Divided U.S. Side Hampers Arms Control

After years of diplomatic shadow boxing, the United States and the Soviet Union are starting to negotiate seriously on an arms-control deal, which each claims to want. The pre-summit “work plan” adopted recently by both sides will move into even higher gear this week at the talks between the Soviets and the U.S. delegation, led by special arms-control adviser Paul H. Nitze. However, to find a mutually acceptable compromise between the widely opposing views of both sides may prove extremely difficult.

Reagan Administration defense and arms-control policies, as well as the developments of the last few years, seem to indicate that Washington’s interests would be enhanced either by relatively unrestrained competition with the Soviet Union in the armaments race or by sharp reductions in the offensive military arsenals of both sides.

The first course would place a premium on the United States’ and the West’s much stronger technological potential. The United States’ attempts to develop an ambitious Strategic Defense Initiative and vehement Soviet objections to it have left the unmistakable impression that the Kremlin has little confidence in the ability of Soviet scientists to produce an equally sophisticated system, or to produce it in time. Largely as a result of this development, the West, not the Soviet Union, is looked on now as the symbol of technological advancement. The political and psychological effects that this has on the competition between the two systems and the influence that they command in developing countries cannot be overstated.

Sharp reductions in military forces on both sides would, on the other hand, limit Moscow in the most important sphere that makes it a superpower. The moment Soviet offensive arms are made subject to wide-ranging restrictions, the economic power of Japan and Western Europe--not to mention the United States--would be even more influential than it is now.

Moscow’s interests, on the contrary, lie mostly in an arrangement with the United States that would exclude from the military competition the areas where the Soviet Union lacks the confidence and probably the means to correct unfavorable developments, preserve the nuclear might of the Soviet Union at such a level that would in no way diminish its present superpower status and influence, and enable the Soviets to transfer scarce funds to the domestic economy and to the improvement of more readily usable conventional arsenals.

This scenario is not attractive to Washington. Yet this does not necessarily mean that the United States and the Soviet Union will be unable to reach an agreement. There always are a number of military systems that can, should and probably will be mutually traded--for appearances’ sake if nothing else. But the fundamental issue will not be easily resolved. One crucial precondition should be met before there can be any hope for a substantial breakthrough.

The Soviet Union knows what it wants, and is hard-headed about what it can reasonably achieve. Mikhail S. Gorbachev has installed what is probably the most homogeneous group of experienced foreign-policy professionals that he can find.

Judging from recent Soviet disarmament proposals, Gorbachev has, at the same time, enough authority at home to make substantial concessions possible. But what still remains to be done is to persuade him that he has no other viable choice but to be even more flexible with the United States.

This may not be easy until a still-absent broad political vision evolves in Washington that would impart a clear sense of direction and purpose to U.S. arms-control efforts. Without this, American discussions about arms control become, more often than not, an almost irresolvable conflict between two sharply opposing domestic camps that generate heat but not light. Nobody knows that better than Nitze and another top member of the U.S. delegation to Moscow: his frequent opponent, Assistant Defense Secretary Richard N. Perle. Sending them on this mission together obviously is not risk-free, but it also is a great opportunity because Nitze and Perle now will be hard pressed to finally reach a workable compromise in order to present a unified front to the Soviets.

Until they succeed, it will continue to be tempting for Moscow to assume that it can somehow pressure Washington into a deal through such tactics as influencing U.S. allies, exacerbating domestic conflicts of interest in the United States or even waiting until the next Administration.