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NEWSWEEK ARTICLE -- 6/5/90

Like millions of others around the world I watched the extraordinary televised press conference with which Presidents Bush and Gorbachev concluded their summit. The well-modulated phrases so carefully and skillfully attuned to every nuance of public opinion could not wholly hide the underlying reality: the American President stood at the end of a process in which his country had achieved almost all the foreign policy goals it had set itself forty years earlier. The Soviet leader represented a country in the midst of a crisis of economics, political legitimacy and indeed of the structure of the state. Each conducted himself like the professional he is. President Bush was delicate and self-effacing, careful to claim no victory. President Gorbachev appeared confident, claiming inspiration for necessity.

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But observing the ebullience and the subsequent public
euphoria I could not avoid a certain uneasiness. It was not
caused by the agreements which were signed which represented
standard summit fare: arms control, trade and exchanges. These
will soon be engulfed in the traditional domestic controversy
about whether certain concessions were necessary and will almost
surely be approved by the Congress. But these were the issues of
the past.

What concerned me was how little conceptual progress there
was on what Gorbachev correctly called the road map of the
future. These subjects including Germany and the shape of the
Russian Empire symbolized by Lithuania do not in fact lend
themselves to formal summit agreement: Germany because the
future of Europe can no longer be settled without the presence of
Europeans; Lithuania because it involves a historic evolution
perceived in Moscow as a domestic affair.

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On the other hand if these issues are mishandled they can usher in a new period of tension and chaos. For the moment they have been submerged in an extraordinary atmosphere of good personal relations among leaders. This fits in well with the American national nostalgia for foreign policy by conversion, the emergence of a Soviet leader who because he believes in comparable values no longer represents a geopolitical challenge.

It also suits current Soviet necessities: a crisis of such magnitude that getting through the day is its own objective.

Thus the future is sought in a denial of the past; amiability becomes identified with harmony.

This is not to diminish the extraordinary tact with which President Bush handled the difference in the position of the two sides. But precisely because the Cold War world is disintegrating a road map *is* needed to go from where we are to where we have never been. That--not the arcane numbers of arms control--is the true challenge of contemporary foreign policy. I

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am not sure that progress has been made in this direction
commensurate with the public euphoria that has been generated.

Such a road map seems all the more important because I have
never encountered a Soviet delegation more tentative than this
one. Some members with whom I spoke were nonplussed by a society
in which the collapse of the Communist Party destroyed a familiar
structure without creating an alternative. Others were torn
between the egalitarianism of central planning and the
attractions of market economics. The head of Gosplan who had
spoken quite adequately enough up to that point claimed that he
did not understand the question of how his office was going to
coordinate with the market sector. All my interlocutors were
troubled by the emergence of a unified Germany though not very
clear about what to do about it. Through this near confusion
moved Gorbachev ebullient, serene, apparently confident. It was
an extraordinary tour de force.

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But personality is not a substitute for structure especially
in a chaotic situation. Gorbachev will no doubt be remembered as
a seminal figure in history. He diagnosed the ills of his
society and set about with great courage to remedy them. But
history may also record that he was better in diagnosis than in
prescription. It is likely that he produced consequences far
more dramatic than he ever intended. I have yet to meet a Soviet
leader who believes that Gorbachev's purpose in 1989 was to
collapse the Soviet satellite empire. What he appears to have
sought was to put in place reformist Communists who would
liberalize existing institutions, not to overthrow them. But
when matters got out of hand Gorbachev displayed extraordinary
courage in ordering the Red Army to stay in its barracks even
while Communism was being dismantled all over Eastern Europe.
And history will be kind to Gorbachev; it will judge him by the
transformations he has in fact brought about, not by his
intentions.

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This disparity between results and intentions places a special obligation on American leadership towards the future, however. The Soviets are not in a good position to develop novel approaches. They seem too traumatized by what has happened; they find it difficult to deal with the geopolitical reality of a united Germany and perhaps subconsciously they may feel that any Soviet proposal would speed the advent of what they surely never believed would come upon them so rapidly.

To be sure they have put forward a plethora of tentative ideas: that Germany should join both NATO and the Warsaw Pact; that Germany should be neutral; that Germany should remain in the political but leave the military organization of NATO; that the Soviet Union should join NATO; that an all-European security system—including the US, Canada and the Soviet Union—should replace existing alliances.

The United States response has been evasive. Together with its allies the United States has insisted that Germany remain in

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NATO but it also appears to have offered a number of concessions to make the idea more palatable such as changing the emphasis of NATO to a more political institution; various forms of arms limitations on Germany; some kind of economic assistance from a reunified Germany to the Soviet Union; German payment for Soviet troops in present-day East Germany for a specified period; reduction of nuclear forces on German soil.

American leaders seem to operate on an assumption which may not be valid: that in the end the Soviet Union prefers Germany as part of NATO because NATO is America's sole institutional link to Europe and because Moscow looks to Washington as a restraint on the unified Germany.

I do not consider either of these propositions self-evident. Gorbachev is as I have said a remarkable historical figure. But he is a product of Russian history as much as of the Communist experience. Russian foreign policy at least since Peter the Great has been a tale of expansion from the area around Moscow,

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to the gates of India, the northern part of China and deep into Central Europe. Whenever limits were reached the Russian Empire under tsar and commissar relentlessly sought to undermine any possibly competing power center within reach: Sweden, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, China, Britain in the Middle East and after World War II the United States. The various Soviet proposals on Germany have one common characteristic: they sever the organic security link between Germany (and Europe) and the United States. This is especially true of the overarching European security system. It gives the Soviet Union the same voice in West European security as the United States. It--as all the other schemes--maximizes the one Soviet advantage: its military predominance in Eurasia. Once the American...

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to the gates of India, the northern part of China and deep into
Central Europe. Whenever limits were reached the Russian Empire
under tsar and commissar relentlessly sought to undermine any
possibly competing power center within reach: Sweden, the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, China, Britain in the Middle East and
after World War II the United States. The various Soviet
proposals on Germany have one common characteristic: they sever
the organic security link between Germany (and Europe) and the
United States. This is especially true of the overarching
European security system. It gives the Soviet Union the same
voice in West European security as the United States. It--as all
the other schemes--maximizes the one Soviet advantage: its
military predominance in Eurasia. Once the American military
presence is removed, the Soviet Union's huge nuclear arsenal and
vast remaining tank armies would be strategically dominant. Then
a partially recovered Soviet Union may envisage a deal where
Germany is kept in check by Soviet military (above all nuclear)

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power while Germany becomes the chief engine of Soviet economic recovery. That some such idea exists in at least some Soviet minds is shown by the fact that every single Soviet concept for how to deal with Germany has been part of every Soviet proposal since the days of Stalin. The chief contemporary difference is the almost diffident way in which they are being put forward suggesting the likelihood of an understanding by the Kremlin how limited its options really are.

For Gorbachev and his advisors surely realize that the real issue is not German membership in NATO as if that required either a positive act or Soviet acquiescence. The Federal Republic has been a NATO member since 1955. Unification will not create a new state. Rather it will come about by the device of the so-called German Democratic Republic breaking up into the six states ("Laender") which historically comprised it. These will then ask for admission in the Federal Republic under Article 23 of that country's constitution. In short no new international legal

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entity will emerge. If nothing happens the united Germany will automatically be part of NATO. A neutral status could come about only if Bonn were expelled from NATO or chose to leave it--both equivalent to a political earthquake involving the disintegration of the Atlantic Alliance.

Nor does the Soviet Union have the option hinted at by Gorbachev of simply keeping its troops in Eastern Germany in the absence of an agreement on its NATO status. Once Germany is unified there will no longer be any East German authorities to approve the presence of these forces. Every normal daily event could turn into a crisis with the population. Maneuvers, troop movements and other routine measures would grow highly inconvenient. The Soviet Union could keep the Red Army in Germany only by reverting to the status of conqueror __?__ which would surely mortgage its relationship with a united Germany.

For an interim period the presence of Soviet troops is possible, perhaps even desirable. But it needs a new negotiation.

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What is at stake in this debate is the future orientation of
a united Germany as well as of the entire US relationship with
NATO. This presents a dual challenge for Western policy:

(1) how to deal with the Soviet Union about the new emerging
Europe; (2) how to organize Europe and Atlantic relationships
under the new conditions.

The Soviet Union has made much of its fear of Germany. No
doubt the honor of World War II is still a primeval experience
for the Soviet population. On the other hand it is difficult to
believe that the Soviet Union in possession of well over ten
thousand nuclear warheads and the largest tank force in the world
really believes in the likelihood of a German attack. And if it
does, it would surely be better off if German forces remained
integrated into a NATO structure which would surely veto so
demented an enterprise.

The proposed all-European security system has the same
shortcoming. A structure embracing Canada, the United States,

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all of Europe, East and West, as well as the Soviet Union is not a system at all. If everybody agrees the structure is unnecessary. If there is tension it will disintegrate into a congeries of national states. It will in fact come close to appearing like the pre-World War I system of national states with the same disabilities. It would end both NATO and the European Community and invite the hegemony of the strongest.

Western policy in the months ahead must pay serious attention to legitimate Soviet security concerns. But it must take care lest these concerns invite a security system stigmatizing a united Germany. Germany has been a working democracy and a loyal ally for forty years. It does not deserve being treated at this late stage as if national aggression were a genetic German fault. Moreover it is important to keep in mind the danger that Germany might represent if things were to go desperately wrong. It is not a recurrence of Nazism for which not the slightest evidence exists. Rather it is a rootless romantic policy caused by the difficulty and temptations of

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romantic policy caused by the difficulty and temptations of
Germany's central location and the limited experience with a
concept of the national interest resulting from Germany's late
unification. It remains important not to tempt a latent
romanticism by leaving Germany to chart its own national course
between East and West. Isolating Germany is the worst option.

Too many in the West are flirting with what they should seek
to prevent by sympathizing with the Soviet definition of the
German problem. If the preservation of peace comes to be defined
entirely as a problem of containing Germany the Soviet Union
would achieve in its hour of crisis what it could not bring about
by threats when it appeared powerful. In various meetings with
members of the Soviet delegation I was stunned by the
enthusiastic acquiescence of their non-official interlocutors--
some of them Establishment figures--in the Soviet definition of
the problem.

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The challenge to statesmen both East and West is to design a security system made necessary by three upheavals: (1) the collapse of the Warsaw Pact depriving the Soviet Union of a glacis; (2) the unification of Germany; (3) the disintegration of Communism in Eastern Europe.

These conditions--all of which were caused by unilateral Soviet decisions--turn the withdrawal of the Soviet army from Central Europe into perhaps the key issue. So long as Soviet troops are in their present positions the temptation for intervention and the danger of unsought clashes with the civilian population are ever present. Soviet security must henceforth be sought by other means.

At the same time a realistic security system must take into account not only Soviet but Western concerns. The Soviet Union has been threatening the peace of the world more recently than Germany has. Nor has the Russian Empire ever been easy to live with. Since Peter the Great Russian troops have been at the

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outskirts of Berlin in the 18th century; in Paris, Budapest and
Adrianople in the 19th century; and at the gates of India, China
and Korea for 200 years. Russia also has a history of
ideological intervention from the Holy Alliance through Pan
Slavism to Communism. A serious security system must enhance the
security of Europe as well as of Russia. Care must be taken that
in order to make NATO more palatable to the Soviet Union one does
not drain it of all meetings. It is all very well to speak of a
more "political NATO". But in the end NATO is a military
alliance; it is not self-evident what political functions it
could be given that are meaningful and do not clash with the
process of European unification.

Nor does the present approach to conventional arms control
negotiations offer too much hope. When current negotiations on
conventional arms control began, the political dividing line ran
through the center of Germany and Soviet ground forces were
assumed to be vastly superior. In such circumstances, the goal

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of equal force levels was a major contribution toward stability. Since then, the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe have collapsed; most of the successor governments have asked the Soviet Union to withdraw its forces. For an interim period symmetrical reduction of forces will help ease the Soviet withdrawal while not obliging the United States to make greater reductions than budgetary pressures demand. But with every increment of withdrawal the principle of symmetrical forces will become more firmly established. Arms control runs the risk of turning into a means to legitimize more forces in Eastern Europe than the host countries want. Or else it could generate pressures on the United States to withdraw all its forces from Central Europe thus jeopardizing the existence of NATO. Neither outcome reflects the political revolution of Eastern Europe.

A European security system then should recognize existing dividing lines, avoid discriminating against Germany and meet the real security concerns of East and West. I have long believed

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that the most efficient system 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 east and west of this zone--that is, in the Soviet
Union and Germany--of an arms control zone with strict
limitations on types of weapons and numbers of men; (c) the
territory of present-day East Germany would have special
restrictions. In such a scheme neither side could launch an
attack without extensive violations of the arms control regimen
and then an attack of several hundreds of miles across the
neutral zone. Such an enterprise would require months, thus
giving substantial warning.

But the new situation cannot be mastered by arms control
alone. A new way must be found to link Europe and America
institutionally. The present system is not satisfactory. Within
the Atlantic Community military issues are discussed within NATO;
political issues find their focal point in the European Community

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and will do so increasingly as Europe elaborates an identity. As that process gathers momentum, American military forces may turn into the passive auxiliaries for the political decisions of others. The United States has tried to counteract this tendency by proposing a new political role for NATO. But aside from the difficulty of defining such a role, the proposal runs up against the historic suspicion of some Europeans that the US is somehow manipulating NATO to undermine Europe's identity. For in NATO, the US deals with the European countries individually; the European Community as an institution is not represented. Indeed, given Ireland's neutral status, it cannot be.

At the same time, 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

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negotiating flexibility. The best he can do is to inform his colleagues of the American views. But since their decision usually emerges from months of painful deliberations and difficult compromises, they are understandably reluctant to change their views. Thus, security issues are relegated to a forum inimical to European identity while political issues are handled in a forum that excludes the United States from meaningful participation.

This makes it increasingly difficult for Europe and America to concert their roles and strategies. A solution must be found by permitting the European Community as it elaborates its political institutions 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 will be in order when European unity has advanced sufficiently.

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This architecture must leave a role for the Soviet Union.

It cannot participate in the security arrangements without falsifying their role. But an all European system could address issues of economic growth, education, environment, cultural exchange, human rights and confidence-building measures in arms control, in short the positive agenda of East-West relations.

The problem of Germany important as it is shrinks in
importance compared to the internal evolution of the Soviet
Union. The smooth evolution towards market economics, multiparty
rule and peaceful conduct is the least likely outcome. Much more
probable is chaos or repression or both. This will challenge the
democracies to define, if they can, a relationship between human
rights and other interests, between self-determination and
international stability.

One summit could not possibly answer these issues. But
future summits will not be able to avoid the challenge which is
also the opportunity: how to construct a new world order on the
ruins of the old.

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Atlantic Community is that so long as Europeans seek nuclear
protection without nuclear risk. Americans will question
having to shoulder risks in defense of allied countries
which they themselves are avoiding. The end of that road is
growing dissociation.

All this suggests that the nuclear issue must be faced
explicitly and without delay. It must not surface as a
procurement decision; for example, the acquisition for NATO
of medium range air-launched missiles. There must be a
definition of political and strategic purposes. Otherwise,
the alliance will be caught between the denuclarization of
at least Central Europe and a strategy that makes the
Alliance itself a major political issue.

The same dilemmas exist with respect to arms control.

When negotiations on conventional arms control began, the
political dividing line ran through the center of Germany
and Soviet ground forces were assumed to be vastly superior.

States has tried to counteract this tendency by proposing a new political role for NATO. But aside from the difficulty of defining such a role, the proposal runs up against the historic suspicion of some Europeans that the US is somehow manipulating NATO to undermine Europe's identity. For in NATO, the US deals with the European countries individually; the European community as an institution is not represented. Indeed, given Ireland's neutral status, it cannot be.

At the same time, 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 inform his colleagues of the American views. But since their decision usually emerges from months of painful