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The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
Former Secretary of State
It is often said that relations between us and the Soviets are entering another period of cold war and that they've never been worse. I'd like to offer a dissenting proposition. I believe that, within the next 12 to 15 months, there is every possibility that significant negotiations with the Soviet Union will start. The only obstacle at this point is, in my judgment, how the Soviets calculate the impact on the American elections. Whether they'll begin negotiating just before the election or just after the election depends on calculations which I cannot assess.
Let me tell you why I believe that the Soviets will begin serious negotiations with us in the measurable future.
Soviet Leadership
First, consider the structure of the Soviet leadership. It is an extraordinary phenomenon that a state which prides itself on scientific materialism, on representing the future of history, is run as if by a group of feudal barons who elect one of their members as a king. In most modern states, obedience goes to the office; in the Soviet system it essentially goes to the person. No Soviet leader has ever retired with honor. In fact, only one ever retired - that was Khrushchev. All the others stayed in office until they died.
As a result, on the Politburo, (the equivalent of a board of directors) eight key members and all members of the executive committee are in their middle 70s. They’ve had two successions in a row because in each case they appointed the youngest of the older group. Now the general secretary of the Parry is 73 years old. All of the other seven colleagues are 75 and older. The prime minister is 79. Therefore inevitably, over the next years, there will be a perception in the Soviet Union of the inevitability of a new succession crisis. A large number of the Politburo will have to be replaced.
It is highly probable that significant changes in the top Soviet leadership over the next five years are inevitable. Therefore, the Soviet leadership for the immediate future will be heavily preoccupied with succession problems. To be sure, that does not mean they will come forward with very grand schemes. But it does mean that they cannot want a prolonged atmosphere of crisis. Moreover, they may not want to be helpful to one or the other party in our elections. Certainly they don't want to be helpful to the incumbent administration.
The Soviet Economy
The second reason why I believe that there are major pressures for relaxation of tensions with the Soviets is the state of the Soviet economy. Imagine an economy in which nothing has a price, and the cost of nothing is known. Imagine running a structure in which every article in commerce moves by allocation. It creates shortages and surpluses simultaneously, and corruption is absolutely inevitable.
The dilemma of every communist state is that a modern economy cannot be run by total planning. But, at the same time, a communist state cannot be run without total planning.
I talked to a Czech planner once who said that you cannot imagine what it is like to run a planned economy: "When we specified a certain tonnage of locomotives to be produced, we produced the heaviest locomotives in the world, because that was the easiest way to meet the tonnage. When we specified the numbers of locomotives that had to be produced, we produced the lousiest locomotives in the world."
Furthermore, all Soviet land is publicly held, but collective farmers are permitted to work a private plot in their spare time. At most, 5 percent of the land is held by these farmers. That 5 percent produces close to 35 percent of all the agricultural products in the Soviet Union. That is the economic dilemma. It's significant that a country that has produced intercontinental rockets has not yet managed to produce one manufactured article for export that can compete in world markets with the manufactured products of any market economy.
The danger of war in this period is that the Soviets are militarily very strong by having put great priority on the military, and that they might attempt to clean up the external environment before they turn to domestic reform.
But if we can contain Soviet expansionism, as I believe we can, then negotiations are inevitable. However, when they do take place, we ought to keep one or two principles in mind.
U.S. - Soviet Negotiations
Diplomacy is not like a detective story in which the other side throws out vague clues, and we have to guess at the answer. Diplomacy has to operate on a careful assessment of the risks and incentives for both sides. We believe a great deal in procedure. Gromyko has been foreign minister for 30 years, and he has never been embarrassed to make the same proposal week after week, month after weary month, year after endless year. And sooner or later some Western negotiator can't stand it any longer and makes a concession.
I believe that we should work out a reasonable conciliatory position that we genuinely believe to be in our national interest and in the interest of world peace. Then we have to stick to it. If we don't, we are going to be driven by negotiating tactics and propaganda from one position to another. Right now the fundamental Soviet strategy is to get us to pay the price of admission for them to return to negotiations from which they walked out.
The Soviet position at the negotiations on intermediate range missiles in Europe is absurd. The Soviets have 350; we have 41. So, in order to negotiate about intermediate range missiles, they ask us to withdraw our 41, after which they will be prepared to negotiate, about what, I do not know - we've already paid them. If there is one thing that I've learned from experience, it is that the Soviets do not pay for services already rendered. I would say the objective basis for negotiations exists, but a great deal also depends on our own attitudes.
If we make the Soviets believe that they can panic us into unilateral concessions; if the Soviets think that America gets extremely restless and extremely frightened, then indeed there will be no progress.
Political Restraints
Enormous emphasis is put on arms control. There are now 25,000 nuclear weapons on each side. I know nobody who has ever suggested that any foreseeable agreement could reduce them by three-fifths. But suppose that we achieved that miracle; there would still be 10,000 nuclear weapons on each side - enough to produce a cataclysm.
We cannot get around the problem that we have to negotiate political restraints. If there is not political restraint, then there is always the possibility that some local crisis will get out of hand. Arms cannot be indefinitely ushered into every world trouble spot. The Soviets cannot support terrorist groups and at the same time talk about a relaxation of tensions. To link these two issues is not a means of avoiding arms control, but a means of making arms control meaningful.
Similarly, there are many slogans around, like renouncing the first use of nuclear weapons. I have consistently advocated, since I first started writing on the subject 30 years ago, that the conventional defenses of the West should be strengthened. But if we announce that we would prefer to be defeated by conventional weapons rather than resorting to other methods, we are inviting conventional war, paralyzing our allies, and making war more likely - not less likely - including nuclear war. The answer to that problem is to build up conventional defenses in the West, not to make abstract declarations.
Central America
When I was asked to be chairman of the Bipartisan Commission on Central America, I thought that one guerrilla war is enough in a man's lifetime, and for a few days I did not respond hoping that the invitation would go away.
This country cannot afford to tear itself apart on a partisan basis on issues so vital to our national security. We have to learn that we cannot reinvent the national interests of the United States every four to eight years.
I believe that the debate that is going on in this country is a disaster. It is enough to keep us involved and not enough to enable us to prevail. There is an argument for doing nothing; there is an argument for doing enough; there is no argument for doing too little, and that is where we are now sliding as a result of our internal disputes and the harassment to which we subject ourselves.
The turmoil in Central America is, undoubtedly, not caused originally by Moscow or Havana. There are many local causes: social injustice, inequality, and a historic legacy. Those causes have to be removed.
But once a guerrilla movement gets started, whatever the cause, its discipline, organization, and training can be in the hands of outside powers, as it is to a very large extent in Central America.
Our commission unanimously recommended a program over a period of five years involving $8 billion. We arrived at that figure in order to return Central America by 1990 to the standard of living it had in 1978. Since 1978, as a result of falling commodity prices, rising energy prices, and, above all, guerrilla war, there has been a reduction in the per capita income of between 20 and 30 percent. No society can make progress or remain cohesive under those circumstances.
No matter what we do in the economic and social field, we have to recognize that there is a security problem. No American president can risk having a Cuban-style system so close to our border if some American effort can prevent it.
I have briefly sketched some of our problems and what I believe are some of our opportunities. I think we can make major progress in East-West relations. I think we can overcome - without war and with the commitment of American forces - the crisis in Central America. But this depends to an important degree on our unity and on our willingness to face realities. There is a Spanish proverb that says: "Traveler, there are no roads. Roads are made by walking." I believe America has the opportunity to make a road toward peace and progress. No other nation in the world can make that claim for itself.
Read Kissinger's speech in 1976 >>
