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%defens[s88,jmc]		Glasnost and American defense
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\title{GLASNOST AND AMERICAN DEFENSE}

	The advent of {\it glasnost} in the Soviet Union has generated
a new burst of activity among those who have always opposed U.S. and
other Western defense measures.  ``You see'', they say, ``this proves
we were right along.  The Soviet Union poses no threat, and this or
that specific defense measure is pointless''.  My view is somewhat
different, and the purpose of this article is to relate the advent of
 {\it glasnost} to U.S. defense problems.  Here are some points.

	1. {\it Glasnost} and {\it perestroika} represent real changes
in the Soviet Union.  They are not Potemkin villages designed to
influence the West.  They were caused by a profound disgust with the
stagnation and corruption of the Brezhnev era among Party officials
of Gorbachev's and younger generations.  They might be reversed, but
the cost in morale among all segments of the population would be
enormous --- greater, even, than the cost in Czechoslovakia in 1968
of the reversal of the Prague Spring.  At least that could be blamed
on the Soviet invasion.

	2. Potentially, {\it glasnost} may reduce the Soviet threat
to the rest of the world.  The Soviet Union may turn into a normal
country, but it hasn't yet.

	3. As anyone in the Soviet Union will tell you, the chances
of a reversal of the reforms are substantial.  They threaten both
long held views and the privileges and power of Party officials.
If there is a reversal, it may occur in political circumstances
that would bring to power the most aggressive segments of the Soviet
elite, maybe even another eccentric dictator like Hitler or Stalin.
This could make the Soviet Union more of a menace than ever.

	4. People whose political memory and historical education
are based primarily on events since the end of World War II are
likely to mislead themselves.  There have been few real surprises
in that period, and imagining the future as a simple continuation
of present trends has worked.  However, remember that the first
half of the twentieth century was full of astonishing events.
No-one predicted World War I, the Russian revolution, the postwar
redrawing of the map of Europe, the rise of Stalin, the rise of
Hitler, the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact, the fact that this
would nevertheless be followed by an attack on the Soviet Union
and the atomic bomb.  I admit that World War II itself was entirely
predictable after the rise of Hitler.

	My point is that the Soviet Union has entered an essentially
unpredictable era.  It might turn into a normal country, and it
might revert to an even more nasty dictatorship.

	5. The U.S. and the West didn't cause Gorbachev's reforms except
by providing a model of prosperity and freedom, and there isn't much we
can do to affect the situation.  It may be that the Soviet Union will
become affectable by gestures of trust, but this is not yet true and was
never true in the past.  Communism is quarrelsome and aggressive, and its
ideology has always interpreted any conciliatory gestures as signs
weakness and impending collapse of capitalism.

	6. Unwarranted gestures of hostility are likely to be somewhat
harmful and so are attempts at taking unilateral military advantage.  If
someone has invented something like the U2 airplane that could humiliate
the Soviet Union, it would probably be harmful to the security of the U.S.
to deploy it now.  SDI is not in that category.  Soviet publicity opposing
SDI and using its political assets in the West for that purpose is
merely a continuation of previous policies.  It doesn't threaten them
more than any other Western defense activity.  We probably don't have
another U2 in the works, so the point is probably moot.

	7. The quickest and surest way the Soviet Government could
enhance the welfare of the Soviet people would be to unilaterally
give up being a superpower.  Just ending the two year military service
requirement for all men would put that manpower into the economy.  The
fraction of GNP and technological resources the Soviet Union puts into
the military is three to five times that of the U.S.

	We can have no idea whether this might actually happen.  There is
good evidence, e.g. from Shevchenko, that the Politburo has never taken
the idea of an unprovoked U.S. attack as a real possibility.  However,
both communist ideology and the institutional interests of the military
would tend to oppose it.

	8. To the extent that there is a unilateral renunciation of
superpower status, we can respond appropriately.  It would be great
to be able to withdraw our troops from Europe and Japan, and we could
also give the Soviets ordinary commercial access to Western technology.

	9. More likely than renunciation is a renewed emphasis on
disarmament agreements.  They will bargain hard, and the bargains
they are willing to make will depend on intra-Party political
considerations that we can't really estimate in advance.

	10. The credibility of agreements with them would be greatly
enhanced by the abandonment or reduction of their territorial secrecy.
Maybe we can get this as a byproduct of {\it glasnost} or of
disarmament agreements, but perhaps we could accelerate and enhance
it by giving something in return.  For example, we might trade some
access to technology, e.g. the reduction of some Cocom restrictions,
for access to territory for foreigners.

	11. As for human rights, we should welcome every improvement
but make no concessions on what must be accomplished to make the
Soviet Union a free society.  For conservatives this includes economic
as well as political freedom.  There is no improvement we should regard
as intrinsically impossible.

	12. A note to conservatives.  The reality of {\it glasnost}
may bring new support to the perennial anti-defense ideology of
liberals.  I hope the above is a realistic assessment of the actual
(very limited) and potential (rather large) contribution of {\it glasnost}
to reducing our defense requirements as well as of the possibility
and danger to us of a sudden reversal.  Most conservative authors
have given {\it glasnost} the proper wary welcome, but a few have
taken the view that the ideological line must be held at all costs.
This is unrealistic.
\smallskip\centerline{Copyright \copyright\ 1988 by John McCarthy}
\smallskip\noindent{This draft of defens[s88,jmc]\ TEXed on \jmcdate\ at \theTime}
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