America Abroad

By Strobe Talbott

Up until now, the overriding issue at U.S.-Soviet summits has been how to avert World War III. Next week's meeting will be different. George Bush will be receiving a Soviet leader who has openly warned that his country may be heading toward civil war. That specter haunts conversations with citizens of the U.S.S.R. at many levels of society and in many parts of the country, and it ought to be an urgent item on the international agenda.

The festering crisis in the Baltics is only the most obvious manifestation of the problem and by no means the most alarming. The resolve of the leaders there is still tempered with restraint. That is not necessarily so in the southern republics. Speaking privately in Tbilisi two weeks ago, one of Georgia's most popular nationalist leaders denounced as "traitors and collaborationists" any of his countrymen who participate in Soviet-approved parliamentary elections this fall. Such epithets give off a distinct aroma of gunpowder.

In Moscow there is a growing awareness that the virus of secessionism is spreading fast, while the search for a cure -- economic prosperity and political diversity within a loose confederation -- is still in the test-tube phase. Academicians at state-sponsored institutes are openly wondering whether breakaway Muslim areas of Central Asia will end up allied with hostile Islamic fundamentalist regimes to the south.

The prospect of whole republics defecting has complicated U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms-control talks. Soviet negotiators have dug in their heels at the last minute in part because the Ministry of Defense is looking to the day when it may have to compensate for lost real estate with extra missiles. "As our overall situation deteriorates," says one official, "we have to reinforce ourselves where we have a vanguard position." Then he adds with a thin smile, "That means the ballet and the Strategic Rocket Forces."

Politicking for the presidency of the Russian Federation is now a hot topic in Moscow. Many think that post will be more important in a few years than the presidency of a fractionated U.S.S.R. More and more Russians are saying perhaps their republic should secede. They are only one-quarter joking.

Gorbachev's associates say he accepts that some shrinkage is inevitable; he is looking for a way of making the process dignified, or at least orderly. He is also trying to buy time for the reforms he hopes will induce most of the country to remain. The rules that the Supreme Soviet has imposed for secession, however, are rigged to give the central authorities a veto over the will of the people around the periphery. The result has been to radicalize even relatively moderate nationalists. The more Gorbachev tries to slow down their departure, the more determined they are to speed it up.

In reply to that point, Gorbachev's aides insist that the secession law, passed in the heat of the Lithuanian crisis, is negotiable. Bush should press Gorbachev hard on that score. When his guest objects, as he no doubt will, that separatism is purely an internal affair, Bush should explain, ever so politely, that nothing could be further from the truth. Chaos, even if confined to the U.S.S.R., would have direct and potentially dangerous implications for the U.S. At a minimum, the Soviet Union cannot be a partner in superintending the emergence of a post-cold war European order if its western republics are under siege, or worse. Nor can Moscow help bring peace to the Middle East, the Persian Gulf or the Indian subcontinent if the Caucasus and Soviet Central Asia are in flames.

But Bush must do some reassuring of his own. What exactly is official U.S. policy on the issue of separatism? So far there is none. A blanket endorsement of self-determination for any nationality group yearning for its own state would aggravate U.S. relations with plenty of countries that are coping with restive minorities (Israel and Yugoslavia, for example).

William Hyland, a veteran analyst and policymaker, has proposed reverting to the Soviet borders as they existed in 1939, before the Stalin-Hitler pact. That would be fine with the Balts, but Hyland had better stay out of dark alleys in Tbilisi. Georgian nationalists have their own case for independence. Trouble is, it goes back to 1921. Are they to be grandfathered into the U.S.S.R.? Maybe so. But the U.S. needs a coherent answer of its own to the dilemma Gorbachev faces: Where to draw the line, both on the map and in the history books?

Gorbachev may not accept the U.S.'s position, just as the secessionists may not accept his. Still, Bush needs to assure the Soviet leader that whatever their disagreements, the U.S. is not seeking the complete disintegration of the U.S.S.R. Otherwise, Gorbachev will not only go home angry -- he will go home more vulnerable than ever to the charge that he has sold out the U.S.S.R. to its enemies.