Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume X, Eastern Europe

41. Information Memorandum From the Chairman of the Policy Planning Staff (Solomon) to Secretary of State Shultz¹

Washington, June 12, 1986

SUBJECT

• U.S. Policy Toward Eastern Europe: Heightening the Soviet Burden of Empire Through “Selective Engagement”

Summary. At the conclusion of the March 5 meeting on Eastern Europe,² you expressed interest in finding ways to increase our influence in the region and to heighten the Soviet Union’s burden of empire. The attached memorandum addresses these issues. It offers a critique of our current policy toward Eastern Europe and suggests a hybrid approach we call “Selective Engagement.” This would combine the most useful elements of differentiation and step-by-step activism in the service of increasing the costs to Moscow of sustaining its hegemony over the region. We propose six policy guidelines as the basis for “Selective Engagement” with Eastern Europe:

• Divide opportunities and responsibilities in Eastern Europe with our West European allies.

• Maintain the primacy of our moral high ground in dealing with the regimes in Eastern Europe.

• Use meetings and visits with those regimes more selectively.

• Press the East Europeans to stop supporting Soviet policies in the Third World.

• Target educational and cultural exchange programs more on the populations in Eastern Europe.

• Develop and sustain a hardheaded approach toward economic dealings with Eastern Europe.

Effective implementation of this approach will require a strengthened consensus within the U.S. government of the objectives of our policy toward Eastern Europe. End Summary.

How Much Influence Can We Expect to Have?

No matter what policies we adopt toward Eastern Europe, our ability to encourage fundamental change in the region is not great. After four post-war decades, it is evident that the Soviets retain a paramount interest in this “buffer” area and the means to defend that interest. The Soviet grip on the region has been reaffirmed by Gorbachev, a man who will resist any weakening of the bonds that tie these countries to the Soviet Union.

Moreover, the regimes (as opposed to the people) of Eastern Europe do not share the goal of an eventual breakaway from Soviet control. None of these governments will challenge the Soviets on their fundamental catechism: the primacy of Communist Party rule, state control of the economy, and fealty to the Warsaw Pact.

Taken together, these perspectives dim the prospect of eliminating the Soviet grip on Eastern Europe. At the same time, domestic and Allied concerns also rule out a policy of ignoring Eastern Europe. Thus, we will remain engaged in the region, and if our goal is to heighten the Soviet burden, the key operational question becomes whether our policies are working in that direction.

Current Policy: Differentiation

For many years we have pursued a differentiation policy, by which we have sought to encourage the regimes in Eastern Europe to distance themselves from the Soviet Union, both internally and in foreign affairs. We have always been reluctant to accept the idea that these countries are mere “satellites” of the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia’s successful breakaway from the Soviet bloc demonstrated that, at least in theory, there was no limit to how far an East European government could go in distancing itself from Moscow. We therefore took advantage of the East-West thaw in the 1960s to develop relations with the more receptive East European regimes, notably Poland and Romania.

Despite a promising start in the 1960s and ’70s, differentiation as a policy now appears to be at an impasse, partly because of circumstances in Eastern Europe over which we have no control, and partly because we have come to recognize limitations that are inherent in the policy that we tended to overlook during periods of greater optimism in East-West relations.

In practical terms, our differentiation policy is in trouble because we have run out of “eligible” countries to deal with on a privileged basis. We have at most 1½ countries we can reward: Hungary clearly merits favorable treatment for its internal reforms. Romania still deserves support for its relative external autonomy, but its domestic system has become so objectionable that continuing favored treatment is increasingly coming into question. Poland under Jaruzelski has lost its formerly privileged status, and the other three East European states have never merited special treatment.

The paucity of countries with which to work leads to contradictions in our policy and subtle pressures to abandon differentiation in all but name. Our policy puts pressure on Hungary by drawing too much attention to our satisfaction with its domestic policies. It raises the stakes for us in Romania out of proportion to the issues involved. Finally, differentiation tempts us to try to expand the current roster of “eligible” countries by seeking to improve relations with the GDR, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia, even if doing so requires overlooking the more objectionable aspects of these countries’ foreign and domestic behavior.

A Second Approach: Step-By-Step Activism

Given our natural inclination toward pragmatic problem-solving, we have become increasingly impatient and frustrated with differentiation. As a result, we have been putting it on the shelf, in fact if not in name, and gearing our policies toward exploiting in piecemeal fashion available opportunities to expand our relations with Eastern Europe. Whenever an East European regime signals interest in dealing with us, we are inclined to respond positively on the assumption that any increase in US involvement constitutes a weakening of Soviet control. Thus we have expanded relations with Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Bulgaria, even as our relations with Romania and Poland have stagnated or declined.

Proponents of this kind of step-by-step policy correctly point out that differentiation is geared toward objectives—internal liberalization and international autonomy—that are simply too ambitious to achieve with the leverage we have over Eastern Europe. We therefore end up rewarding one or two regimes for doing things that they would do anyway, while depriving ourselves of potential opportunities to get other East European countries to take modest steps (e.g., against narcotics) that we would welcome. Some would say we could achieve a better balance between available means and policy objectives by shifting the focus of our diplomacy from one of “differentiation” by country to a concentration on particular issues in our relations with all countries.

All this sounds very attractive. If East Germany wants to increase (non-strategic) imports from us, why not move forward in our trade relationship? If Bulgaria is willing to cooperate with us on narcotics control, why not accept such help, even if other aspects of our relationship lag behind? By concentrating on rewarding (and punishing) behavior on specific issues, we could free ourselves from having to assign grades to Communist countries and overcome our 1½ country dilemma.

Yet step-by-step activism carries with it its own set of problems. As we try to keep the focus on specific problems—narcotics, terrorism, trade, mutually beneficial cultural exchanges—the East Europeans will want to focus on political symbolism: regularized political consultations, high-level visits, and parliamentary exchanges. It will not be long before we accept the notion that politically symbolic steps such as high-level visits are the way to build a “dialogue” toward the solution of concrete problems. In so doing, we will find ourselves responding to agendas set by East European regimes, thus increasing their room for maneuver, legitimizing their rule, and, in the process, alleviating rather than increasing the Soviet burden in Eastern Europe. What we would be left with in the end is the worst of both worlds: normalized political relations with a set of regimes that continue to suppress their own populations and follow Soviet foreign policy directives.

A Third Approach: Fostering Interdependence

Another alternative to differentiation would have us abandon as futile not only the effort to differentiate by country, but reject as impractical efforts to solve problems on an issue-by-issue basis. Instead, this approach would take the long view, and would aim to create as many interdependencies, linkages and contacts between us and Eastern Europe as possible as a means of increasing our leverage and fostering latent tensions between the Soviets and their allies. Proponents of this approach want to deepen the cleavage between Eastern Europe as a whole and the USSR. In order to have the capability to do so, they advocate creating a web of ties that can be exploited at some later date or in some future East-West crisis to weaken Moscow’s hold on the region.

Such a policy is favored by many in Europe and, in somewhat different form, by some analysts in this country (e.g., Henry Rowen). Rowen believes we can redress NATO’s conventional imbalance with the Warsaw Pact by undermining Soviet control in Eastern Europe. In West Germany, the Social Democrats believe that they can wean countries in Eastern Europe away from the Soviet Union and toward some “greater Europe” by steps small enough that they will be overlooked or discounted by Moscow.

This approach, like its alternatives, has significant practical limitations. Our government has to function and answer to the public in the present. We therefore cannot indiscriminately bestow official favors on the East Europeans—regimes or peoples—and ask our public to accept such actions on the basis that we are building up leverage for future use. Moreover, U.S. leverage in the region is clearly limited; and long before we would accomplish our objectives the East European regimes would find ways to protect themselves from our inroads, or the Soviets would remind them of how to protect themselves. The Soviets, at some point, instead of growing more suspicious of U.S.-East Europe contacts, would find ways to exploit them.

Implementing a Policy of “Selective Engagement”

Given the arguments above, there is no simple, imaginative new strategy to be found toward Eastern Europe, but we can adopt a hybrid approach that combines the advantages and avoids the pitfalls of all the policies discussed above. Such an approach would preserve the most useful aspect of differentiation—encouraging East European regimes to pursue policies at variance with Moscow’s line. It would also allow us to work, in a step-by-step fashion, to solve problems and seize opportunities but without enabling East European regimes to use our interest in cooperation to sanction their domestic and foreign policies and to bolster their legitimancy. Finally, this approach would allow us to establish ties which could give us leverage in the long-run without our having to abandon the pursuit of immediate policy objectives.

We term this eclectic approach “Selective Engagement”, because it would be selective in two important senses: First, as in our current differentiation policy, it would require us to be rigorous in relating US political gestures to the overall political orientation (domestic and foreign) of various East European countries. Under current circumstances, only Hungary and Romania would merit special treatment, although this of course could change.

Second, it would require us to be selective in choosing problems which we believe can be solved by increased contact and cooperation. In this area, we would be willing to work with all six East Europen countries on solving problems such as narcotics, trade, and terrorism—but on our terms.

We would judge the value of increased contact by the degree of concrete progress on each problem. If Bulgaria, for example, is willing to work with us on narcotics, we should work with it. But if we do not see concrete results quickly, we should sever cooperation in this area. We have no interest in dialogue with Bulgaria for its own sake. Moreover, even if Bulgaria does cooperate on narcotics, we should not necessarily respond with high level visits or other politically symbolic gestures. In a word, we should not reward Bulgaria and the other East European states for cooperation in solving or controlling problems that they should not be creating or abetting in the first place.

“Selective Engagement” would heighten Moscow’s burden of control in several ways. First, taking steps to impose greater discipline on our policy in itself would raise Soviet suspicions and force the Soviets to watch our activities in Eastern Europe more closely. This in turn would engender resentment in Eastern Europe and increase tension in dealings with Moscow. Second, selective engagement would strengthen our traditional policy of differentiation. By making explicit the kinds of dealings we are prepared to have with Poland, the GDR, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, and for what purposes, we would put an end to whatever illusions these countries might harbor that we are prepared to change our policies toward them without a change in behavior on their part. Third, by solving problems with the cooperation of the East Europeans, we will begin to create—in a selective and controlled way—the kinds of ties and interdependencies that would raise Soviet suspicions and force the Soviets to incur real costs. If the East Europeans become more responsive to our concerns on terrorism, narcotics, and Third World adventurism, for example, the Soviets would have to recalculate the benefits and the costs of trying to enlist Eastern Europe in their global stategies.

To carry out a policy which combines elements of differentiation with a practical, problem-solving approach to the countries of Eastern Europe, we need to follow a few simple guidelines. Some are or have been applied selectively already. Others have never been fully fleshed out or pursued over time. It is our contention that the following six policy guidelines will help us avoid pitfalls while heightening Moscow’s burden of control. They are:

1. Divide the opportunities and responsibilities with our West European allies, who in certain cases have better access, potentially greater leverage, and can arouse greater Soviet suspicion than we can.

2. Stand on principle. Hold to the moral highground. Stress human rights, a divisive issue between Eastern Europe and the Soviets and between the East European regimes and their peoples.

3. Use meetings and visits more selectively and not as a substitute for policy. We should see to it that meetings foster Soviet-East European suspicions, and not bolster regime prestige.

4. Pressure the East Europeans to stop supporting Moscow in the Third World. This will raise Moscow’s risk of exposure and increase its economic and political costs in sustaining its involvement in such places as Nicaragua, Libya, Ethiopia, and Angola.

5. Put our time and money on educational, cultural, and exchange programs directed at the populations and not at the governments of Eastern Europe. This will foster goodwill toward us in Eastern Europe, and increase Soviet worries about trends in the region.

6. Develop and sustain a hardheaded approach toward economic dealings with Eastern Europe. This will make Soviets pay the price economically for their empire. We should stop fooling ourselves into thinking that by having our businessmen deal with the East Europeans, we can “liberalize” Communist states or increase our leverage on individual regimes.

In the paragraphs that follow, we seek to elaborate more fully on each of the six points above. We have attempted to keep the argumentation short, and do not provide the details of individual steps needed to implement each guideline. We are prepared to do so, however, in conjunction with EUR and the Counselor’s office.

1. Divide the Opportunities and Responsibilities with our West European Allies. In a word, don’t jump in everywhere. Complicating Soviet control and exploiting opportunities does not necessarily mean active US involvement in each and every East European country. In fact, as the number of Western states dealing with a given East European country increases, there is no corresponding growth of East European dependency on the West. Rather, the East European regimes gain the flexibility and leverage we might have hoped to exercise as they can play off the various Western states one against the other. Some division of labor, therefore, is in order.

Eastern Europe is not a traditional area of U.S. involvement or direct interest, and we should let those of our allies who have such background and interest assume the lead in individual countries. Dividing responsibilities among Germany, Italy, France, the UK, and the U.S. would be ideal; but even if this proves impossible (and we do not underestimate the difficulty of this kind of coordination) we should make the effort to limit the ability of the East European regimes to play us and our allies off against each other.

East Germany provides a good example of the dangers of what we have in mind. Honecker’s goal is simple: to gain what he wants economically from West Germany without having to pay a political price to the FRG. This means seeking to widen his influence throughout the West, winning approval and gaining concessions from as many states as possible. Thus, as Western relations with the GDR diversify, West German leverage on the GDR declines, while GDR leverage vis-a-vis the FRG increases. In our view, the FRG should be allowed to continue to take the lead in dealings with East Germany and set Western guidelines for contact with the GDR. We should content ourselves with a modest, secondary role.

In sum, selectivity on the part of the West will limit opportunities for the East Europeans to engage in selective manipulation, while also raising Soviet fears of East European interdependence with the West.

2. Stand on Principle. Eastern Europe does not pose for us a dilemma of trade-offs between human rights concerns and national security interests. Therefore, we should be loath to compromise our principles with these regimes in the hope of solving minor bilateral problems. The people of Eastern Europe know we cannot free them from their oppressors, but they welcome a policy based on principle.

Should the Romanian problem worsen, for example, we should stop fighting to retain MFN privileges for Romania, when we, the Romanian population, and the people throughout Eastern Europe know that Ceausescu is undeserving of such support. Similarly, we should be chary of Jaruzelski, a leader who has earned Soviet praise for his success in fine-tuning the state of repression in Poland. Such actions undermine our moral position and demoralize the peoples of Eastern Europe.

Toning down our relations with the East European regimes denies them the pursuit of political legitimacy and the economic benefits they seek from the West, and heightens the frustration of their populations, who perceive more clearly the imprint of the Soviet Union on their domestic policies.

3. Use Meetings and Visits Selectively, and not as a Substitute for Policy. Dialogue with Eastern Europe—state or working visits, consultations on East-West political-security issues and bilateral matters—can help to expand our limited influence and resolve problems. It can also sow suspicion between Eastern Europe and Moscow, and can reinforce the tendencies of certain regimes to resist toeing the Soviet line completely. Yet, dialogue is not cost-free. Its indiscriminate use weakens our political and moral assets in Eastern Europe. Therefore, we must have a clear understanding of the purposes of such dialogue, particularly when it comes to scheduling visits by our senior officials, or granting political access in Washington. Until we have political understandings, a detailed agenda that serves our interests, and indications of East European willingness to accommodate our concerns, visits should be avoided. Otherwise, we end up substituting tourism for policy and legitimizing regimes which represent the antithesis of our values and policies.

Briefing Teams. One key purpose of briefing East European leaders on East-West political-security issues is to sow suspicion between them and the Soviets. Yet if we send the same level of briefers to each country, to meet with the same people, we gear our policy less toward sowing suspicion than toward reinforcing the image of these regimes as independent interlocutors on East-West issues. To be most effective, we should calibrate the level of visiting teams according to the circumstances of each country. We should not routinely offer such briefings. (These regimes have come to value them. We should not let them take them for granted.) And, most importantly, we should use these visits as a wedge to gain access to more diverse audiences in these countries.

4. Pressure the East Europeans to Stop Supporting Moscow in the Third World. The Soviets have increasingly relied on the East European regimes to provide intelligence, security, and military assistance to their clients in the Third World. Some examples include arms smuggling to Nicaragua, organization of the Sandinista Communist Party, security protection for Qadhafi, and security and intelligence training in Libya, Angola and Ethiopia.

We can exacerbate East European-Soviet relations by pressing East European regimes to oppose carrying Moscow’s water in the Third World. For example, the Bulgarians, at our behest, stopped shipping arms to Central America. Granted the Soviets then shifted this task onto other East European regimes. Yet, if more states exhibit reluctance to participate in these “out of area activities,” we will have forced the Soviets to either devote more time to ensuring bloc discipline, increase direct Soviet involvement in these regional conflicts (with all the attendant consequences for Moscow of its heightened level of direct activity and exposure), or trim their sails in the Third World. There is no reason why we cannot begin to apply this principle more forcefully, especially with the East Germans, a regime deeply involved in Libya, Angola and Ethiopia.

5. Put our time and money into educational, cultural, and exchange programs directed at the populations and not at the governments of Eastern Europe. Cultural exchanges have the potential of giving us greater access to East European societies, and their expansion can heighten Soviet concerns. But formal state-to-state agreements will normally serve Eastern more than Western interests. Indeed, exchanges to the same, stale audiences, which are carefully screened by the East European authorities, make a mockery of efforts to broaden our contacts with the people. We have to do what we can to limit the ability of the regimes to select audiences or programs in their countries, or participants for travel to the United States. This also means avoiding scientific exchanges whose only function is to funnel technical expertise to regimes in a way that compensates for internal deficiencies and/or contributes to Soviet technological espionage.

What this suggests is that to the extent possible we should channel our cultural and educational programs through private organizations. We need to use church groups, ethnic organizations, the AFL-CIO, private academic institutions and the National Endowment for Democracy more than we have in the past. As a practical first step, we would recommend establishing a joint State-USIA ad hoc committee to review all of our exchange programs in an effort to highlight ways to expand our exchanges into areas hitherto off limits to us.

6. Develop and sustain a hardheaded approach toward our economic dealings with Eastern Europe. There are only limited business opportunities for the U.S. in Eastern Europe. We are not their natural trading partner, and their economies often cannot compete without some form of Western subsidy. You have stated in the past that we should not be in the business of artificially maintaining the level of East-West trade. Where we can promote business without such subsidies or counterproductive technology transfers, however, we should do so.

We should not overestimate our ability to use trade as a lever to advance our policies in Eastern Europe. This is due to the nature of the regimes. These governments are saddled with the problems inherent in “socialist” economic and political centralization. Yet, to preserve their power, the regimes avoid fundamental reforms, tinker with their systems, and draw upon Western resources to fill the gap between economic performance and public expectations.

Neither should we accept the notion that trade will lead to greater liberalization or increase our leverage in the region. The Hungarians—the current economic showcase of Eastern Europe—initiated agricultural reforms in 1956, and formally unveiled their economic reform package in 1968, years before the onset of detente or CSCE. In no East European country has greater East-West trade or importation of expertise led to greater political liberalization.

As for leverage, Romania and Poland provide us two examples of the limits on our ability to use economic tools to stimulate significant regime changes. In Romania we have used the threat of MFN withdrawal to extract limited concessions on human rights. But we must recognize that MFN has been insufficient to prevent Ceausescu from seeking to assure his place in Romanian history at the expense of the basic human needs of his people. In Poland we face a regime $27 billion in debt to the West and with no prospects for economic, let alone political, reform. When it comes to leverage, it is often the West that ends up getting levered by its investments in Eastern Europe.

By clinging to the notion that trade will bring about liberalization in Eastern Europe, we only help alleviate Moscow’s economic burden of empire. Gorbachev is following in the footsteps of his mentor Andropov, who demanded better quality goods from Eastern Europe while cutting back on exports of energy supplies and raw materials to the area. By refusing to be drawn into the pursuit of ill-defined and illusory economic and political goals, we refrain from helping these regimes accommodate to Moscow’s demands and exacerbate Soviet-East European relations. If we are disciplined in our economic dealings with the Bloc countries, Gorbachev will be left with two unappealing choices: cracking down on his clients to prove the seriousness of his economic demands—and further alienating the Soviets from East European leaders and these leaders from their populations—or backing down on his demands—depriving Moscow of economic gains and exposing Gorbachev’s demands as empty rhetoric.

Conclusion

The above steps do not comprise an exhaustive list of tactics we can employ in developing a policy of “Selective Engagement.” Moreover, the elements we are suggesting may not move us forward very far or very quickly. In pursuit of the objectives of increasing Moscow’s costs of control in Eastern Europe, we may be forced on occasion to develop policies that burden rather than help the populations of the region. In the process, we may risk alienating elements of our own domestic constituency who understandably are more concerned with humanitarian needs than hardheaded political objectives. But we believe that when all considerations are weighed, pursuing a policy based on the above six guidelines can lead us to do less and accomplish more in meeting our objective of increasing the Soviet burden in Eastern Europe.

Implementing this approach requires, above all, shared acceptance of the goal of heightening Moscow’s burden of control of Eastern Europe within the senior levels of the US government, and some agreement on guidelines for implementing such a policy. It also requires a measure of policy coordination with our West European allies. In pursuit of the first of these requirements, we are prepared to discuss “Selective Engagement” with you, Ed Derwinski, and appropriate members of EUR.

1. Source: Reagan Library, Stephen Sestanovich Files, Eastern Europe: 1983–1986. Secret. Drafted by Barry Lowenkron (S/P), John Van Oudenaren (S/P), and Nelson C. Ledsky signed “Dick” next to his name in the “From” line.
2. Minutes were not found.