Vindication Of a Hard-Liner

By STROBE TALBOTT and ROBERT T. ZINTL and Zbigniew Brzezinski

Q. You've always been a strong critic of the Soviets, yet just in the past month you have been given a standing ovation at the Diplomatic Academy in Moscow, you've been respectfully interviewed in Pravda and even given prime- time coverage on Soviet television. What has it been like for you personally?

A. Well, I wouldn't be human if I didn't confess to a certain amount of ego gratification. When I stood in front of the foreign policy establishment in the Soviet Union and was given a generally empathetic reception, I had a sense of, if you will, historical vindication. But I also had a sense of something much more important. There was a breakthrough taking place in the thinking of people who for 70 years were artificially divorced from the intellectual and philosophical currents of the Western world. They are now in the process of restoring some of those connections, of rejoining that process. They are much , more willing to be self-critical and to listen to criticism. They appreciate the degree to which the Soviet Union has fallen out of step with global development, and that has driven them in the direction of seeking far-reaching changes.

The last two years of this decade could be the Spring of Nations in Central Europe. I am deliberately drawing the analogy to 1848, which was called the Spring of Nations because Central European nations rose against authoritarianism.

Q. Given the violent aftermath of 1848, that's not a very happy precedent.

A. No, it isn't. But if things in Central Europe or the Soviet Union go wrong, which they could, I don't think we'll see a return to an assertive, confident, Stalinist renewal. Instead, we'll probably see a turn toward some highly nationalistic form of dictatorship, perhaps what I call a "Holy Alliance" between the Soviet Army and the Russian Orthodox Church, galvanized by a sense of desperate Great Russian nationalism. That would then produce even more intense reactions from non-Russians. It could be a very ugly picture.

Q. What's the worst case you can imagine?

A. I can imagine a Soviet intervention in East Germany, where the Soviets have a lot of troops on the ground and therefore on the spot. If the East German Communist regime were to collapse through violence and if the Soviets were to remain passive, then the whole thing would collapse, in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The Soviets know that if they let go of East Germany, Poland is lost.

That's why it is so urgent for us, the West, collectively, to give this turbulence a chance to work itself out constructively in the direction of some form of pluralist democracy. So far, we have not responded in a manner that does justice to the magnitude of the opportunity, or, alas, to the magnitude of the threat inherent in these truly earthquake-like political phenomena.

Q. What should we be doing?

A. First, we need to discuss with all the parties concerned the implications of change in Central Europe, and also of change in Germany, because the two are related. We cannot end the division of Europe without also, in some fashion, ending the division of Germany. We are past the day when the future of Europe could be shaped either by us or by the Soviets alone, or even by us with the West Europeans. We now need to talk in equal depth with the Russians, with our allies, the West Europeans, and with our friends, the Central Europeans.

Q. Are you using the term "Central Europeans" interchangeably with what we would call "East Europeans"?

A. I'm using it now instead of "East Europeans." East Europe was the geopolitical designation for a reality that is now disappearing.

The military confrontation in the heart of Europe is waning, so there should be significant cuts in our defense budget. Security should be based on some new relationship between the two alliances, rather than a dissolution of the two alliances. Perhaps there could be a long-term arrangement for a transitional NATO and Warsaw Pact presence in the respective parts of a reconfederated Germany, so that there is no insecurity bred.

Suppose we save $20 billion to $30 billion in defense spending on Europe in the next few years. Let's dedicate a third or a fourth of that to a Central European Recovery Fund. If we make a substantial contribution, I think the Europeans will more than match it, and we can bring the Japanese into it.

Q. When Gorbachev persuades the elite to go along with his policies, where is the upside? What have they gained?

A. Only a respite from the strains of the competition as well as an opportunity to address their internal problems and modernize their system. That is what Gorbachev and the people around him are hoping to accomplish.

At the same time, I left the Soviet Union with a sense of deep foreboding. We're getting to a point where Gorbachev and his colleagues will have to make some fundamental choices, all of them very difficult and all of them pregnant with dangers. He will either have to accelerate perestroika, really pushing it forward in the direction of pluralism and the free market, or he will have to engage in severe repression of the non-Russians.

Q. In the latest issue of Foreign Affairs you say that the U.S.S.R. is becoming a "volcano" and a "battleground" of warring nationalities. Will there even be a U.S.S.R. in the year 2001?

A. No. There will have to be something very different. The pace of change, the scale of change, and the drama of the change are all such that we have to stop thinking in conventional terms. Perhaps there will be a Soviet confederation of some sort, much looser than what there is now, with some new form of associated statehood for the Baltic republics. Georgia and some of the other more nationally defined republics could enjoy a much more independent status within the Soviet confederation. If they don't have that, then they will have to have some form of Great Russian nationalist dictatorship. I think Gorbachev is trying to persuade the non-Russian nations that they have to accept some form of yet undefined pluralism as the only alternative.

Q. Does Gorbachev know what he is doing? Does he have a clear plan?

A. I think his speeches reflect a thoughtful man, who really realizes that the ideological oversimplifications of the past several decades are irrelevant. The hours I spent with some of his people increased my feeling that they are intelligently, thoughtfully, and in some ways boldly responding to the short- term problems that they are confronting and which they have the intellectual acumen to identify and not to evade. But I am less certain now that they have any comprehensive, long-range vision.

Q. How about the Bush Administration? Does it have a comprehensive, long-range vision?

A. Well, in the late 1940s President Truman had around him a cluster of creative people who asked themselves how the West should respond to the collapse of Germany. Now is the time to ask ourselves, creatively and historically, how do we respond to the apparent collapse of the Soviet Union? We can either deliberately shape a new world or simply let the old disintegrate -- with some of the wreckage potentially even endangering us.