The Gorbachev Challenge

By WALTER ISAACSON

Much of the first half of the 20th century was dominated by the death spasms of an international system based on shifting European alliances. The subsequent 40 years have been shaped by a struggle between two rival superpowers for military and ideological supremacy in all corners of a decolonized globe. Now comes Mikhail Gorbachev with a sweeping vision of a "new world order" for the 21st century. In his dramatic speech to the United Nations last week, the Soviet President painted an alluring ghost of Christmas future in which the threat of military force would no longer be an instrument of foreign policy, and ideology would cease to play a dominant role in relations among nations.

His vision, both compelling and audacious, was suffused with the romantic dream of a swords-into-plowshares "transition from the economy of armaments to an economy of disarmament." Included were enticing initiatives on a variety of concerns, such as Afghanistan, emigration, human rights and arms | control. Topping it off was a unilateral decision to cut within two years total Soviet armed forces 10%, withdraw 50,000 troops from Eastern Europe and reduce by half the number of Soviet tanks in East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. If George Bush can build on it, this surprise announcement could reinvigorate conventional arms-control talks, which in turn could help the U.S. out of its budget morass and alleviate strains within NATO over how to share the burden of maintaining a sturdy conventional and nuclear defense.

Yet Gorbachev's gambit is also fraught with potential dangers for the U.S. The announced cuts are substantive enough to lure the West toward complacency, yet they are too small to dent significantly the advantages in men, materiel and geography that the Soviet bloc has over NATO. In addition, by once more dazzling the world with cleverly packaged and repackaged proposals, the self- assured Soviet leader displayed the seductive charms that could woo Western Europe into a neutered neutralism.

But perhaps the greater danger was that the U.S. would again find itself unable to seize the initiative or provide an imaginative response. Gorbachev's U.N. speech was the most resonant enunciation yet of his "new thinking" in foreign policy, which has the potential to produce the most dramatic historic shift since George Marshall and Harry Truman helped build the Western Alliance as a bulwark of democracy. But as the Soviets play the politics of da -- saying yes to issue after issue raised by the Reagan Administration -- the U.S. seems in peril of letting its wary "not yet" begin to sound like nyet.

Gorbachev's timing was adroit. He has proved to be a virtuoso at playing on Reagan's romantic notions about peace and disarmament. Faced with an incoming President far more cautious than Reagan, Gorbachev finagled a meeting at which his own vision of the future would go unchallenged. Bush could not properly respond until he takes office next month, and Reagan seemed barely relevant as he bubbled his favorite Russian phrase, "Trust but verify," at a press conference following Gorbachev's departure.

The Soviet leader also showed that with the magnetism of his personality and the crackle of his ideas, he remains the most commanding presence on the world stage. He is the one performer who can steal a scene from Ronald Reagan, and he did; as they viewed the Statue of Liberty, the visiting Communist played the self-confident superstar while Reagan ambled about like an amiable sidekick and Bush lapsed into the prenomination gawkiness that used to plague him whenever he stumbled across Reagan's shadow. Afterward, Mikhail and Raisa's foray into Manhattan provoked more excitement than any other visit since Pope John Paul II's in 1979. Even the devastating Armenian earthquake that forced Gorbachev to rush home early, and the sudden resignation of his Chief of the General Staff Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, added dramatic punctuations to his visit.

What is destined to be remembered about Gorbachev's Dec. 7, 1988, speech is not just his specific proposals -- many of them had been made before -- but also the way they fit together in a world forum to transcend the ideological dogmas that have driven Soviet foreign policy for 70 years. With his metal- rimmed glasses glinting in the lights of the General Assembly's green marble dais, Gorbachev praised the "tremendous impetus to mankind's progress" that came from the French and Russian revolutions. "But," he added -- and a listener should always lean forward when Gorbachev begins a sentence with that conjunction -- "today we face a different world, for which we must seek a different road to the future." Marat may have been bemused, but Lenin most likely froze in mid-scowl.

Again bordering on apostasy, Gorbachev addressed the cold war: "Let historians argue who is more and who is less to blame for it." In fact, understanding the reasons for the long twilight struggle is crucial to answering the most important question raised by Moscow's new thinking: Should the U.S. eagerly accept Gorbachev's tempting invitation to declare the cold war over? Significantly, he addressed, with words and proposed actions, each of the core causes of that contest:

-- The most concrete reason for the West's 40-year rivalry with the Soviet Union is the thrusting, threatening nature of that empire. Historic Russian expansionism, the Marxist-Leninist ideology of global class conflict, and a Kremlin mind-set that security can come only through the insecurity of adversaries have combined to create a nation whose defensive instincts can be frighteningly offensive. In his speech, Gorbachev proposed to preclude any "outward-oriented use of force," a phrase that nicely captures the essence of Soviet military policy since World War II. More important were his promised troop cuts, not just their numbers but their nature. The West has long insisted that any conventional-forces agreement requires the Soviets to reconfigure their troops into a defensive posture. Gorbachev pledged to move in that direction by withdrawing assault units, river-crossing equipment and tanks that threaten a blitzkrieg through central Europe. Deterring such an attack has been the core reason for NATO's existence.

-- These troops have also served as the Soviet jackboot on the throat of East European nations, whose subjugation is another cause of the cold war. Gorbachev's cuts will not necessarily raise the Iron Curtain, but his U.N. speech did pledge that "freedom of choice is a universal principle that should allow for no exceptions," and added, "This applies both to the capitalist and to the socialist system."

-- Gorbachev's goal of shifting resources from military to domestic needs goes to the heart of a related source of East-West tensions, the militarization of Soviet society. Since Gorbachev took power, U.S. experts estimate that the money spent on defense has continued to increase, a sign that the cold war has not yet reached an armistice. But in his speech, Gorbachev announced that Moscow would make public its plan for converting a few military plants to civilian use. If it does so, that will be a complement to his arms-control proposals, which are based on the new and vaguely defined doctrine of "reasonable sufficiency." The doctrine holds that Soviet capabilities need not have the potential for a pre-emptive strike but must merely be adequate to respond to an attack on the Soviet Union and its allies.

-- The most profound quarrel many Westerners have with the Soviets is that their totalitarian system represses the individual. But Gorbachev stressed the Soviet goal of creating a "world community of states based on the rule of law." Sounding more like Jefferson than Lenin, he spoke of "ensuring the rights of the individual," guaranteeing "freedom of conscience" and forbidding persecution based on "political or religious beliefs."

-- On the issue of emigration, Gorbachev pledged to remove the whole issue of refuseniks from the agenda by revising the secrecy laws that prevent many Soviet citizens from leaving the U.S.S.R. After a set period of time, he pledged, any person who wants to emigrate or travel will have the legal option to do so. More broadly, he spoke of the futility of maintaining restrictions designed to seal off the Soviet Union from the world. "Today, the preservation of any kind of 'closed' society is hardly possible," he said. Just before his arrival, the jamming of Radio Liberty ended.

-- Another component of the cold war has been distrust, including a Western belief that the Soviets reserved the right to "lie and cheat," as Reagan put it eight years ago, if it served their interests. Gorbachev, who has reversed long-standing Kremlin policy by agreeing to on-site inspections of military installations, attempted in his U.N. speech to remove a major issue of compliance with the Antiballistic Missile Treaty: the Krasnoyarsk radar station. He said Moscow would accept the "dismantling and refitting" of certain components, and place the facility under U.N. control. At his lunch with Reagan and Bush just after the speech, one American asked, "Did we hear that word dismantle right?" Replied Gorbachev: "Yes, that was the word I used."

When Gorbachev's speech ended, Secretary of State George Shultz, who had not twitched his Buddha-like face throughout, walked over to Raisa for a chat. "A very good and important speech," he said. As Shultz knows as well as anyone, that will depend on whether Soviet realities come to match Gorbachev's rhetoric. If they do, the ramifications are enormous. Should Gorbachev succeed in reducing the expansionist threat that Moscow poses to the West, loosening its domination over Eastern Europe and changing its repressive relationship with its citizens, then indeed the fundamental reasons for the great global struggle between East and West -- and the rationale for the containment policy that has shaped America's approach to the world for 40 years -- would evaporate.

Skepticism, of course, is probably warranted and certainly prudent. Gorbachev's vision has a boldness born of necessity: he was able to gift wrap his clamorous need to shift Soviet investment toward consumer needs and present it as a package of breathtaking diplomacy. Like the politician that he is, Gorbachev seeks to protect his power by producing triumphs on the world stage and the payoffs of perestroika at home. Offering a modest troop cut that would trim unnecessary flab from the armed forces neatly serves both goals.

Gorbachev's refrain of glasnost and perestroika also raises the specter of another Russian word, peredyshka, the old Leninist notion of seeking a "breathing space" by making temporary accommodations so that the revolution can eventually roar forward with renewed zeal.

Of greater danger, however, is the possibility that a wary and grudging attitude could cause the U.S. to miss out on a historic turning point in world affairs. Those who sniff at Gorbachev's recent moves were proposing last year that many of these same steps -- on emigration, troop configurations, individual rights, loosening controls in Eastern Europe -- be used as litmus tests of Soviet intentions. With every Gorbachev move, the evidence mounts that he is seeking not just a breathing space but a fundamental change in the Soviet system.

The key question about Gorbachev used to be whether he was sincere. That question no longer seems relevant. As the U.S. learned when it finally decided to take da for an answer on the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty, Gorbachev's words have consequences.

Far more relevant is the question of whether he can succeed. The sudden resignation of Marshal Akhromeyev, ostensibly for reasons of health, served as another reminder of the possibility that the military bureaucracy that supported the ouster of Nikita Khrushchev after his efforts to cut the armed forces could someday attempt the same with Gorbachev. It is unclear exactly what happened to Akhromeyev and what his future role might be, but it is well known that like much of the Soviet military bureaucracy, he did not approve of unilateral troop cuts.

At last year's Washington summit, Akhromeyev used an old Russian (and American) saying with National Security Adviser Colin Powell: "Watch what we do, not what we say." Western skeptics use the same phrase in warning of the dangers of being seduced by Gorbachev. The criticism that he should be judged by his deeds rather than his words is in fact a backhanded testament to the far-reaching nature of what he has been saying. Putting these ideas on the record at the U.N. serves to lay down a marker that he can use to pressure the bureaucracy at home. As a State Department official explained last week, "You can't get up in a forum such as this, promise things and then not deliver. That's just inconceivable."

By springing his ideas when the U.S. is unable to respond, Gorbachev guaranteed that he will retain the moral initiative that has made him the most popular world leader in much of Western Europe. Bush will thus start off in a position that has faced no other President: until Gorbachev's time, it was the U.S. that did most of the initiating and the Soviets that snorted and stalled and finally gave grudging responses. Now the choreography is reversed.

Bush's most immediate challenge is to preserve NATO unity in the face of dwindling adversity. Likewise, Gorbachev's immediate challenge will be to see how far he can go in Eastern Europe toward a system based on "freedom of choice," rather than the "threat of force," without the Warsaw Pact disintegrating.

But there is an even more complex challenge that Gorbachev presents to Bush with his U.N. speech: the long-term Battle for Europe that is destined to dominate the 1990s. By the end of 1992, Western Europe's integration into a unified market should be formal even if not complete; the result will be not only a powerful economic system but also a more potent political player. Similarly, some East European nations are likely to be spreading their economic wings and learning to fly from Moscow's nest, perhaps even as limited partners in the European Community.

Gorbachev, who has made clear his understanding that the competition for influence in Europe will depend less on military than economic clout, has staked his claim under the banner of a "common home from the Urals to the Atlantic" shared by the Soviets and West Europeans. By establishing trade, opening markets and seeking financial credits (as well as unilaterally cutting troops), Gorbachev hopes to entice Western Europe into sharing his vision of home.

Bush has never been one for "the vision thing," and incoming Secretary of State James Baker has not yet shown that he can be a conceptualizer of strategic goals. But Gorbachev's initiatives create a grand opportunity for the new team: to redefine America's role in the world with a boldness that could quickly bring Bush out of the shadows of both Gorbachev and Reagan.

To counter Gorbachev's talk of a "common home," Bush could emphasize the "common ideals" -- free markets, free trade and free people -- that have been the positive basis for the American partnership with Western Europe that was born with the Marshall Plan. An alliance once based on necessity would become one based on shared values.

Bush could also lay out a vision of Western goals that transcend the cold war struggle. The necessity to contain Soviet influence often led U.S. policymakers to suppress America's natural idealism and support regimes whose only redeeming grace was their anti-Communism. To the extent that Gorbachev's new thinking makes that less necessary, it frees the U.S. and the West to pursue more positive goals. Among them: attacking environmental problems that cannot be solved on a national basis; shaping aggressive new methods for containing the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons; reducing world famine and poverty; resolving regional conflicts.

Gorbachev has already seized the initiative on many of these issues and seeks to assert his leadership role. Each represents an opportunity for East and West to work together. But just as important, each offers Bush the chance to assert the vision and values that the U.S. and its allies offer the world. In the age of Gorbachev, "new thinking" has become a Soviet monopoly. If Bush hopes to define an age of his own, he must start by reminding the world that new thinking also happens to be an American specialty.

With reporting by John Kohan with Gorbachev, B. William Mader/ United Nations and Strobe Talbott/ Washington