What the West Can and Cannot Do

By J.F.O. MCALLISTER WASHINGTON

For the past two weeks, President Clinton has been talking up the need to back Russia's reformers. By Thursday, U.S. officials were wondering if there would be any left to support. As the Congress of People's Deputies sought to strip Boris Yeltsin of his power, the problem for Washington and the West was whether their plans for nurturing the tender shoots of democracy and capitalism in Russia by bolstering his presidency were worth pursuing.

"We're on pins and needles," acknowledges a senior U.S. official. The West has a huge stake in Yeltsin, to the extent that he has come to embody Russia's stumbling progress toward reform. If he is turned into a figurehead, the U.S. and its allies would find it extremely difficult to muster domestic support for lavishing money on a government dominated by neocommunists. If hard-boiled nationalists replace Yeltsin, an anti-Western Kremlin could reverse agreements on cutting nuclear arsenals, sell weapons to dangerous clients like Saddam Hussein, immobilize the U.N. with vetoes, slow down or reverse troop withdrawals from eastern Germany and the Baltics, and invade former Soviet republics in the name of rescuing Russian minorities.

So what can the West do to protect its interests? If that is defined as keeping Yeltsin in power, not much. Yeltsin watchers in some NATO capitals believe that he lacks a strategy for defeating his opponents, so continuing to back him may be foolhardy. In any event, Russians, not foreigners, will determine the outcome of the struggles in the Kremlin. "Short of an official declaration that Ruslan Khasbulatov ((Yeltsin's nemesis)) has been a CIA spy for years, our ability to influence events is very small," says Paul Goble, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington. Others, like former CIA Director Robert Gates, say overt Western interference on behalf of Yeltsin ! could be counterproductive. "He is vulnerable to criticism that he is doing the West's bidding," says Gates.

Even before this week's confrontation, there was a growing sense of urgency in the West that Yeltsin's reform campaign would fail without more foreign help. Clinton responded by scheduling a U.S.-Russian summit in Vancouver for April 3-4, promising innovative aid programs and calling for an emergency meeting of the Group of Seven industrial countries to map out broad-scale Western assistance. It all may be too late. "We have known since the time of Gorbachev that the Russians don't give a damn about the prestige of their leaders," says Gernot Erler, a senior German legislator, "unless it puts food in their stomachs." No Western wands can wave away the real economic hardship that has fueled the Russian Congress's grab for power.

If the task is viewed in a longer perspective, as abetting an escape from Leninism that could take Russia decades to complete, Yeltsin's fate cannot determine the West's approach. "You support policies that make sense," argues Jack Matlock, U.S. ambassador to the former Soviet Union. "The purpose is not to keep Yeltsin in power, but to keep the reform process in place in an atmosphere where democratic institutions can develop." A Western program that emphasizes technical assistance -- teaching banks how to lend, farms how to harvest, local authorities how to privatize state assets -- would help, even if it took years to show results. That's the thrust of Clinton's $700 million aid request for Russia, up from $415 million this year. But a Marshall Plan is out. Western governments do not feel that they can afford it or that it would be wisely invested if Moscow walks away from tough economic changes.

As the power struggle in the Kremlin continues, Western leaders must plan quickly for unpleasant prospects. Clinton has privately asked George Bush to write him a memo of advice. Yeltsin may be the best horse to back, but what if he conducts a plebiscite that the parliament ignores, or subverts the legislators entirely by imposing presidential rule? Western officials do not like to speculate; they imply that they care more about the substance of change than the form. Says an official in Washington: "If Yeltsin has to take extreme measures, we are prepared to continue to support him if -- and I repeat if -- whatever he does seems consistent with the continuation of economic and political reform." Even if someone replaces Yeltsin, pragmatic engagement will rule Western policy toward Russia.

With reporting by Ann Blackman/Washington, James O. Jackson/Bonn and William Mader/London