As discussed in the paper at Tab A on the Soviet image of the United
States,3 the Soviets see
the U.S. as their main rival for influence in the world and the greatest
single threat to their security. Concern about the U.S. is reinforced by
the traditional Russian “fortress mentality” (born of the experience of
numerous foreign invasions across open frontiers) and by the works of
Marx and Lenin, with their portrayal of a hostile capitalist world bent
on destroying socialism.
Soviet views of the U.S. are also colored by a deep historical sense of
inadequacy in the face of western economic and technological
development. The Kremlin’s felt need to “catch up” with the West
economically flows out of this tradition, and the American standard of
living serves in many ways as the model for the Soviet future.
American military preeminence since 1945 is also a major factor in
Moscow’s attitude toward the United States. Moscow’s leaders tend to
equate military power with political power. They feel they have been
living under a U.S. political/military shadow since World War II, with
the Cuban missile crisis being perhaps the most graphic expression for
them of this U.S. predominance.
Despite efforts in recent years to develop a core of U.S. specialists in
the Soviet Union, Soviets in general have little understanding of the
American political system. Democratic traditions are alien and, in some
cases, incomprehensible to them, and they have particular difficulty
understanding the role of an independent legislative branch of
government. This does not stop them, however, from trying to lobby
Congress on behalf of Soviet foreign policy positions.
Soviet aims in dealing with the United States (paper at Tab B) are
essentially threefold: to contain American military capabilities,
enhance their own international reputation, and promote the transfer of
needed goods and technology. Militarily, the Soviets expend enormous
resources to meet the perceived U.S. military threat. At the same time,
they see the value of negotiating to try to contain further western
military development.
Moscow realizes that its competition with the United States is dangerous,
but also feels that it enhances the USSR’s international image. It perceives the mere fact of
frequent contact with the world’s leading power as an achievement.
Economically, the Soviets were optimistic in the 1960’s that western
technology might help boost their sagging economy. For a variety of
reasons, however, including the American linkage between trade and human
rights, Soviet hopes were never realized. Today Soviet trade with the
United States is limited to a relatively narrow range of items,
including agricultural products and some non-sensitive computer
equipment. The leadership would like to see this trade continued and
even expanded. At the same time the Soviet people have long since
learned to cope with economic hardship and shortages, and western
imports clearly are not a matter of economic survival for the Soviet
Union.
Tab B
Paper Prepared in the Department of
State4
SOVIET AIMS IN DEALING WITH THE
UNITED STATES
Moscow’s objectives vis-a-vis the US
are essentially three: to contain the growth of US military power, enhance the
international reputation of the USSR, and promote the transfer of needed US goods and technology. In pursuit of
these objectives, the Soviets have demonstrated considerable flair
in using the open political processes of the West. Nevertheless, the
results of their efforts have been uneven. Moscow has rarely been
able to push the US to alter basic
defense commitments or policies. On the other hand, the Soviets have
been able to use their relationship with the US to reinforce their international standing and
reputation. Trade and economic transfers have been of only limited
importance despite Soviet interest in special US commodities such as grain, and
high-tech products.
Containment of US Military Capabilities
Given its enormous military capabilities, the USSR today is decidedly less fearful
of external enemies than at any time in its history. The Kremlin
leaders nonetheless remain extremely anxious about the nuclear and
conventional military strength of their main rival. Paradoxically,
however, the Soviets have felt compelled to use or threaten military
force almost exclusively against socialist regimes—East Germany,
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, China, and Poland, as well as Afghanistan.
Yet it is the strategic capability of the United States which, if
ever unleashed, could imperil the physical, let alone political,
survival of the USSR.
The Soviet leaders have expended enormous energies and resources to
maintain forces adequate to meet any possible US military challenge. In order to
reduce the danger they believe confronts them, they have sought in
parallel to contain the development of US defense capabilities through negotiations. And they
consistently seek, directly and indirectly, to dissuade the American
political leadership from undertaking development of new
weaponry.
In support of such efforts, the Soviets have demonstrated some skill
in manipulating the open political systems of the US and its
[Page 532]
NATO allies. Kremlin leaders by
now well understand that the political processes of the Western
democracies offer promising possibilities for directly influencing
Western public opinion and even policy decisions. In his TIME
interview, Gorbachev
observed that in preparing for their upcoming meeting, “neither the
President nor I will be able to ignore the mood in our respective
countries or that of our allies.” The TIME interview itself, as well
as his more recent performances in France, clearly show Gorbachev’s interest in shaping
the “mood” of Western opinion. In recent years, the Soviets sought
to affect the outcome of the 1983 West German elections, to dissuade
European governments from deploying the Pershing and cruise
missiles, and are currently engaged in a major public relations
effort to influence the Dutch decision on INF deployment and US
arms control policy at the Geneva NST talks, especially regarding SDI.
As part of the effort, much Soviet energy and attention has been
devoted to lobbying the US Congress.
Impressed by the impact of Congressional opposition on the policies
of Presidents Johnson and Nixon, and particularly the Congressional
inclination to give increasingly careful scrutiny to military
appropriation bills, the Soviets have intensified their cultivation
of both House and Senate. In 1974, the parade of representatives
from the Soviet Embassy actively lobbying on Capitol Hill against
the Jackson amendment led one observer to describe the scene as a
“spectacle . . . suggestive almost more of a platoon of out-of-town
shoe manufacturers worried about tariff protection than of
emissaries from America’s most deadly rival.”
The diplomats are now more discreet but just as active, and are often
joined by Soviet journalists and visiting academicians. In addition
to visiting Washington, the ubiquitous Georgiy Arbatov of the USA Institute spoke at meetings in San Francisco,
Philadelphia, and New York and was on an ABC-TV show in the first
half of September. Meanwhile, Andropov and Gorbachev did their part by meeting with influential
congressional delegations visiting Moscow (inter
alia those headed by Pell, Byrd and O’Neill).
Despite these endeavors, the Soviets do not appear particularly
satisfied with their accomplishments. They have found American
audiences largely unresponsive to their message, the American
political environment basically hostile, and no political
constituency in the United States especially sympathetic to Soviet
interests. Not only is the American Communist Party weak, with no
representation in the Congress in recent memory, but the “left” as a
whole is feeble. Though heartened by activities of the anti-war
movement and of individual congressmen in support of the nuclear
freeze movement, Soviet observers have learned to have little faith
in the consistency of the Congress or the public at large on foreign
policy issues.
[Page 533]
The Soviets also actively court the NATO allies—in the more immediate hope of generating
pressure on Administration policies than of dividing the West
Europeans from the US. Gorbachev’s recent trip to France
was designed to exploit Mitterrand’s stance on SDI in the hope this might increase
pressure on the President before the November meeting. The most
recent Soviet arms control positions—and possibly even their SS–20
deployments—were shaped with an eye to influencing the Dutch
decision on INF deployment due
November 1. In addition to lobbying European policymakers, Moscow
targets former government leaders, opposition officials, media,
trade union and cultural figures and even former NATO military officers, but after the
failure of their massive anti-INF
campaign, the Soviets have learned not to expect significant
results.
Enhancement of the USSR’s Reputation
Despite the risks involved, Moscow sees its world-wide
military-political competition with the US as enhancing the USSR’s standing as a world power; the very fact of
frequent contact and negotiation with the world’s major power adds
to its stature. President Nixon’s state visit to the Soviet Union in 1972 was
interpreted as symbolic acknowledgment of the USSR’s special role in world affairs.
As Soviet President Podgorniy declared when toasting President
Nixon; “This is the first
visit by a President of the United States of America in the history
of relations between our countries. This alone makes your visit . .
. a momentous event.”
Despite speculation in Washington that Brezhnev might call off the summit in response to
American bombing of Haiphong Harbor, the Soviet leadership never
seriously considered cancellation. Even more gratifying than the
visit itself were the agreements signed in Moscow in which the
US explicitly acknowledged the
“special responsibility” of the USSR (along with the US) for preserving world peace and controlling
international tensions, and endorsed the principle of equality, as
well as the notion of peaceful coexistence. According to defector
Arkady Shevchenko, this was “the most powerful boost to the Soviet
egos. . . . Nothing would sound better to the Soviet leadership
suffering for years under an inferiority complex.”
US participation in arms control
negotiations with the USSR for
some 30 years is also interpreted as tacit acceptance of the USSR’s equality of status. The first
leaders to engage in this activity of course saw in the negotiation
process an opportunity to shape the international strategic
environment in which they at the time were at a serious
disadvantage. Discussions with Western diplomats and arms control
experts, especially in formalized settings such as summit
conferences, also helped propel the post-Stalin Soviet Union onto
the world’s diplo
[Page 534]
matic
stage and cement Moscow’s international standing. From the 1963
signing of the Partial Test-Ban Agreement through the mid-1970s when
agreements were concluded on a host of arms control issues, Soviet
diplomats basked in the satisfaction of the USSR having the right “to have a
say,” in former Foreign Minister Gromyko’s phrase, “in settling any question
involving the maintenance of international peace.”
Trade and Technology Transfer
By the late 1960s, the notion had emerged in Moscow that trade with
the West generally, and the US in
particular, could help Brezhnev revitalize the sagging Soviet
economy—without confronting the risks of large-scale economic
reforms. For a variety of reasons having to do in part with
congressional concerns about Jewish emigration (which resulted in
denial of most-favored-nation status and limits on credits available
to the USSR), as well as the
difficulties the Soviets have had in assimilating Western
technology, the results of these efforts to tap Western resources
have been relatively minor.
Soviet reliance on US grain has
dropped considerably since the 1960s. In 1979, grain from the US amounted to approximately 70% of
total Soviet grain imports; today the figure is roughly 40%.
Argentina and the European Community now supply much of the USSR’s grain imports—and this year
the USSR for the first time has
failed to meet its minimum wheat purchase requirements under the
Long-Term Grain Agreement.
Economic transfers, on the whole, tend to be limited to specific
requirements. In addition to agriculture, the Soviets remain
interested in such American products as computer technology and
software, as well as equipment that will help break bottlenecks in
the energy and agro-industrial sectors. Needless to say, the Soviets
also spend considerable resources to acquire modern,
military-related technologies.
Nevertheless, there is no imperative domestic need to acquire Western
goods. The Soviet economy, it is true, remains weak, particularly in
the consumer goods sector—housing, clothing, consumer durables, and
the variety of food supplies, but this is nothing new. The Russians
have had long experience with doing without and making do. And
Gorbachev’s economic
programs to stimulate production still promise to yield returns.
Western imports clearly are not a matter of survival.
The November Meeting
But a number of domestic factors will condition Gorbachev’s approach to the
November meeting in Geneva, as well as his ability to achieve his
three major objectives there. The Soviet military leadership, for
example, will tend to resist significant reductions of their
[Page 535]
arsenals in any trade-off
with the US. The Party as a whole,
which takes great pride in Moscow’s new-found status as a world
power, would also look askance at any major reduction of Soviet
military power. Moscow’s military power and international prestige
are truly popular at home. This helps explain why, though the word
peace is always on their lips, arms control for the Russians has
always been, as one informed observer once put it, “an unnatural
act.”
Moscow’s oft-noted inferiority complex helps explain the Kremlin’s
neurotic worries about any slights to national sovereignty, real or
imagined. Concern regarding sovereignty underlies its bitter
reaction to US human rights
demarches. Washington’s
public criticism of Soviet policy toward its dissidents or
emigration are all seen as a crude intrusion into Soviet domestic
affairs, an attempt to treat the USSR as a second-class power.
Clearly more self-assured than his predecessors, Gorbachev has been willing to
speak directly to the issues of Jewish emigration and family
reunification, but he too insists that Moscow’s treatment of its own
citizens remains a domestic matter. Thus he is unlikely to do more
at Geneva than make a few show-case gestures by releasing some
dissidents and allowing a small number of Jews to emigrate.
