East-West Let's Count Down

By Jill Smolowe

For omen seekers, the outward signs were propitious. Secretary of State James Baker bounded down the stairs, hurried to Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze's side and offered a hearty handshake. Smiling and pumping arms, they then began their maiden meeting in the glittering, baroque Festsaal in the sprawling Hofburg, that imperial crescent of stone buildings in the heart of Vienna. The locale was rich with inspiration: in 1815 the Congress of Vienna convened at the nearby chancellery to redraw the political face of Europe. Last week's gathering of 35 foreign ministers ushered in a modern-day reprise to redraft the Continent's military map. The talks, called CFE -- Negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe -- are destined to be the arms-control battlefield of the 1990s.

Certain to become every bit as familiar and contentious as the SALT talks on limiting nuclear arsenals that dominated the 1970s, the far more complex CFE talks aim to eliminate the threat of conventional war in Europe. At issue are not only the more than 5 million armed troops deployed throughout the Continent but also, by NATO's count, some 70,000 tanks, 140,000 armored troop / carriers, 68,000 artillery pieces and 12,000 combat aircraft. The overriding goals of the talks will be to reduce the possibility of surprise attacks and large-scale offensive operations and to diminish the oppressive levels of firepower and military manpower. Optimally, both NATO and the Warsaw Pact will be restructured along defensive lines, with no country or alliance having the power to attack others. Acknowledges a Soviet expert on conventional arms: "This is the most complicated diplomatic task since the end of World War II."

While the opening atmospherics were promising, the devil, as arms controllers say, is in the details. The Soviets scored early with ambitious unilateral initiatives that went a long way toward meeting the basic Western criterion of trimming the Warsaw Pact's alarming and unmatched capacity to overrun Europe. Beyond that, the East bloc is prepared for a fundamental restructuring of the Continent's military balance that could sharply diminish the dangerous confrontation across Europe's political fault line.

By way of response, the U.S.-led NATO proposal sounded modest and a bit miserly. British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe spelled out the West's starting position, warning that NATO was not interested in a "competitive striptease." The plan, which he said went "far beyond bean counting," in essence called for deep cuts in the Eastern forces, with only minor reductions of up to 10% in NATO dispositions. Baker gave a more philosophical speech, but it was thin on specifics and failed to counter Shevardnadze's longer-range proposals.

Despite the daunting negotiations ahead, which optimists say will last at least two years, both sides showed a rare eagerness to make these talks succeed. If a pragmatic tone distinguished their formal speeches, a private meeting between Baker and Shevardnadze at the official residence of U.S. Ambassador Henry Grunwald plainly left the two statesmen in high spirits. "My impression is that both sides are willing to cooperate," Shevardnadze said enthusiastically. A relieved Baker said, "The proposal ((the Soviets)) advanced was really remarkably close to the NATO proposal . . . ((we're)) off to a pretty good start."

The atmosphere of promise contrasts sharply with the record of CFE's moribund predecessor, the Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions negotiations, known inelegantly as MBFR. For 15 years, NATO and Warsaw Pact negotiators never moved beyond a stalemate over head counts, with both sides arguing fruitlessly about how many troops and weapons the other had deployed. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev broke that logjam in April 1987 by admitting that the East bloc has a clear edge in conventional forces, then accepting the logic that the Warsaw Pact will have to absorb deeper cuts. Says Stephen Ledogar, head of the U.S. delegation to the CFE talks: "We're not hearing the old thinking, 'What's mine is mine, and what's yours is negotiable.' "

As Shevardnadze detailed Moscow's opening position last week, several encouraging points of convergence emerged. By calling for weapons reductions to 10% to 15% below present NATO levels, he signaled Moscow's willingness to make asymmetrical cuts. His proposal for an eventual conversion of remaining forces to a "strictly defensive character" echoed NATO's call for "the restructuring of armed forces to enhance defensive capabilities." Perhaps most important, the two sides agreed that verification of any conventional- arms pact must be rigorous. Shevardnadze gave the nod to on-site inspections "without right of refusal," adding that all verification measures would be accepted, provided there is reciprocity. "We would like to hope," he said, "that our way of thinking and acting is no longer identified in the West with ill will or evil intentions."

Still, the potential for irreconcilable differences looms. In putting forward his proposal, Shevardnadze pushed beyond the talks' mandate on several key points. Concerned about NATO's superior air power, Moscow listed tactical aircraft and combat helicopters among the "most destabilizing categories of armaments" that need to be cut back. The West has consistently maintained that aircraft should not be included in the negotiations, as they cannot seize and hold territory. Similarly, Shevardnadze indicated that while naval forces are not officially part of the talks, they must eventually be considered. Washington currently considers the matter non-negotiable.

Then there was Shevardnadze's vague mention of "zones" or "strips" in which little or no military activity would be allowed. Playing directly to West Germany, which shares the longest frontier with the East, Shevardnadze suggested a rollback of short-range nuclear forces and a lower conventional presence in the zone bordering both Germanys. The idea has appeal in Bonn, where some officials have been pressing for a two-track approach in which reductions of short-range nuclear forces would parallel those achieved in the CFE talks. They suggest that if the Warsaw Pact agrees to eliminate its conventional superiority, the West might agree to eliminate some or even all battlefield nuclear weapons. NATO is divided, however, over just how tightly the two weapons categories should be knit.

The alliance is also deeply rent over the question of modernizing its short- range nuclear forces. Debate rages within NATO over the replacement of 88 aging Lance missile launchers. West Germany argues that any decision should be postponed until after 1990, thus wielding the threat of modernization as a means to increase pressure on the Soviets to make concessions on conventional arms. The U.S., Britain and France counter that the modernization should go forward, to position NATO better now to negotiate reductions with the Soviets later. Determined to keep West Germany firmly in the NATO camp, Baker reached out to Bonn last week with an unexpected gesture. He suggested that the Bush Administration might speed up the withdrawal of chemical weapons from West Germany, currently targeted for 1992.

But disagreements over issues like modernization handicapped NATO as the CFE negotiations got under way. The equivocations of West Germany's Ostpolitik troubled the U.S. and Britain, and recent conflicts between Greece and Turkey nearly scuttled the talks altogether. Negotiators are also wary about the participation of the French, whose Gaullist aloofness toward NATO led them to snub the MBFR talks; so far, the French have shown a prickly independence in preparatory discussions for CFE. France does not want to appear to be reintegrating its forces into the NATO structure, so each of the 16 NATO and seven Warsaw Pact countries theoretically stands independently in the CFE talks, worrying the American delegation, which prefers to control the course of negotiations.

Western diplomats also anticipate difficulties within NATO on the pace of the talks. Some, seeing in Gorbachev an eager partner, will seek to speed up the bargaining. Others will try to slow the process of disarmament for fear of bringing about a greater erosion of NATO's will to defend itself or a complete withdrawal of the American troops stationed on European soil. Warns Martin McCusker, director of the military committee of the North Atlantic Assembly, NATO's parliamentary wing: "The talks are bound to bring out many of the intra-alliance tensions we've tried to keep buried and which Soviet obstinacy has helped stifle."

* The Soviets have looked decidedly less threatening since Gorbachev indicated that he would consider asymmetrical cuts in Europe's defenses. He went a well- received step further in his address before the U.N. General Assembly last December by announcing the unilateral withdrawal of 500,000 Soviet troops and 10,000 tanks, to be made over the next two years. In recent months the Soviets have further swayed public opinion in Western Europe by adopting a 10% cut in defense spending and publishing detailed figures of troop and arms levels. Moscow has also acceded to Western demands that the talks cover all of Europe -- not just Central Europe, as in the MBFR negotiations -- thus taking into account some Soviet troops stationed on home soil. Gorbachev expansively describes the new zone as running "from the Atlantic to the Urals."

At the heart of Moscow's newfound flexibility is Gorbachev's need to transfer scarce resources from the military to the civilian economy if he is to improve living conditions at home. By paring the military, Gorbachev aims to free not only investment resources but human resources as well. With public pressure building to reduce or even abandon the Soviet Union's unpopular conscription, Gorbachev said last October that the length of military service may be shortened. Presumably, for each good soldier lost, Moscow hopes to gain a good worker.

As the two sides go through a diplomatic grope in search of common ground, neither expects the CFE talks to be a kaffeeklatsch. (The talks were originally given the acronym CAFE, but that was discarded as too frivolous.) It is a promising sign that negotiators chose last week to accentuate the positive. "They called for several things which sound pretty reasonable," said Ledogar of his East bloc counterparts. Concurred Oleg Grinievsky, chief of the Soviet delegation: "The very first hours witnessed an exchange of positions, rather than recriminations." Baker and Shevardnadze boosted optimism by setting a May date in Moscow to discuss resumption of Strategic Arms Reduction Talks and explore the timing of a superpower summit. But, cautions Baker, "we've got some hard bargaining ahead of us."

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: TIME Chart by Joe Lertola

CAPTION: BRIDGING THE GAP

With reporting by James O. Jackson and Christopher Ogden/Vienna