America and Russia

The six U.S. Senators could hardly believe their ears. At a meeting in Peking last week, China's leaders told a delegation led by Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn that the Communist regime heartily endorses the U.S. military presence in the Far East. The Senators even heard, they said, that an expanded U.S. naval presence in the Western Pacific was "regarded favorably by the Chinese." One Chinese officer told the Americans that he hoped U.S. warships would call at China's ports.

That the U.S. should now be so openly and unabashedly courted by a regime that used to excoriate the Yankee imperialism as a paper tiger is one of the most startling reversals in modern diplomatic history. It reflects, to a great extent, the determination of Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-p'ing and China's other new leaders to enlist Washington's help in countering the Soviet Union's mounting influence in Asia. It thus establishes a major new phase in Washington's often stormy relations not only with Peking but with Moscow as well. Even as the Chinese were meeting the Senators last week, the Kremlin gained a startling new victory when the Moscow-supported Vietnamese marched into neighboring Cambodia (Kampuchea) and seized Phnom-Penh, capital of the Peking-supported regime. The Soviet Union wasted no time in welcoming Cambodia's new order. Soviet Communist Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev last week told TIME at the Kremlin that his country "supports the People's Revolutionary Council of Kampuchea" (see interview).

The Administration has condemned the aggression and urged Moscow and Peking to avoid any confrontation over Indochina. Intensified quarreling between the two Communist giants could create an extraordinary dilemma for Washington if it were pressed to choose sides. Given Jimmy Carter's bold new China policy, the Chinese might hope that he would back them against the Soviets. As it is, in an increasing number of global pressure points, the U.S. finds itself in a direct or implied confrontation with the U.S.S.R.

Says one U.S. senior foreign policy adviser: "Our relationship with the Soviets has changed dramatically in the past year. Before, we were seeking broad-based accommodations. Now our relations are focused almost entirely on SALT." Brezhnev agrees. He told TIME: "Over the last couple of years, there have been few encouraging moments, to be frank, in Soviet-American relations."

"This is a watershed period in our ties with the U.S.S.R.," warns William Hyland, a former longtime member of the National Security Council and now senior fellow at Washington's Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The next months or year will be very critical. With China's moves west, the U.S. normalization with Peking, the possibility of Western arms sales to the Chinese, and developments in SALT, all the major actors are in motion. We have to be very careful."

One senior Administration official sees a danger that the U.S. can blame too many difficulties on Moscow. "There is an assumption that everything the Soviets do is an attempt to get the United States or disadvantage us," says he. "That is a gross oversimplification. We often create problems by exaggerating Soviet influence." This official does not doubt that the Soviets like to exploit any advantage they can find, or that they would like to divide up the world into spheres of influence, but he does not interpret this as a strategy of conquest. "The group in power there is quite cautious," he says. "They're careful about the actions they take. They don't have an overall deliberate design to find ways to put it to the United States."

Indeed, while the officials responsible for U.S. planning often see Soviet influence and Soviet gains in all corners of the world, there is evidence for thinking that Soviet planners see--or profess to see --just the opposite: a threatening NATO to the west, a threatening China to the east, a less friendly India to the south, mishaps and reverses everywhere. It is this real or feigned element of paranoia in Soviet policy that makes the current prospects confronting Washington so tricky. Even though one of the purposes of Carter's China move may well have been to gain some geopolitical leverage on Moscow, he apparently felt confident that Moscow would not regard it as an anti-Soviet shift. Shortly after he surprised the world in mid-December by granting Peking full diplomatic recognition as of Jan. 1, Carter said reassuringly: "Our new relationship with China will not put any additional obstacles in the way of a successful SALT agreement and also will not endanger our good relationship with the Soviet Union." The President was too optimistic.

Although Moscow has known since Richard Nixon's trip to Peking in 1972 that normal U.S.China ties were inevitable, the Soviets were jolted by the abrupt way Carter made the move and the sudden prospect of U.S. arms sales to Peking. Diplomatic surprise is one thing that the Kremlin's aging leadership abhors. Explains Gyula Jozsa, a Kremlinologist at Cologne's Institute of Eastern Studies: "The Soviets can see the logic of the need for the U.S. to recognize Peking. But what worries them is: How far and how quickly will subsequent relations develop between Washington and Peking?" An analyst at the Rand Corp. points out that the U.S.-Peking relationship "has the potential for the most fundamental realignment of forces since World War II," if it brings Japan into a "triad with an anti-Soviet vector."

Almost all U.S. foreign policy officials now agree that the Soviets have retaliated against Carter's China move by stalling SALT II. It had been expected that Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko would agree on all but a few technical details of a new treaty at their meeting in late December. But they deadlocked when the Russians suddenly raised issues that had already been settled. By delaying SALT II, Moscow was able to postpone the Carter-Brezhnev summit, which had been tentatively planned for the middle of this month, just a couple of weeks before China's Teng is due to arrive.

The timing of the two trips distressed the Soviets. They apparently did not want to risk having the ailing Brezhnev almost immediately overshadowed by the lively Teng. By holding up the Brezhnev summit until after Carter sees Teng, the Russians may be trying to warn the Administration to temper its welcome of the Chinese leader. In last week's interview, Brezhnev declared that a policy that is "tempted to turn Peking into an instrument of pressure" would be "adventurous and highly dangerous." It would be, he said, "playing with fire."

The unexpectedly sharp Kremlin reaction to Carter's China step does not necessarily mean that the policy is mistaken. Soviet sensitivity, in fact, probably confirms that closer U.S.-Peking ties are an effective diplomatic lever. The Administration, moreover, appears sincere when it argues that fundamentally the move is not anti-Soviet. Said Vance at his press conference last week: "There will be no tilts one way or the other."

Despite the Soviets' protestations, they have been moving skillfully to strengthen their position all along the Eurasian frontier and in the Horn of Africa, an arc that has been called a crescent of crisis. Moscow seems to have played a key role in last April's coup in Afghanistan, for example, bringing to power the pro-Soviet regime of Noor Mohammed Taraki. In Ethiopia at least 17,000 Cuban troops have been fighting as Kremlin proxies, driving Somali forces from the Ogaden region and curbing Eritrean rebels. As a result of this intervention, Ethiopia has been drawn into the Soviet camp.

In the Middle East, the Soviets have been trying to undermine Carter's efforts at brokering an Israeli-Egyptian settlement, perhaps in part because the Administration's bold diplomacy has shut them out of the peace process, even though Moscow is co-chairman of the long suspended Geneva Conference. Not only have they been denouncing the Camp David agreements, but they have also been encouraging Libya, Algeria, Syria, the Palestine Liberation Organization and other Arab hard-liners to block peace.

While the Kremlin has not been directly involved in the current unrest in Iran, it has been trying to exploit the situation. Radio Moscow's Persian-language broadcasts, for instance, have repeatedly denounced the Shah and Washington, asserting that "the dangers facing the Iranian people are coming" from the U.S. In response to the turmoil in Iran, the Administration last week moved to maintain stability in the Persian Gulf, Carter announced that one dozen F-15 fighter jets, the most advanced tactical warplane in the U.S. arsenal, will soon arrive in Saudi Arabia for a visit of a few weeks.

Soviet gains have not been limited to the Third World. Through its dynamic arms buildup, Moscow has almost eliminated the U.S. advantage in strategic nuclear weapons. Although Brezhnev ridicules talk about "the Soviet threat," experts are nearly unanimous in their assessment that Moscow has been arming at a faster pace than the West. In the past 15 years, for example, the Soviets have been increasing military expenditures by about 3% annually. NATO is pledged to such a hike this year, but this merely reverses years of frugality. From 1967 through 1975, in fact, the Pentagon's budget actually declined (when adjustments are made for inflation). There is little basis, therefore, for Brezhnev's assertion that the West's "military budgets are frantically growing."

The defense spending gap is most dramatically reflected in what has been happening to the superpowers' nuclear arsenals. Since 1967 the U.S. has deployed only one new intercontinental ballistic missile, the triple-warhead Minuteman III. During the same period, Moscow has introduced three generations of new ICBMs. Even the dovish Brookings Institution has admitted that it finds the Soviet buildup worrisome.

The Soviet buildup in conventional weapons has been equally significant. Although Brezhnev says that "the forces of either side in sum total approximately equal each other," NATO remains outgunned and outmanned by the Warsaw Pact in the strategically crucial central and northern European regions. This remains true despite the West's recent program to upgrade its forces. Facing NATO'S 7,000 tanks and 2,700 artillery pieces, for example, are 21,000 and 10,000, respectively, for the East. In manpower NATO is dwarfed 626,000 vs. 943,000. Such overwhelming military superiority could tempt the Soviets to try enforcing their policies on Western Europe through intimidation.

At the same time that Washington ind Moscow are maneuvering against each other at a number of the world's hotspots, they are also sitting amiably around negotiating tables discussing myriad projects and possibilities. This ability of the superpowers to engage simultaneously in confrontation and cooperation has become perhaps the most distinctive hallmark of diplomacy in the 1970s.

In no area has cooperation been pursued more determinedly than in the attempt to control nuclear arsenals. While the progress at SALT often reflects other aspects of the Washington-Moscow relationship, as last month's delaying tactics in Geneva demonstrated, there is little doubt that both sides genuinely want an agreement. Brezhnev seems eager for it and apparently sees the signing of SALT II as a fitting capstone to his long career as a Soviet leader.

U.S. officials estimate that a new accord is 99% complete; for the past couple of years, however, it was said to have been 95% finished. At least a month will probably be needed to resolve the remaining minor differences. They primarily concern the kind of limits to be placed on U.S. cruise missiles and the amount of time that weapon technology will be subject to restrictions. While the White House is anxious to have a treaty and the Carter-Brezhnev summit that would follow, it is not prepared to make new concessions just for the sake of reaching an agreement. To do so could seriously jeopardize the treaty's chances of winning the two-thirds Senate vote required for ratification. While many experts view the accord as a welcome step toward arms control, a number of conservative Senators have been warning that they will oppose the treaty because they feel that it would impose strategic inferiority on the U.S. Even if SALT II is signed and ratified, it will barely reduce nuclear arsenals or inhibit the development of new strategic weapons. This must await SALT III.

Along with most of their allies, the U.S. and the Soviet Union have also been meeting in Vienna since 1973 in an attempt to reduce NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in Central Europe. Very little progress has been made. Said one bored U.S. participant in the talks: "Glaciers move faster."

There are other sets of bilateral talks, too, that have been proceeding in their desultory way: negotiations to limit military activity in the Indian Ocean, to ban chemical and radiological weapons and to restrict the sale of conventional arms. Somewhat more successful are the Comprehensive Test Ban negotiations, which aim at completely outlawing nuclear explosions. Existing agreements already prevent all testing in the atmosphere and underground explosions of more than 150 kilotons. Moscow had been demanding the right to test for "peaceful" purposes but bowed to U.S. arguments that every explosion has a potential military value. The main problem now seems to be how to verify that there is no cheating.

Outside the military field, cooperation between the two superpowers is extensive. Under agreements signed during the Nixon Administration, U.S.-Soviet commissions are working on such matters as energy research, medicine, environmental protection, peaceful exploration of outer space, artificial heart research, transportation and urban development. Rarely does a week pass without a delegation of American experts arriving in the Soviet Union or of Soviet specialists landing in the U.S. Later this month, for instance, the environmental commission will meet in Moscow. Meanwhile, in Baltimore there is an exhibit on Soviet women. Cultural exchange agreements last year sent the New England Conservatory Ragtime Band, the Paul Taylor Dance Company and the New York Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra to the Soviet Union, while the Moscow Circus, the Osipov Balalaika Orchestra and Bolshoi Opera Baritone Yuri Mazurok entertained in the U.S. The Carter Administration has done little, however, to broaden these continuing programs.

For the Kremlin, the most disappointing aspect of its relationship with the U.S. has probably been trade. While last year's estimated total of $2.7 billion was a record, it barely exceeded the 1976 volume. To a great degree, this lackluster trend has resulted from trade restrictions imposed by Washington. A 1974 statute sponsored by Senator Henry Jackson linked trade policy to the Kremlin's record on allowing its citizens, particularly Jews, to emigrate. The law in effect told the Soviets that if they would behave leniently then they would be eligible for generous credits to pay for American goods, and that their exports to the U.S. would benefit from the relatively lower tariffs imposed on most favored nations. Although their emigration policies have been relaxed somewhat, the U.S. continues to limit their credits, and they have not received most favored nation status.

A somewhat similar linkage between politics and trade has also been imposed occasionally on transfers of technology. After the Kremlin last summer tried and convicted Human Rights Dissident Anatoli Shcharansky, for example, Carter strongly condemned the action and blocked the sale of a computer to Moscow. Also canceled were several scheduled trips of high-level U.S. delegations to the Soviet Union. The President decreed, moreover, that transfers of advanced oil technology to the Soviet Union would have to be approved by the White House. His aim was to pressure the Kremlin to treat dissidents with more leniency; so far there is no indication that he has succeeded.

The Administration, in fact, has largely abandoned the rhetoric that originally characterized its human rights campaign. It gained little for the U.S. while infuriating the Soviets and exacerbating the superpower relationship. To Moscow, Carter's words were evidence that the Administration was anti-Soviet. This apparently dismayed Carter, who seemed to be puzzled that the Kremlin did not believe him when he declared that his human rights drive was also directed at other nations and not just at the Soviet Union.

The President, moreover, felt that he had a right to criticize Moscow because it had signed the 1975 Helsinki accord. That agreement, among other things, calls for respect for human rights and a freer exchange of ideas and information between East and West. But Brezhnev interprets Helsinki very selectively. In his interview, he ignores the accord's provisions dealing with human rights and greater freedom while stressing the section that gives each signatory the right "to choose and develop its political, social, economic and cultural systems."

Though the two states have been closely scrutinizing each other for decades, they still seem astonishingly ignorant of the way each other's political systems function and the premises underlying policy decisions. Moscow, for instance, appears unable to comprehend the U.S. Congress's fundamental independence. After meeting with Soviet leaders last week, Senator Howard Baker, the Tennessee Republican, concluded that "the Soviet Union does not fully understand the role of the Senate debate" in ratifying SALT. Adds one U.S. expert: "The Soviets see the treaty in strict political terms. They see it as yes or no. Carter can either deliver or he can't."

On the other hand, many U.S. officials, not excluding Jimmy Carter, seem to be repeatedly surprised by the Soviets' touchiness and suspiciousness, basically defensive qualities that were nurtured through so many years of war, hardship and Stalinist terror that they now seem almost like national characteristics.

The immediate course taken by U.S.Soviet relations will probably depend a good deal on the way China's Teng is welcomed later this month in Washington. There is a danger that the Administration might get too euphoric about the historic visit. Warns Harvard's Adam Ulam: "We do not want to become a tool of China in its anti-Russian policy." If Brezhnev concludes that Washington and Peking are joining forces against him, he could continue delaying SALT II and indefinitely postpone his summit with Carter. This prospect deeply troubles one top Administration official. Says he: "A Carter-Brezhnev summit is now probably more important than SALT. It would be a way of putting U.S.-Soviet relations back on the upturn of the curve."

The tone of their relationship will also be greatly influenced, of course, by Soviet actions in the coming months. Foreign Affairs Editor William Bundy explains that "the question the Soviets face is whether they will push to exploit the situations in considerable parts of the Middle East, Persian Gulf and southern Africa. They are going to be tempted, and whether they resist this temptation will be a very important decision."

Washington should be able to encourage Kremlin restraint by offering expanded opportunities for cooperation. But the U.S. might also have to begin demonstrating more dramatically that it is prepared to confront and check Soviet geopolitical advances. Sending the F-15s to Saudi Arabia is at least a small step in that direction.

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