Without these three ingredients, the policy-making process will become fragmented. The bureaucracies will be like wheels without an axle: they will still roll—but they will go off in their own directions. Most important, they will not provide the President with the kind of information and counsel he needs to choose the right tactical moves in negotiating with Moscow.
The next question is who should negotiate with the Soviets. The arcane debates in think tanks and university seminars and on television talk shows typically conclude that all negotiations should be conducted by the State Department. This is not possible when we are negotiating with Moscow. In such talks, we need to distinguish between those issues that should be handled in the formal government-to-government channel and those that should be taken up on a personal basis between one leader and another.
Government-to-government negotiations conducted primarily by the State Department can be effective only on issues where the two sides have common interests. In dealing with our allies, our diplomats routinely resolve most issues in official channels. That can be true in dealing with Moscow, but only on specific issues where our interests and those of the Kremlin are compatible. Measures to reduce the risk of accidental war or agreements to promote cultural exchange are the type of issues that fall into this area. Our diplomats are masters at devising compromises that benefit both sides, but when clashing interests rule out compromise that ability is irrelevant.
When we negotiate with Moscow on issues where American and Soviet interests are irreconcilable, we cannot achieve meaningful results through official diplomatic channels. The President must handle these negotiations on a head-to-head basis with the top Soviet leader. Raising these issues at the highest level conveys the importance we assign to our interests in these matters. It also recognizes the fact that no other forum offers even the shadow of a hope for progress. Some may still believe that real progress can be made on the tough issues like Afghanistan and Central America in meetings in which assistant secretaries of state and deputy foreign ministers read from prepared position papers. But those who hold this view are living in a dream world.
In dealing with communist regimes, we must bear in mind the differences between officials in the party and in the government. Decisions are made by the party, not in the government. Government officials are the handmaidens of party leaders. We can apply all the persuasive power in the world on a Soviet government negotiator, but he will not budge an inch on his own from his position on a major issue. In deriding a proposal for settling an issue at one meeting of foreign ministers, Khrushchev dismissed them as irrelevant, remarking that his Foreign Minister would sit on a block of ice if he told him to. That is still the case. To make progress in negotiations on critical issues, an American President must deal with the top Soviet Communist Party leader.
Gorbachev might choose to negotiate through his ambassador in Washington, his Foreign Minister, or some other personal representative. The President must be ready to do likewise. In some cases, he might want to use his Secretary of State, in others his national-security adviser, and in still others a special representative, perhaps even someone outside government. The key point is that the President must designate an individual whom Gorbachev will recognize as the President’s personal representative. If the Secretary of State is selected, it must be clear that he wears the hat not of a cabinet department head but of the President’s emissary. Gorbachev must understand that whoever has this assignment speaks for the President and reports only to the President.
These negotiations must take place in secret. Secrecy has a bad connotation in the United States. In our elite universities, political-science professors still warble with approval about Wilson’s imperative about “open covenants openly arrived at.” But they fail to understand that in most cases with the Soviets the only way we can conclude an open covenant is to arrive at it in secret. There is a world of difference between a secret treaty and secret negotiations. In a democracy, secret agreements on important issues cannot and should not be tolerated, but secret negotiations to reach important agreements are not only necessary but justifiable.
That is especially true in the case of negotiations with communist states. All totalitarians—not just the Soviets—are obsessed with secrecy. Without secret negotiations, there would have been no opening to China in 1972, and no peace agreement in Vietnam in 1973. Some may point out that in those two cases secret negotiations were appropriate because the United States did not have diplomatic relations with either China or North Vietnam. But even the SALT I accords with the Soviet Union would have been impossible without secret talks.
Secrecy is necessary for more fundamental reasons. First, by its nature diplomacy must be conducted beyond the range of cameras and microphones. Negotiating with Moscow is not like haggling with a rug merchant in an Oriental bazaar. Instead, it is a quiet, subtle process of feeling out the differing degrees to which various elements of the other party’s position are negotiable, and of trying varying combinations of give-and-take. Each side has to be able to advance tentative proposals, to test out hypothetical alternatives, and to plumb the other side’s reactions. Both sides need to have the opportunity to advance propositions without being bound by them. Negotiators can afford to do this only if they can do it in privacy.
Second, genuine negotiations require each side to compromise specific interests to advance both sides’ general interests. That, in turn, requires concessions from both parties. When U.S.–Soviet negotiations have been conducted in highly visible forums, such as the thirteen-year-long Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction Talks in Vienna, they have produced nothing. It is far more difficult—and sometimes impossible—for one side or the other to make a major concession in public. If a side needs to back down from its initial position, it allows the internal opposition to any negotiated accommodation to crystallize and block further progress. That is true in the United States, but it is particularly true in the Soviet Union, where every concession must always appear as a victory. Either side can present a fair agreement as a package of beneficial trade-offs, but neither can ever package specific concessions as anything but detrimental.
That is why a President is well advised to establish a back channel outside the bureaucracy for negotiating with the Soviets. It is essential to have a private means to communicate with Kremlin leaders, outside formal channels and beyond the intruding lenses of television cameras. During my administration, the back channel involved discreet, regular meetings between Henry Kissinger and the very capable and experienced Soviet ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin. These were critical in the early phases of our talks, when each side was exploring the position of the other. We made far more progress in those working sessions than we did in the highly publicized formal negotiations.
A back channel is indispensable in defusing potential crises before they become public and both sides are forced to dig in their heels. In 1969, the back channel enabled us to avert a major crisis over the Soviet attempt to construct a nuclear submarine base at Cienfuegos, Cuba. It also gave us a way to prevent the war between Pakistan and India from escalating into a major U.S.–Soviet conflict. The next President should establish a back channel with the Soviets. Since it minimizes the risk of leaks and the inhibitions on frank exchanges between the top leaders, it maximizes the chance of a successful resolution of contentious issues.
In the negotiations themselves, the United States must employ six key tactics:
Flanking actions. What we do outside our negotiating sessions is as important as what we do inside them. It is a geopolitical axiom that you cannot win more at the conference table than you can win on the battlefield. The same is true in other negotiations as well. If we do nothing more than table elegantly phrased proposals, we will achieve nothing in the negotiations. We need to take actions to outflank Moscow’s position. In arms-control negotiations, we must deploy whatever weapons systems are necessary to assure our strategic security and must mobilize support for our negotiating posi
tion among the American people and among our allies. If we want the Soviets to agree to a withdrawal from Afghanistan, we must help the Afghan resistance raise the cost of Moscow’s occupation of the country. The Soviets are tough negotiators. They will make agreements we want only if we create conditions which would put them in a worse position if they failed to do so.
Linkage. This tactic, linking progress on one issue to progress on another, is highly controversial. When I practiced linkage as President, the political pundits and the professional diplomats were virtually unanimous in their disapproval. But linkage remains absolutely essential to a genuine improvement in U.S.–Soviet relations.
Kremlin leaders will take the United States to the cleaners in superpower negotiations unless we impose linkage among issues. The two sides do not have the same degree of interest in progress on all issues. There are some, like trade, in which Moscow has more at stake. There are others, like resisting Soviet adventurism in the Third World, in which the United States has a stronger interest. Moscow is more than willing to negotiate solely on the former. If the United States acquiesces to that unbalanced approach—if it fails to link the two sets of issues—it will allow the Soviets to dominate the negotiating agenda and we will inevitably come out the loser.
Moscow will always reject explicit linkage, whether involving trade or arms control. Yet, while they will not adopt the principle of linkage, they will adapt to the fact of it. During my administration we linked the talks to ban anti–ballistic-missiles systems, a top priority for the Soviets, to those to limit offensive strategic systems, a top priority for us. If we had not insisted on linkage between the two, we would never have succeeded in concluding SALT I. The Soviets would have negotiated on the ABM Treaty and stalled on the interim accord on offensive systems, thereby gaining a free hand to continue their nuclear buildup. We also linked the progress in the negotiations on increases in East–West trade—which was a Soviet priority—to Soviet behavior in other parts of the world. When the Kremlin took actions that threatened our interests, we slowed the talks to a crawl. The Soviets soon got the message. They did not like it, but they did respond to it.
Linkage is inherent in the way the world works, but to benefit from linkage the United States must practice it. We must impose iron links between progress toward better overall relations and Soviet global behavior. We must not move forward with arms control and increased trade if the Soviet Union persists in threatening U.S. interests with aggression in Afghanistan or by pumping hundreds of tons of arms into Central America. If we enter major agreements while ignoring Soviet conduct, we will be sending the wrong message to Moscow. We will be saying that aggression pays, and we will be facilitating our own destruction.
Ironically, the arms-control lobbyists who most oppose linkage have the most to lose if we fail to link issues. Linkage is a fact of international life. We can negotiate arms-control treaties in spite of Soviet expansionism. But there is no way the Senate will vote to ratify such treaties if at that time the Soviet Union is trampling over Western interests. After all, it was Moscow’s invasion of Afghanistan that torpedoed any chance for ratification of SALT II. If we want genuine and enduring improvement in U.S.–Soviet relations, we must link progress in arms-control talks to progress in the political conflicts that could lead to the use of those arms.
Moscow has made arms control its first priority in U.S.–Soviet negotiations in part to distract attention from the vital political issues. We must not allow them to achieve this objective by treating the questions of Soviet expansionism and repression as secondary concerns and as unfortunate obstacles to progress in arms control. We must force the Kremlin to address our concerns, and linkage is our only means of doing so. If they are to benefit the cause of real peace, arms deals must be accompanied by changes in Soviet policy. As Brian Crozier wrote, “What the Soviets or their surrogates do in Central America or southern Africa is the substance; the arms deal is the shadow.” If the Reagan administration goes forward on arms control without linkage, it risks creating a dangerous euphoria in which anyone who dares raise the issue of Soviet aggression around the world will stand accused of poisoning the atmosphere of U.S.–Soviet relations.
But linkage requires subtle execution. An American President cannot step before the cameras and announce that he intends to hold the next arms-control agreement hostage to Soviet capitulation on one or another issue. He must enforce linkage in private negotiations. This is particularly true on the issue of human rights. As a result of private pressure from my administration, the Soviet Union increased Jewish emigration from 400 in 1968 to nearly 35,000 in 1973. When Congress passed the Jackson-Vanik Amendment explicitly tying trade to Soviet emigration, the Kremlin leaders slammed the door shut again. No powerful state will ever allow another nation to dictate its internal policies.
We need to press the Soviets on this issue, not only for humanitarian reasons, but also because Soviet human-rights violations affect the chances for improving overall American–Soviet relations. But we must undertand that private pressure, not grandstanding, has the best odds for success.
Economic power. Our biggest chit in U.S.–Soviet negotiations is our economic power. That is especially true with Gorbachev. He has made it clear that his top priority is to jump-start the Soviet economy. He knows that if he fails, the Soviet Union will be eclipsed as a great power in the next century. To succeed, he desperately needs access to new infusions of Western technology and credits. As a result, we possess greater negotiating leverage today than we have ever enjoyed before.
Trade should be a major subject on the agenda of the next U.S.–Soviet summit. The possibilities for increased trade are enormous. Our trade with China, which still has primarily an agricultural economy, was $10 billion last year. Our trade with the Soviet Union, a major industrial power, was about $2 billion. Economically, this does not make sense. But we must remember that it was only after China opened its doors to the West and discontinued its expansionist policies that bilateral trade took off. Trade in nonstrategic goods can also be a powerful incentive for the Soviet Union to adopt more humane policies at home and a less aggressive policy abroad. As our relations improve, the administration should ask the Congress to give the Soviet Union most-favored-nation status. This would open the door to a significant increase in Soviet–American trade in nonstrategic goods.
Moscow needs trade with the West more than the West needs trade with Moscow. We know it, the Soviets know it, and we should make use of it. The United States and the Soviet Union largely trade Western technology for Soviet raw materials. We can buy their products elsewhere if necessary, but they have no alternative suppliers for ours. That gives us leverage. We should use it to extract concessions from them on other issues. We should sell Moscow Western goods, but we should stamp them with a political price tag as well as an economic one. Gorbachev has a choice. He cannot trade and invade at the same time.
Trade should be a key element of our relationship with the Soviet Union. But we must disabuse ourselves of the myth that trade brings peace. Nations which traded with each other killed each other by the millions in World War I and World War II. Alone, trade cannot produce peace or prevent war. Many argue that if we increase trade with the Soviets, they will become less aggressive. But the Kremlin will not be bought off. In the late 1970s, they showed that they would both trade and invade. The bottom line is that economic relations can never substitute for deterrence or competition. If properly implemented, however, they can reinforce it.
If we are going to increase trade, we must do so in a way calculated to create incentives for the Soviet Union to desist from its aggressive policies. It makes no sense to give the Kremlin leaders what they most want without getting something we want in return. If we fail to use our economic power, it will show that the Soviets can win gains simply by improving the atmospherics of our relationship, even while seeking other gains through aggression. That is a precedent we cannot afford.
We cannot take ad
vantage of our economic power without the cooperation of our NATO and Japanese allies. The collective economic power of the West dwarfs that of the East because our economic system works and theirs does not. NATO and Japan outproduce the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies by a ratio of over five to one. But we will fritter away that superiority if we do not coordinate our policies for trading with Moscow.
At a minimum, that coordination must involve a tight control over the export of militarily useful technology and an end to providing subsidized export credits to the Soviet Union. Beyond that, we also need to cooperate in regulating the level of East–West trade. It is imperative that we get our act together immediately. Gorbachev has been talking explicitly about greater trade as the economic consequence of reduced tensions. Soviet trade delegations have already started crisscrossing the West. We therefore need to establish a Foreign Economic Policy Board, not only in the United States, but also for the Western alliance as a whole. It would act as the vehicle for coordinating our use of economic power vis-à-vis the Soviet Union.
We made a major mistake when the Reagan administration removed the grain embargo imposed by President Carter after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan without any corresponding concession. It was compounded when the United States signed a new grain deal with no linkage to other issues. It is also unfortunate that the administration’s trade officials have followed the flawed axiom that the only limit on our trade with Moscow should be Soviet port capacities. The next administration should abandon that approach. It should first pull together the economic assets of the West and then sit down to negotiate with Moscow about the political conditions for an increase in trade.
Lenin contemptuously remarked that capitalist countries were so shortsightedly greedy that they would sell the Soviet Union the rope by which they themselves would someday hang. Unfortunately, some Western political leaders and businessmen fit the bill. They would sell the Soviets not only rope, but also the scaffolding and a how-to book for the hangman. We must reject the counsel of those whose narrow minds consider the bottom line as the only guide for our East–West trade policy. If we accept their view, a few in the West will profit financially, but only the Kremlin leaders will profit geopolitically.
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