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NEWSWEEK ARTICLE

The just concluded Communist Party conference in Moscow
following so close on the heels of the Reagan-Gorbachev summit
symbolizes the end of the postwar period in international
relations. These twin developments--the unexpected radicalism
of Gorbachev's domestic changes and the redefinition of American
conservative doctrine by the most conservative American
President--have capped the upheaval of postwar international
relations:

~~Whatever Gorbachev's intentions he has started a process within the Soviet Union and even more in the satellite orbit~~

whose consequences not even he can foretell.

~~The conviction that the leaders of democracies~~
--Whatever Reagan's convictions ~~has contributed to a~~

view of the USSR, conditions which will bring about major changes in Atlantic relations, within the next decade.

--These twin events make the future of Europe--East and West--a central political and not simply an arms control problem.

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leader of a different generation whose formative experience was in a profession quite distant from politics. No Soviet leader would dare go to the Politburo with the proposition that his personal ties to an American president could justify changes in Soviet policy.

For all his panache and intelligence, Gorbachev like most statesmen, is to some degree a product of circumstance. He seeks--with courage and imagination--to change the Soviet domestic structure to overcome the stagnation of the late Brezhnev era. It is not a commitment to peace in the abstract but a more competitive Soviet Union, though he undoubtedly needs a period of relative calm to achieve his domestic goals. Another Soviet leader would in all likelihood feel compelled to pursue similar policies, if with less verve and psychological skill. After all the present phase of Soviet policy was inaugurated when Gromyko--attacked at the party conference as a relic of the Brezhnev era--during the leadership of the decrepit Chernenko, who has become a non-person, called on President Reagan in 1984.

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accuse themselves of not having made enough concessions. ~~The policy based on personalities is inherently precarious, however~~

The often repeated phrase that we should help Gorbachev is devoid of meaning unless help is properly defined. Does it imply that we should make agreements that we would not make on their merits? Does it mean that we must accept the Soviet definition of the issues? Should we side with Gorbachev in his internal disputes? Or do we help him most by putting forward a reasonable concept of a more peaceful world that takes account of changing realities~~and that we can submit to~~

In the end it is geography, geopolitics and history which define the limits within which personality and ideology operate. Even should Communist ideology decline there would still remain historic Russia as a great power whose objectives Gorbachev would have to determine in the light of its experience. And for four hundred years it has been a major challenge for world peace how to establish a relationship between that giant state of eleven time zones and its smaller neighbors. Often ~~inferred~~

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The role of ideology has been threefold: it gave Soviet leaders an inner assurance that their Tsarist predecessors *sometimes* lacked; it supplied them with a global cadre of supporters in many countries and in the end it tempted them into distant enterprises such as Angola, Cuba, Nicaragua and Indochina to which traditional Russian rulers might have given a lower priority. The decline of ideological elan is thus most likely to be reflected in a willingness to trim distant commitments. It does not mean an abandonment--indeed it could lead to an enhancement--of the pursuit of traditional Russian objectives.

Western leaders are practicing escapism if they believe the decline in Communist ideology ends their foreign policy problems. It opens up opportunities, but also new challenges which America in particular has never had to face.

## The New Soviet Challenge

Revolutionaries rarely foresee all the consequences of their actions. They attack the existing structure by forming

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The role of ideology has been threefold: it gave Soviet leaders an inner assurance that their Tsarist predecessors *sometimes* lacked; it supplied them with a global cadre of supporters in *many countries* and in the end it tempted them into distant enterprises such as Angola, Cuba, Nicaragua and Indochina to which traditional Russian rulers might have given a lower priority. The decline of ideological elan is thus most likely to be reflected in a willingness to trim distant commitments. It does not mean an abandonment--indeed it could lead to an enhancement--of the pursuit of traditional Russian objectives.

## The New Soviet Challenge

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will appeal to the historic unifying element of at least the
Russian part of the population--its profound nationalism.
The manifestations of that process are the challenges to
our foreign policy.

Gorbachev's policies are likely to prove even more
unsettling in the countries of Eastern Europe. A Soviet
citizen may still take patriotic pride in the victory
in World War II, the industrialization of the Soviet Union and
its achievement of high status in international affairs even
after hearing that every leader since Lenin was responsible
either for a cult of personality, adventurism or stagnation.
No such comfort is available to the East Europeans. Their
ruling parties were imposed by a country which now
advertises publicly the corruption and inefficiency of its
system. The Gorbachev reforms are thus bound to increase the
challenge to the legitimacy of the ruling groups in Eastern
Europe. These will not be able to operate the subtle balancing
act between government and party envisaged by Gorbachev for the