THE WEST AND THE SOVIET UNION Politics and Policy

Also by Gregory Flynn

SOVIET MILITARY DOCTRINE AND WESTERN POLICY (editor) PUBLIC IMAGES OF WESTERN SECURITY (co-author) NATO'S NORTHERN ALLIES: The National Security Policies of Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway (editor) THE PUBLIC AND ATLANTIC DEFENSE (co-editor) THE INTERNAL FABRIC OF WESTERN SECURITY (co-author)

The West and the Soviet Union

Politics and Policy

Edited by Gregory Flynn

with Richard E. Greene

Foreword by Thomas L. Hughes

M MACMILLAN

in association with the PALGRA VE MACMILLAN

© Gregory Flynn 1990 Foreword ©Thomas L. Hughes 1990

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any 1licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WC1E 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published 1990

Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world

Typeset by P&R Typesetters Ltd, Salisbury, Wiltshire

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data The West and the Soviet Union: politics and policy- (A Carnegie Endowment book). 1. Western bloc countries. Foreign relations with Soviet Union 2. Soviet Union. Foreign relations with Western bloc counries I. Flynn, Gregory II. Greene, Richard E. 327'.09171'3 ISBN 978-0-333-53500-4 ISBN 978-1-349-20985-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20985-9

Contents List of Tables

Foreword by Thomas L. Hughes

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Notes on the Contributors

Politics and Policy Gregory Flynn

2 Anglo-Soviet Relations: A World Order Problem Michael Clarke

3 Between Adjustment and Ambition: Franco-Soviet Relations and French Foreign Policy Dominique Moisi and Gregory Flynn

4 The Federal Republic of Germany: The Case of a Reluctant Latecomer Karl Kaiser

5 Halo-Soviet Relations: The Changing Domestic Agenda

vi

Vll

X

xi

xm

18

48

80

Mart a Dassu 109

6 Japanese-Soviet Relations: On the Frontier Hiroshi Kimura 156

7 Systematic Problems: American Policy Toward the Soviet Union JosephS. Nye, Jr. 194

8 Western Security Policy Toward the Soviet Union: Problems of Unity and Diversity Robbin Laird and Phil Williams 222

Index 257

v

List of Tables 2.1A 2.1B 2.2

2.3 6.1 6.2 6.3

6.4

6.5

Patterns of British exports (£million) Patterns of British imports (£million) Approval/disapproval of the role of superpowers, 1969-89 Confidence in the United States, 1972-89 The USSR's trade with Japan Japan's trade with the USSR Fishing quotas in each other's 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zones ( 000 tons) "Which foreign countries do you dislike the most? (Name three countries)" (%) "How do you feel about the Soviet Union?"(%)

vi

28 28

36 38

166 166

169

177 177

Foreword The changes currently under way in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are bringing substantial new challenges to what used to be called the management of East-West relations. While the reach and durability of Mikhail Gorbachev's reform process and new thinking must still be considered open questions, it is clear that both have already gone further than most Western observers considered conceivable, let alone feasible. The West today must come to grips with the possibility of fundamental change in the nature of its postwar security problem and the kinds of adjustment that will be necessary to deal with emerging requirements.

The dramatic prospects have already heightened tension among Allied governments and within Western societies due to conflicting perspectives on appropriate Western reactions. These differences may well keep the West from being able to maximize opportunities and minimize risks. Understanding the sources of this discord is a key task now confronting Allied policy makers.

Most analysis of the West's difficulties in formulating policies toward the Soviet Union has tended to focus on conflicts between the priorities and interests of the United States and those of its partners. However, the most important dividing lines for differing Allied assessments of the Soviet Union frequently lie elsewhere. Above all, national policies are seldom "objective" assessments of national interests and needs, but rather the product of multiple domestic perspectives and pressures which vary over time.

The role of domestic political cultures in shaping Western policy toward the Soviet Union has rarely been the subject of serious attention; yet political cultures are a basic source of foreign policy assumptions, and national political processes often have a critical impact on priorities, modalities and limits. Indeed, the domestic roots of Allied policies toward the Soviet Union are very deep, and domestic factors have frequently been determinant in shaping policy preferences and in circumscribing the choices which are politically sustainable. Throughout the postwar period, the convergence or divergence of these factors from state to state has often been central to the ability of the Allies to coordinate their policy within the Alliance.

This book is a comparative study of the role that domestic factors play in shaping the form and content of Western policy toward the Soviet Union. It demonstrates that these factors are at the heart of

VII

Vlll Foreword

many of the Allied conflicts in security policy over the past few years and are likely to remain so as the West seeks to coordinate its approach to Gorbachev's Soviet Union.

The opening chapter explores the general relationship between domestic politics and the evolution of postwar Western attitudes toward the Soviet Union. It demonstrates how the ideological character of the Soviet adversary helped to create an absolute image of the Soviet threat, and how this gave rise to a very special consensus during the Cold War, one that helped to determine which political forces would govern in the West and what kinds of issues could be legitimately debated. As the Soviet threat became more relative with time and changing strategic conditions, political controversy over policy has once again emerged. This has made the coordination of policy more difficult at both the national and Alliance levels. Indeed, it has made harmony in the Western approach to the Soviet Union very much a function of how compatible the domestic political necessities of different allies are, above all, those of the United States and the FRG.

Six country studies follow on Great Britain, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States. The decision to have a Japanese study was based on that country's importance and the conviction that more needs to be understood about the factors influencing Japanese policy, despite the fact that there are few parallels between the evolutions that have taken place in Japan and the other countries.

Each of these studies examines the evolution of policy toward the Soviet Union in the light of changing domestic contexts. Although the emphasis varies according to national peculiarities, the chapters concentrate on analyzing the same two clusters of factors: images (that is. the origins of assumptions that inform policy); and process (how domestic political structures influence the formulation of policy). The analysis of images concentrates on how countries perceive the various elements of the security policy equation: the evolution of self-image; images of their allies and their positions in the Western Alliance; images of the Soviet Union, the threat it poses and how both have changed over the years; and the image of the means to security in light of changes in all these variables. The analysis of process focuses on the domestic actors who have been important in formulating policy toward the Soviet Union and how their influence has been brought to bear.

Each of the country chapters follows the same broad outline: an introduction in which the author summarizes the important elements of change and continuity in that country's policy toward the Soviet

Foreword IX

Union in the postwar period; a brief history of the important benchmarks in the evolution of postwar policy toward the Soviet Union; a discussion of the domestic and historical roots of images, and how and why these have changed over time; a discussion of the most relevant aspects of the political process; and a conclusion which attempts to identify those factors which will have a major impact on future policy toward the Soviet Union, and how, in turn, changes under way in the Soviet Union may affect these factors.

The book concludes with a chapter which examines the ways in which differences in domestic political cultures and systems have complicated the forging of a unified Western response to the Soviet Union and how these variables are likely to be affected by changes taking place in the Soviet Union. For purposes of analysis, the chapter divides the basic security policy tasks into three-assessing the threat, meeting the threat and reducing the threat-and analyzes how domestic factors affect the Allies' ability to coordinate their policies in these areas. It thus seeks to provide a framework for examining how tensions arise in the current Western policy debate from different domestic predispositions and processes.

This book is the output of a project which was launched in early 1987 at a conference held in Versailles, France. Under the auspices of the Atlantic Institute for International Affairs, more than two dozen scholars and practitioners were assembled to present and critique early drafts of the chapters which now constitute the bulk of this book. The original papers were revised on the basis of the conference discussion and updated.

This is not, however, a book whose primary purpose is to analyze current changes in the East or specific policies the West should be considering in response. Its objective is to provide the reader with the tools necessary to understand better how the Allies are grappling with the challenges they face and why they often reach different assessments. The chapters that follow are thus less about what policy is than why it is.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was pleased to support the completion of this project. It is our hope that this book will help facilitate a better appreciation of forces at work in the West as we confront the most challenging period in international affairs since the early postwar years.

THOMAS L. HUGHES

Acknowledgments The editor has accumulated an enormous debt of gratitude to the many people and institutions involved in the production of this book. First and foremost, I would like to thank the authors who showed an infinite amount of patience and dedication in the difficult gestation of this work. I would also like to thank the participants of the original conference for their valuable insights and helpful suggestions, many of whom continued to be involved during the entire life of the project. Pierre Hassner deserves special thanks for his wise counsel.

This project was primarily financed by a generous grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation whose support I greatly appreciate. I am also particularly indebted to Nathaniel Samuels, President of the Atlantic Institute Foundation, and Wilfried Guth, former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Atlantic Institute for International Affairs, who helped ensure that this project would see the light of day in spite of the difficulties that arose along the way.

I owe profound thanks to Thomas L. Hughes, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, for his willingness to house and support this project during the preparation of the final manuscript. I am indebted to Jane Lowenthal and the staff of the Endowment library for their untiring commitment and help in finding material that was always needed yesterday. And a special thanks to Tiffany Farrell, Renee Key and Ida O'Connell, all of whom showed an infinite amount of patience in proofreading the manuscript at various stages.

My greatest debt, however, is to Richard E. Greene, my research assistant, who helped steer this book through a difficult phase of editing. I and the other authors owe him a great deal for his sound judgment and faithful attention to detail. The book has benefited enormously from his efforts.

Washington, D. C. GREGORY FLYNN

X

Abbreviations CDU/CSU

CFE CGIL CIA CISL CMEA CoCom CPE CSCE DC DSP EC ECSC ECU EDC EEC FCO FOP FRG FTO GDR GNP GOP INF JCP LOP MBFR MITI MNF MoFA NATO NHK NIE NSC PCF PCI

Christian Democratic Union/Christian Socialist Union (FRG) Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Italian General Confederation of Labor Central Intelligence Agency (U.S.) Italian Confederation of Labor Unions Council for Mutual Economic Assistance Coordination Committee for Multilateral Export Control Centrally Planned Economy Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Christian Democratic Party (Italy) Democratic Socialist Party (Japan) European Community European Coal and Steel Community European Currency Unit European Defense Community European Economic Community Foreign and Commonwealth Office Free Democratic Party (FRG) Federal Republic of Germany Foreign Trade Organization (USSR) German Democratic Republic Gross National Product Republican Party (U.S.) Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Japanese Communist Party Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Japan) Multinational Force (UN) Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan) North Atlantic Treaty Organization Japanese Broadcasting Association Newly Industrializing Economy National Security Council (U.S.) French Communist Party Italian Communist Party

XI

xii

PLI PRC PRI PSDI PSI SALT SDF SDI SNF SPD SPJ UIL UK UN U.S. USSR

Abbreviations

Italian Liberal Party People's Republic of China Italian Republican Party Italian Social Democratic Party Italian Socialist Party Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Self-Defense Forces (Japan) Strategic Defense Initiative Short-range Nuclear Forces Social Democratic Party of Germany Socialist Party of Japan Italian Union of Labor United Kingdom United Nations United States Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Notes on the Contributors Michael Clarke lectures in International Politics at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. His most recent publications on Soviet affairs include contributions to A. Pravda and P. Duncan (eds), Soviet-British Relations ( 1989) and P. Byrd, British Foreign Policy Under Thatcher ( 1988 ). He is presently completing a study on British External Relations for the 1990s for the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Marta Dassu is Director of the Centro Studi di Politica internazionale ( Cespi) in Rome. Editor and coauthor of Lafrontiera difficile: Evoluzione e prospettive delle relazioni tra Urss e Cina ( 1986), Ms. Dassu has written many articles on the Soviet Union and China.

Gregory Flynn is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former Deputy Director of the Atlantic Institute for International Affairs in Paris. Dr. Flynn has written widely on issues of European security and is the editor and coauthor of Soviet Military Doctrine and Western Policy ( 1989); NATO's Northern Allies: The National Security Policies of Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway (1986); Public Images of Western Security (1985); and The Public and Atlantic Defense ( 1985).

Richard E. Greene is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He has worked as a Research Assistant at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and rapporteur of its study group on East-West Relations in Europe.

Karl Kaiser is the Director of the Research Institute of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fiir Auswiirtige Politik in Bonn and Professor of Political Science at the University of Cologne. Author of many works dealing with West German foreign policy and East-West security issues, his most recent publications include (as coeditor) British-German Defence Cooperation ( 1988) and Deutsch-Franzosische Sicherheitspolitik ( 1986 ).

Hiroshi Kimura, Professor of Political Science at the Slavic Research Center for Hokkaido University, is Japan's Representative and a

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XIV Notes on the Contributors

Vice-President of the International Council for Soviet and East European Studies. A graduate of Kyoto University and Columbia University, Dr. Kimura has written extensively on Japanese-Soviet relations. His recent publications include (as coauthor with Karl Kaiser and William Hyland) Prospects for East- West Relations ( 1986) and (as coauthor) Gorbachev's Reforms: U.S. and Japanese Assessments ( 1988).

Robbin Laird is Director of European and Soviet Studies at the Institute for Defense Analyses. He is author of several studies on European and Soviet issues, and his latest book is (as coeditor) The USSR and the Western Alliance ( 1989 ).

Dominique Molsi is Associate Director of the Institut Fran9ais des Relations Internationales in Paris, and editor of Politique etrangere. He has written many articles on French foreign policy and contributed to numerous works on French relations with the East.

JosephS. Nye, Jr. is director of the Centre for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University and a former Deputy to the Undersecretary of State for Security Assistance. His publications include Nuclear Ethics (1985); (as coeditor) Fateful Vision: Avoiding Nuclear Catastrophe (1988); and Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (forthcoming).

Phil Williams is Professor of International Security Studies at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh. Until recently, he has been Acting Director of the international security program at the Royal Institute for International Affairs and Senior Lecturer in international relations at the University of Southampton. He is the author of numerous studies on East-West and U.S.-European relations, including (with Mike Bowker) Superpower Detente: A Reappraisal (1988); U.S. Troops in Europe (1985); and The Nuclear Debate ( 1984 ).