance were made: that Gorbachev address the NATO council and that liaison missions from the Soviet Union and other East European countries be established at the NATO council.

What is the purpose of either measure? Since Stalin's day, the Soviet Union has sought to make NATO irrelevant by offering to join it. What exactly does the Alliance expect from a meeting with the Soviet leader other than a recycling of the oft-repeated statements that NATO is unnecessary, if not dangerous? Moreover, the meeting is patently redundant, since Gorbachev will already be attending—at more or less the same time—the summit of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), where he will also meet all of NATO's leaders. How long will democratic public opinion support an alliance that calls its former adversary a "partner in security"?

And what are these liaison missions supposed to accomplish? To whom are they accredited? If to the NATO Council, can Soviet observers attend its sessions? Even if not, the missions will either become part of the Brussels decision-making process or duplicate the present role of Soviet missions in allied capitals. Significantly, the communiqué is silent on a political role for NATO that would be truly new: some mechanism for dealing with conflicts outside the NATO area.

The failure to define a serious political role for NATO becomes the more unsettling when compared with the relative precision of the communiqué regarding the role of the CSCE. Though the communiqué refers to that conference as subsidiary, in practice that is lip service. The European Security Conference—comprising 35 states from Europe and North America—has been touted for years both by the Soviets and by NATO's opponents as an alternative to the Atlantic Alliance. The proposed CSCE summit conference includes conflict prevention and conciliation of disputes among member states in its agenda together with a permanent secretariat. This edges the conference into the field of security where the veto of each member equates the threat with the remedy.

The increasing emphasis on nationalism will be encouraged by the proliferation of summits. With-

(over)

INTERNATIONAL

A Plan for Europe

By HENRY A. KISSINGER

At his meeting with so-called intellectuals in Washington, Gorbachev took me aside to say that a road map for the future was his most important concern. He was right. The upheavals of the past year make the creation of a new structure for European security essential. It must take into account the imminent unification of Germany as well as the de facto collapse of the Warsaw Pact. It has to define America's new relationship with Europe while granting the Soviet Union a serious role in Europe.

Above all, such a design must transcend the euphoria based on personal relationships that surrounded the summit. With all respect for the subtlety of President Bush's conduct, it is important to recall that we have been there before. In 1955, the first postwar summit between Eisenhower and Khuschchev was lauded by The New York Times as follows: "Other men might have played strength against strength. It was Mr. Eisenhower's gift to draw others into the circle of his good will and to modify the attitudes if not the policies of the little band of visitors from the other side of the Elbe." One year later ensued the concurrent crises of Suez and Hungary, and two years after that the Soviet ultimatum over Berlin.

The world has changed dramatically since 1955. The United States has achieved most of the objectives it set for itself

then; the Soviet Union is in deep crisis. For opposite reasons, both need a design for a journey from where they are to where they have never been. At the same time, this is likely to be the last summit at which it was possible to discuss the future of Europe without European participation. As Europe becomes politically unified and security concerns less dominant, the special advantage of the superpowers—their nuclear supremacy—will become less and less relevant to the political issues.

This may explain why the discussion on Germany at the summit was so inconclusive. The Soviets, shackled by the categories of the past, advanced a plethora of

ideas that have been staples of Soviet foreign policy since the days of Stalin: that Germany join both NATO and the Warsaw Pact; that Germany become neutral; that it remain under the political umbrella of NATO but leave the military organization; that the Soviet Union join NATO; that an all-European security system replace existing alliances. The staleness of these proposals suggests that the Soviets find it hard to abandon their old dream of separating the United States from Western Europe; their number implies that the Soviets are groping for a way out.

The American response has been based

on of nuclear forces on German soil.

The loud Soviet expressions of fear, however well founded in the psyche of the Soviet people, are surely not without some design. It is difficult to believe that Soviet leaders in possession of well over 10,000 nuclear warheads and the largest tank force in the world genuinely fear another German attack. And if they do, they would be better off with German forces as a part of NATO, which would surely veto any such preposterous enterprise.

The Bush administration has rightly resisted the effort to organize Europe around the fear of Germany. A policy of isolation

would throw Germany back on its own resources. It would repeat its historic tragedy of wandering between two worlds and disquieting both.

Those in the West who fall in with the Soviet definition of the German problem prevent Soviet consideration of realistic alternatives. While in the end the Soviet Union may well settle for a continuation of NATO in its present form, this is clearly not the Soviets' first choice. However remarkable Gorbachev's personality, he is a product of Russian history. And Russian foreign policy, at least since Peter the Great, has been a tale of expansion not only in Europe but to the gates of India and into northern China. Whenever a limit was reached, the Russian empire—under tsar or commissar—relentlessly sought to undermine whatever it had defined as the competing power center: Sweden; the Austro-Hungarian Empire; China; Britain in the Middle East; or

the United States after World War II.

Since the days of Stalin, the various Soviet proposals regarding Germany have had one common characteristic: they have sought to sever the organic security link between Europe and the United States and undercut the American military presence. And as soon as the U.S. military presence is removed, the Soviet Union's huge nuclear arsenal and vast remaining tank armies would become strategically dominant. Then a partially recovered Soviet Union could attempt a deal that would keep Germany in check with Soviet nuclear strength while turning Germany into the chief engine of Soviet economic recovery.

FRITZ REISS-AP

Neither side must feel beaten: Bush and Kohl at the White House

Moscow looks to
Washington to restrain
a unified Germany

on the assumption that in the end the Soviet Union will prefer to preserve NATO because Moscow looks to Washington to act as a restraint on a unified Germany. This is why, together with its allies, the United States has proposed a number of concessions to make the idea of German NATO membership more palatable. Among them: changing the emphasis of NATO to make it a more political institution; imposing a variety of arms limitations on Germany; asking a reunified Germany to provide economic assistance to the Soviet Union; having Germany pay for Soviet troops to remain in present-day East Germany for a specified period, and reducing the num-

32 NEWSWEEK: JUNE 18, 1990

In this manner, the Soviet Union would have used its weakness to achieve the hegemony over Europe that eluded it when it seemed strong. And America would have acceded to the domination of Eurasia against which it fought two world wars.

**Multiple concessions:** Accepting the Soviet premise that Germany is the major threat to European security is likely to tempt the Soviets into seeking more ambitious goals than stability. And it would encourage a "compromise" whereby Germany would remain in NATO but NATO would be emasculated through multiple concessions to the Soviet Union. The reluctance to classify the Soviet Union as a potential military threat accentuates that danger. After the summit, the absurd Soviet proposal to join NATO was rejected far too gently with the extraordinary argument that the Soviet Union is not yet a democracy.

In their heart of hearts, Gorbachev

and his advisors surely realize that they cannot stop German NATO membership and that their threat to keep troops in East Germany unilaterally is empty. Unification will occur because the so-called German Democratic Republic will dissolve itself into the five states ("Länder") out of which it was formed. Each of them would then seek admission to the Federal Republic under Article 23 of that country's constitution. All existing laws and treaties would apply automatically, including German membership in NATO. A neutral status could come about only through the deliberate destruction of the Atlantic alliance.

Nor does the Soviet Union have a realistic option to keep its troops in East Germany, as Gorbachev has hinted. For one thing, the Warsaw Pact provides that the GDR's obligations to it lapse after Germany is unified. At that point, Soviet forces in East Germany would

no longer have any local counterpart to facilitate maneuvers, troop movements and other routine measures. Besides, reverting to the status of conqueror would mortgage Moscow's long-term relationship with a unified Germany.

The most realistic security system therefore would have the following components:

(a) the creation of a neutral belt composed of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary—on the Austrian model;

(b) the creation on both sides of this zone—that is, in the Soviet Union and in Germany—of an area with strict limitations on types of weapons and numbers of men;

(c) special restrictions on the territory of

present-day East Germany to ensure that NATO forces are not stationed there. (If Poland preferred to remain in the Warsaw Pact, symmetry could be maintained by prohibiting the stationing of Warsaw Pact forces on its soil.)

In such a scheme, neither side could launch an attack without extensive arms-control violations and military operations across several hundred miles of neutral territory, which would require months of preparation and give ample warning.

Such an approach would be both realistic and comprehensive. It would break the pattern of searching among the various Soviet schemes for the ones that do the least damage—an essentially negative enterprise. Though the Soviet Union is too traumatized by recent events to deviate from the familiar, it may in the end be relieved by an approach that changes the question. However put, a new approach of this kind re-

principle of symmetrical forces will become more firmly established. Arms control runs the risk of permitting more Soviet forces than the East European countries want. Alternatively, it could generate pressures on the United States to withdraw all its forces from Central Europe, thus jeopardizing NATO. This is why the present approach should be abandoned after the completion of the first stage of negotiations in favor of a scheme more in line with existing European political realities.

The design of a new security system for Europe and a new approach to arms control requires the closest consultation and coordination between Western Europe and the United States. In the foreseeable future, Soviet conventional forces will be needed at home. But its nuclear forces remain intact and are preponderant vis-à-vis Europe. Deterring nuclear blackmail requires a new strategy as well as a political relation-

ship based on the premise that European and American destinations are inextricably linked.

European unity is rapidly advancing in the political field and will sooner or later encompass defense. Therefore, the existing institutions for transatlantic dialogue will grow increasingly fragile. At present, military issues are discussed within NATO; political issues will find their focal point in the European Community as Europe moves toward unity. The United States has sought to make German membership in NATO more palatable to the Soviets by hinting at a new political role for NATO. But aside from the difficulty of defining such a role, the proposal runs up against the old European suspicion that the United States is somehow manipulating NATO to undermine Europe's emerging political identity. For in NATO, the United States deals with the European countries individually; the European Community is

not represented as an institution.

By the same token, the United States is for all practical purposes excluded from the political deliberations of the European Community. The standard procedure is for the Council of Ministers to convey its conclusions to the United States through a Chairman who rotates every six months. But that foreign minister is in effect an instructed messenger; he has no negotiating flexibility. The best he can do is to transmit the American views to colleagues understandably reluctant to hazard their hard-won consensus. Thus, security issues are relegated to a forum inimical to European identity while politi-

PATRICK PIEL—GAMMA-LIAISON

The Soviets have no option of staying in Germany: Troops pull out

## The Russian empire always undermined the competing power

quires a radical redesign of negotiations on conventional force reductions in Europe.

When these negotiations began, the political dividing line ran through the center of Germany, and Soviet ground forces were assumed to be vastly superior. Since then, the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe have collapsed; most of the new governments have asked the Soviet Union to withdraw its forces. For an interim period, symmetrical reduction of forces will provide a way for the Soviets to withdraw forces without losing face and without creating American obligations that go beyond what the budgetary process is likely to allow. But with every increment of withdrawal, the

NEWSWEEK: JUNE 18, 1990 33

INTERNATIONAL

cal issues are handled in a forum that excludes the United States from meaningful participation.

A solution must be found to permit the European Community to participate in NATO discussions, and for the United States to be heard within the European Community before deliberations harden into formal decisions. Perhaps a new comprehensive treaty between the United States and the European Community will be in order when European unity has sufficiently progressed.

The Soviets are entitled to a meaningful voice in European affairs. But their proposal for a European security system embracing North America, Europe and the Soviet Union to replace existing alliances

is better designed to undermine the Atlantic alliance than to establish a forum for cooperation. If everybody agreed on everything, no structure would be necessary. And if they differ, the "system" could dissolve into competing national states. It would in fact come rather close to the map of Europe prior to World War I. Europe would disintegrate in the name of a "common European house."

There are, however, common objectives that unite rather than divide: the environment, worldwide economic growth, cultural exchange, human rights, and confidence-building measures on arms. All these are suitable for the kind of embracing institution Moscow has put forward.

These designs gain even greater rele-

vance against the backdrop of the drama playing itself out inside the Soviet Union. In so fluid a situation, it is reckless to gear policy to one man; the only safe course is to put forward objectives and purposes to which any emerging Soviet leader could relate. The Western democracies will lose their bearings if they focus on personalities and equate amiability with harmony.

Though I am of the view that America has prevailed in the Cold War, I also believe that a new international order can emerge only if neither side claims victory and neither side feels defeated. And the best way to bring this about is to stop the debate about the issues of yesterday and redefine the questions that make up the agenda for the future.

## Gorbachev: The Price of Survival

I have never encountered a Soviet delegation so tentative as the one that accompanied Gorbachev to Washington. Some of its members seemed nonplussed by the collapse of the Communist Party. Others appeared torn between the familiar contours of central planning and the potential attractions of market economics. The head of the central planning agency lost command of his English when asked how his office was going to coordinate with the market sector, then did not seek to hide his irritation about this state of affairs. On the situation in Europe, they offered a series of complaints, fears and speculations. But these had a plaintive quality, as if they hoped America would rescue them from the consequences of their actions.

Through this maelstrom glided the eloquent, apparently confident figure of Gorbachev—more verbose than usual, but otherwise dominant. Yet my respect for this extraordinary tour de force could not obscure the conviction that Gorbachev's role as a *deus ex machina* is ending. Not that I expect him to be overthrown. I have no way of judging such a prospect; I would surely regret it. But the upheaval he has wrought will force Gorbachev to rely increasingly

on unfamiliar constituencies.

Gorbachev has already assured his place in history. He diagnosed the maladies of his society and set about courageously to remedy them. History may record that he produced consequences far more dramatic than he ever intended. I have yet to meet a Soviet personality in a position to know who believes that Gorbachev's purpose in 1989 was to start dismantling the Soviet empire. What he appears to have sought was to foster growing access to Western resources and technology by putting in place in Eastern Europe reformist Communists capable of liberalizing, not overthrowing, existing institutions. But when matters got out of hand, Gorbachev displayed extraordinary fortitude. He confined the Soviet Army to its barracks even while Communism was being dismantled all over Eastern Europe. Gorbachev would not be the first revolutionary to set in motion events that sweep beyond his design. But since history judges results more than intentions, it will be kind to Gorbachev.

Still, the disparity between intentions and results makes Gorbachev's power base uncertain. Either at the next summit or soon thereafter, Gorbachev will likely be answerable to a different con-

stellation of forces. He rose to office as the standard-bearer of the Communist Party. When it became an obstacle to reform, he set about to dismantle it with a complicated system of elections designed to vent resentments but incapable of creating an alternative national structure. On paper this must have looked like a masterful, even Machiavellian, maneuver to fragment the opposition and enhance personal rule. But the artfully designed elections have caused something akin to democracy to emerge in the 15 constituent republics, including the Russian republic, which comprises three quarters of the territory and over half of the population.

**Desirable outcome:** In the face of these centrifugal trends, *perestroika* can proceed and national unity be maintained only by a deal between the center and the elected heads of the various republics. They have spoken of a confederal structure in which defense would be national but each republic could evolve internal policy and some foreign policies. From the point of view of international stability, that would be a desirable outcome—a Russia strong enough to defend itself but too decentralized to attack. But it would confront Gorbachev with the risk of being perceived as a

ELIZABETH KARNAZES—REUTERS

Gliding: At Stanford

symbol of the central apparatus he sought to overcome.

If he fails, he may emerge too strong to be replaced but too weak to impose his will. Probably he can regain legitimacy in only one of two ways: by repression, which would risk his relations with the outside world, or by cutting some sort of deal with the elected leaders in the republics—thus transforming the Soviet state. Whatever course he chooses, Gorbachev will represent a different Russia in the future—if he survives the forces he has unleashed.

HENRY A. KISSINGER

NEWSWEEK: JUNE 18, 1990 37