(This is the second article in a five-part UNITY series on U. S. foreign policy. This article addresses the rivalry between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The first article, carried in the April 8 UNITY, analyzed the overall situation of U.S. imperialism today and the factors behind the decline of the U.S. Future articles will examine the relationship between the U.S. and Western Europe, between the U.S. and the third world, and what approach the American working class should take towards U.S. foreign policy.)
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In March of 1983 President Reagan denounced the Soviet Union as “the focus of evil in the modern world.”
In response Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko fumed, “If it were possible to start compiling charts of the amount of evil in the two systems, I want to assure you that the height of the curve for the U.S. would be hundreds of times higher than ours.”
The U.S. and U.S.S.R. are the two superpowers of the world. Each is striving to achieve undisputed world domination, and their rivalry is creating a threat of a new world war. One tries to gain some advantage over the other, whether through a major political development like the Israeli invasion of Lebanon or the holding of a sports event like the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
Contention with the Soviet Union is the number one concern of U.S. imperialism today and affects almost every aspect of U.S. foreign policy. Former Secretary of State Alexander Haig bluntly put it this way at a meeting of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1982: “U.S.-Soviet relations are the “challenge to national survival” and the “key” to U.S. foreign relations.”
Haig’s comment expressed U.S. imperialism’s desire to rally the people of the U.S. against the Soviet Union. In the past, the Soviet Union was the target of U.S. hostility because it was the home of the world’s first socialist state. But since the late 1950’s, when the socialist system was replaced by social-imperialism, U.S.-Soviet antagonism became a competition between imperialist powers.
U.S. foreign policy-makers are profoundly worried about the steady decline of U.S. power relative to the Soviets. They are preoccupied with how to reverse this trend.
Looked at objectively, the U.S. is a superpower in decline while the Soviets have been gaining in relative strength. The Soviet economy is now about two-thirds that of the U.S. (in terms of gross national product), up from about one-third in the 1950’s.
The U.S. is still economically stronger than the U.S.S.R. in agriculture, in high technology and in manufacturing other than basic industry. Yet U.S. business economists expect that Soviet strength in heavy industry and energy production will continue to grow.
The Soviets utilize their economic strength to advance their overall global aims. They use the large grain trade with the U.S. to influence Washington’s overall policy towards Moscow. The Soviets also anxiously await the completion of the natural gas pipeline from the Soviet Union to Western Europe, since it will substantially boost Soviet economic and political ties with that region. West Germany soon will be getting 30% of its natural gas from the Soviet Union – up from 17% today – and the Soviets will gain $12 billion in foreign exchange to use on the world market as a result of the pipeline deal.
In the military field, the Soviets have changed radically over the years. In the early 1950’s, before the degeneration of socialism in the U.S.S.R., the Soviet military strategy was to construct a defensive force capable of protecting the socialist homeland. By the 1960’s, however, the change in the social system brought a change in military policy.
To compete with the U.S., the Soviets embarked on a course of rapid militarization. They constructed a worldwide, blue-water fleet which is now the largest naval combat force in the world. They also developed their land forces. The Soviets have a larger army than the U.S. (4 million vs. 3 million). The U.S.S.R. also built a massive air, space and missile force. By all accounts – U.S. as well as Soviet – the U.S. and U.S.S.R. are roughly equal to one another in nuclear capabilities. Each has the power to obliterate its adversary, along with much of the rest of the globe.
The Soviets use the threat of their massive military might to advance political interests, such as during the crisis in Poland. But notably, the Soviets are using direct military force, such as in Afghanistan, or in Angola during the 1975 civil war, when the Soviets directly supported Cuban involvement. The Soviets today even surpass the U.S. in world weapons sales. In 1981, the Soviets accounted for 36.5% of the world’s total arms sales while the U.S. took up 33.6%.
The Soviet ability to project military strength far beyond its immediate border areas, extending even to the U.S. itself, is a hard fact with which U. S. policy-makers and military leaders must contend.
Politically, the Soviets have made gains over the past several years, but they have also suffered major setbacks and problems. The Soviets achieved influence and even domination over allied states such as the governments of Afghanistan, Viet Nam, Cuba and Ethiopia. Ruling groups in countries like Angola, South Yemen and India have close relations with the U.S.S.R. These developments have given the Soviets a major presence and influence in Southeast Asia, South Asia, southern Africa and the Caribbean. The Soviets, of course, continue to dominate most of Eastern Europe and Mongolia.
Yet in all of these areas the Soviets face stiff opposition, including armed resistance. The advantage the Kremlin once had as the supposed successor to the great revolutionary leader Lenin is disappearing as increasing numbers of people around the world see the repression of the Soviet military bureaucratic regime.
Parties once closely affiliated with the Soviets such as the Italian Communist Party (PCI) have harshly condemned the Kremlin. Referring to the Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, the PCI said it would be “suicidal” to “adopt a position in line with Soviet foreign policy.”
China persistently opposes the hegemonism of the Soviets, and identifies it as the more aggressive of the two superpowers. Yugoslavia, north Korea, and Romania also have taken their own paths to develop themselves independently of Moscow. And in many countries, anti-revisionist communist groups which emerged in the 1960’s and 1970’s are helping to expose and combat Soviet imperialism.
Within the Soviet Union itself, there are major problems. The morale and commitment of people to the Kremlin is unstable; there are economic difficulties(the grain harvest fell far short of goals again this year); and there is growing indication of discord in the nationality regions.
The Soviet empire is an insecure empire, one that relies heavily on military suppression and police coercion at home for its continuation. This is a sign of its basic weakness rather than strength.
Washington’s attitude toward these developments in the Soviet Union has been one of great worry, but in-conclusiveness. U.S. policy-makers have not been clear, nor united, on how to compete with the Soviets in order to protect U.S. imperialism’s own interests.
U.S. realization that the Soviets were an equal rival for world domination began in the early 1970’s. Nixon and Kissinger developed the idea of detente to counter Soviet power. While detente was pawned off publicly as a policy of friendship between the two countries, its real objective was to try to restrain the Soviets from further encroachment on U.S. power and to advance U.S. business interests, such as through food and technology sales. Cold War isolation of the Soviet Union had not worked. Perhaps entangling trade relations, bilateral consultation (granting each side its sphere of influence in the world), and negotiated agreements (SALT I) might work. Rivalry took a new form.
But detente was short-lived because of the intense, relentless competition between the two superpowers. The aggressiveness of the Soviet Union (the invasion of Afghanistan, the Vietnamese occupation of Kampuchea, and the arms buildup) went unabated and the U.S. international position continued to erode (the Nicaraguan, Iranian and Zimbabwean revolutions). As a consequence, detente was heard less and less during Carter’s Administration, SALT II went unratified, the U.S. boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, and plans were begun to construct the B-l bomber, neutron bomb and MX missile.
Detente was on the way out. Carter authorized the first real increase in defense spending after eight previous years of decline, and military strategists started to plan how the U.S. could win a nuclear war with the Soviets.
And now, just a short decade since Nixon’s overtures to the Kremlin, Ronald Reagan is calling for a new crusade against the Soviet Union.
Reagan represents those of the ruling class who wish to give premier attention to reconstructing the U.S. military and economic position in the world, revive the arms race, and vociferously protest Soviet intrigues, both real and manufactured.
But there are several realities frustrating Reagan’s policy that are important to examine in order to understand the nature of U.S. rivalry with the Soviets:
• Despite political rhetoric, Reagan and other top Administration officials are realizing that regaining U.S. supremacy will be very difficult, if not impossible. The fact is that Soviet nuclear parity with U.S. imperialism is here to stay. The U.S. does not have the economic and technical capabilities, nor does a political climate exist at this point, to significantly and qualitatively outdo the Soviets and regain military hegemony.
Reagan’s strategy to develop high-tech “defensive” weapons is simply an extension of the arms race into a new area. Most military experts admit the Soviets and the U.S. already are conducting research into lasers, anti-missile satellites, etc. Reagan’s recent announcement will accelerate the existing competition. There is no reason to believe the U.S. will be able to out-gain the Soviets in this field.
• U.S. foreign policy-makers also face the fact that the Soviets have developed critical economic connections with key U.S. allies in Western Europe. These ties have created a substantial obstacle to U.S. efforts to forge a renewed, vigorous and unified Western alliance against the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union today is one of the top trading partners with the big capitalists of Western Europe – Moscow estimates that companies employing over 300,000 workers in West Germany are dependent upon Soviet purchases. The natural gas pipeline under construction connecting Europe and the Soviet Union is a $220 billion deal! These are key reasons why some of the big capitalists of Western Europe are reluctant to adopt critical political stances that might jeopardize their dealings.
• The European allies of the U.S. have developed some economic and political distance from the U.S. over the past several years. They wish to pursue their own policy interests in dealing with the U.S.S.R. Policy-makers in the U.S. also are divided over how to relate to the European allies concerning the U.S.S.R.
One of former Secretary of State Haig’s major worries was a U.S. tendency towards “unilateralism” – the policy of ignoring European interests and perspectives as the U.S. pursued its own aims. Reagan’s attempt to stop the construction of the natural gas pipeline by imposing sanctions on some European companies caused a tremendous backlash in London, Paris and other European capitals and was one of the factors in Haig’s resignation. European leaders were angered over what they believed was U.S. interference in their own affairs. The reaction was so great Reagan finally had to lift the sanctions later in 1982.
• And lastly, Reagan is realizing that a number of countries which are antagonistic to or suspicious of the Soviets are not ready to simply follow Washington’s lead. There are sufficient conflicts with U.S. imperialism to prevent Washington from forging a solid anti-Soviet front with many countries.
The U.S. tried to form a “strategic consensus” of some Arab regimes (Saudi Arabia, Jordan and others) with Israel against the Soviets, but close U.S. involvement with Israeli aggression prevented developments in this direction. The U.S. tried unsuccessfully to woo the new Zimbabwean government into a pro-U.S. orbit, but President Mugabe made it clear he would defend his country’s independence from meddling by either Washington or Moscow.
U.S. experience with China illustrates the same point. There was widespread speculation that the U.S. was seeking a military alliance with the Chinese against the Soviets. Yet despite China’s own opposition to Soviet imperialism, it was not willing to ally with the U.S. One reason was the continuing U.S. ties with Taiwan. China was also not willing to unite with one superpower against another, but instead opposed all superpower hegemonism.
As a result, U.S. imperialism is caught in a foreign policy dilemma. It wishes to encourage an anti-Soviet crusade, forge anti-Soviet alliances, and take advantage of Soviet domestic and foreign problems. At the same time, U.S. imperialism is intertwined with the Soviets economically, and also has other imperialist interests that inhibit its efforts to forge a solid anti-Soviet front at this time.
Washington therefore goes back and forth between strident anti-Sovietism and overtures of reconciliation. Reagan’s own stand on SALT II illustrates this: during his campaign he proclaimed the arms agreement was “totally unacceptable.” Today he says the U.S. will respect the treaty (even though it is still unratified) and will seek further arms negotiations with the Soviets. U.S. foreign policy towards the Soviets will reflect this ambivalence for a long time to come.
In the immediate future, the key dispute between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. will most likely be over arms policy. Both superpowers are in the midst of a new round of the arms race. They are not only introducing larger weapons, but also more sophisticated ones, products of the technological advances in electronics and computer science. A new generation of highly accurate, devious and destructive arms is on the horizon. Reagan’s plans to increase the defense budget by trillions of dollars are a blatant manifestation of this new arms buildup.
While the superpowers will be building up their arsenals, they will have to respond to the growing worldwide disarmament movement that has especially targeted the two superpowers as the greatest dangers to world peace. Moscow and Washington are both trying to either undermine or influence this mass movement to their own advantage, and have advanced various arms negotiations proposals with an eye toward public opinion. For the foreseeable future, though, there is little likelihood these will amount to anything more than propaganda ploys.
Although the Soviets and some political leaders in the U.S. occasionally try to propose a return to detente between the two powers, there is no indication that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. will be able to work out any major agreements in the next several years. In several articles in 1982, Richard Nixon called for a new policy of “hard-headed detente,” but his proposal had few takers. The conflict between the two superpowers is too sharp at this time.
The future of U.S.-Soviet relations therefore will be full of tension and competition. The death of Brezhnev has brought little change in Soviet policy, but it is ominous that the former head of the KGB is now the Soviet premier. With Reagan and his gang in power in the U.S. and Andropov in the Soviet Union, it must be noted that the two superpowers are now being led by some of the most reactionary and militaristic forces in the two societies.
The middle 1980’s are sure to bring heightened tensions and political conflicts between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Even more serious, the danger of an outbreak of armed conflict somewhere in the world between the two may be brought closer.