When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he depicted the Soviet Union as an "Evil empire," while then Soviet leader Leonid Bezhnev portrayed the United States as a warlike nation bent on spurring the arms race. Four years later, both states have reversed their positions by 180 degrees. President Reagan now professes détente and arms reduction, not merely arms control, as priority goals for his second term, while Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev avows a determination to accomplish the same goals. This essay explains the underlying factors which have produced the changes in both countries' position and also suggest where it all might lead.
The Soviet Union in Strategic Crisis
The current Soviet predicament is the net result of a fundamental strategic choice made some twenty years ago. At that time, after removing Nikita Khrushshchev from power, the Soviet leadership under Leonid Brezhnev embarked upon a long-term effort to achieve military superiority over the United States. Two assumptions underlay the choice: the first was that military superiority was a necessary and sufficient condition to alter the existing geopolitical balance to advantage, and the second was that the cost of attaining that condition could be borne without inflicting undue hardship upon the Soviet people. Unfortunately for the Soviet leadership, a combination of circumstances highlighted by miscalculation, poor planning, Western responses, and plain bad luck progressively raised the costs of the military program while reducing Soviet ability to pay for it.
Rather than scale back the disproportionately large share of the gross national product being consumed by the military buildup, the Soviet leaders progressively squeezed the civilian sector to help pay the bills. The result was that, while Moscow managed to build an enormous military machine, the true cost of that effort has been a societal disintegration of unprecedented magnitude--a fact which can no longer be gainsaid and which, in part, accounts for the recent apparent turnaround. The Soviet Union today is experiencing an alarming systemic decline in basic societal functions. Apart from its military industry, Soviet industry is barely adequate to produce basic necessities in sufficient quality and quantity. The same is true in agriculture, as the leaders themselves openly acknowledge, and also in basic services. Soviet medial practice, for example, from birth to birth control, is primitive by most standards. Major cities, like Leningrad, have water unfit to drink.
Twenty years ago, the future seemed to offer promise for the Soviet citizen, but that promise has faded. This is what lies behind the rising rate of alcoholism, black marketeering, and social alienation. Except for the single dimension of military power, the Soviet Union today appears to have more in common with underdeveloped countries than with its developed European neighbors. Moreover, his development comes at a time of protracted leadership succession. The Soviet Union today stands at a crossroads: It must either continue on the present course of military growth and societal stagnation, or it must reorder priorities.
Mid-1984 was the crisis point in Soviet strategy. By then, it had become apparent to the Soviet leadership that, even though Moscow had achieved a strategic weapons advantage of sorts over the United States, its geopolitical utility had come sharply into question. At the same time, the Soviets began to
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