with no more than 1,320 MIRVed ICBM's and SLBM's within that total. The longer-range perspective of a ten-year agreement offered better prospects for balancing military asymmetries of the two sides than had the attempt to agree on a short-term "quick fix." The Soviet military insisted successfully that strategic bombers and their armament be taken into account along with quantitative and some qualitative aspects of intercontinental missiles and missile warheads. No doubt only very reluctantly did they agree not to continue to press for including American FBS. Political-Military Relations SALT has affected political-military relations in the USSR in a number of ways. Probably both the political and the military leaders have gained broadened perspectives, the former through acquainting themselves with military matters in ways other than those familiar from Politburo reviews of the military budget, and the latter through thinking more in terms of political uses-and limits on uses of strategic forces rather than exclusively in terms of deterrence and contingent war-waging requirements. This development should probably be regarded as a modest but significant dividend from SALT; so, too, should the introduction of Soviet military leaders into a bilateral US-USSR dialogue on strategic matters. As noted earlier, at the "working level" SALT was responsible for the establishment in late 1967 or early 1968 of a Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Ministry of Defense working group to study the issues and draft positions for higher-level review. Politicalmilitary matters have traditionally been handled through ad hoc meetings, so this has led to greater contact and probably better mutual understanding. Similarly, SALT has contributed to drawing members of the staffs of institutes-especially the Institute The US-USSR summit meeting at Vladivostok in November 1974, at which an agreement to negotiate a new strategic arms limitation treaty was announced. Members of the US delegation, from the left: Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger; President of the United States Gerald R. Ford; US Ambassador to the Soviet Union Walter J. Stoessel, Jr.; Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, US Department of State, William G. Hyland; and US intepreter Alexander Akalovsky. Members of the Soviet delegation, from the right: Soviet interpreter Viktor Sukhodrev; Leonid I. Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko; Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly F. Dobrynin; and Georgi M. Kornienko, Chief of the USA Department of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs. -Novosti via Sovfoto. on World Economics and International Relations and the USA Institute-including a number of retired military officers, into writing and publishing commentaries on political-military and strategic themes. The role of these institutes in influencing Soviet policy decisions on SALT has probably been quite limited, but their indirect influence may be appreciable. lel helped to bring some American civilian leaders more deeply into strategic matters.) The Soviet presentation of its own "scare" picture of American strategic capabilities at the third summit in June 1974 may represent a step forward in civilian engagement with military evaluation and in frankness in the dialogue between the two sides. On that occasion, Soviet General Staff representatives In the negotiations, the Soviet military were ini-presented a picture of US strategic forces (including tially very conservative and restrictive and displayed traditional suspicion of Western intelligence "fishing," and they even objected to discussion of mat-❘ ters involving military secrecy in the presence of Soviet civilian officials engaged in SALT. Marshal Grechko in 1969 ordered the Soviet delegation to provide no quantitative or qualitative information on Soviet military and technical capabilities. General Ogarkov, on one occasion early in SALT, took aside his American military counterpart and suggested that it was not necessary to talk so specifically about Soviet military technical matters with civilian colleagues in the joint delegation planning meetings." It should be observed that the Soviet commitment to SALT was highly tentative, not only prior to the actual beginning of the talks in November 1969 but until April 1971. By the end of the first round of talks in December 1969, the Soviet military (as well as political) leaders had concluded that the US was indeed serious about SALT, and after high-level correspondence between President Nixon and Prime Minister Kosygin, and Kissinger-Dobrynin discussions, over the period of January to May of 1971, they concluded that a mutually acceptable limitation could be negotiated. The critical juncture was reached in deliberations in Moscow at the time of the 24th Communist Party Congress in April 1971. And from that time on, the highest-level role in SALT on the Soviet side was assumed directly by General Secretary Brezhnev, now the champion of détente. There were signs during SALT I that the Foreign Ministry negotiators did not always appreciate fully the depth of certain military concerns, and this may also have been true among higher-level political leaders. Certainly by the time of the April 1972 visit of Dr. Kissinger to Moscow and the first summit meeting a month later, Brezhnev and several other senior civilian leaders were deeply involved in detailed negotiaton. (To a lesser extent, because the initial gap was less, SALT has probably also in paral 16 See Newhouse, op. cit., p. 192. FBS), operational and planned under current programs, of such overwhelming superiority that it reportedly took the American participants by surprise. In part, the Soviet military may have overstated their case in order to stress their point, but they evidently believed that there was a point to be made and so did the Soviet political leaders. It was significant that the Soviet military were allowed to have their say directly in negotiations at the summit. In general, such exchanges could lead to a more healthy awareness by each side of the differences in perspective and inherent biases both sides display in their military evaluations. In evaluating the "threat" from the other side, each side tends to hedge by conservative estimates of its own capabilities in a retaliatory situation, while judging the maximum capability of the other side in an initial surprise attack. Moreover, each side, in its military evaluations, looks ahead at what the other side may have the capability to do in the next several years, but again is conservative about its own prospects. Such biases in the military evaluation process make much more difficult the process of agreeing on equitable and mutually acceptable symmetrical limitations on the strategic forces of the two sides. But recognition of the problem, and of the fact that it does not (at least not entirely) spring from intentional attempts of the other side to gain unilateral advantage, is at least a step toward facilitating solution. Other factors, such as public ventilation of "worst case threats" and also attempts to build "bargaining chips" through additional military programs (or, worse, so labelling new programs which it is not intended or desired to "cash in" in negotiated tradeoffs and limitations), further compound the problem. But the direct involvement of the military on both sides may help to gain mutual respect and confidence in negotiations seriously pursued. Several important achievements in SALT were facilitated by recognition of common politicalmilitary interests of the two sides. One important example was the agreement to rely on national technical means of verification and its highly significant corollary commitment not to interfere actively or passively with the other side's operation of its means of verification. Similarly, notwithstanding the reluctance of the military on both sides to be drawn into discussions of traditionally secret procedures concerning security of means of command and control, both also were prepared to seek agreement on the measures included in the "Agreement on Measures to Reduce the Risk of the Outbreak of Nuclear War Between the USA and the USSR" and the companion "Agreement on Measures to Improve the USA-USSR Direct Communications Link," both negotiated at SALT and signed on September 30, 1971 (and in the "US-USSR Agreement on the Prevention of Incidents On and Over the High Seas" negotiated in separate parallel talks and signed on May 25, 1972)." Finally, there was no difficulty in agreeing on the establishment of a Standing Consultative Commission to deal with details of implementation of the SALT agreements. This body has a considerable potential, if it is utilized. Concluding Observations The Soviet military approached SALT warily. Their active participation in the negotiations probably contributed to a constructive, if conservative, approach. Public statements of Soviet military leaders and other articles in the Soviet military press have practically ignored SALT; they have continued to stress the requirements for deterrence and for waging war if deterrence should fail; and they have criticized new American military programs. Nonetheless, they have refrained from taking positions that would preclude agreements. 17 See Documents on Disarmament 1971, United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Washington DC, 1973, pp. 634-41, for the texts of the agreements to reduce the risk of war and to improve the Washington-Moscow direct communications link. In SALT, the Soviets have accepted mutual deterrence, both through advocacy of equal security for the US and the USSR and even more tellingly through sponsoring an ABM limitation specifically precluding a defense of the country against overwhelming strategic missile attack and thus ensuring mutual vulnerability. They have accepted strategic parity as reflected in the SALT agreements and as a goal of further agreements. They have acknowledged the strategic offensive-defensive and action-reaction interrelationships. They have recognized the importance of crisis management, agreed on specific measures to deal with possible nuclear accidents or unauthorized nuclear or missile firings, advocated defense of the National Command Authorities of both sides, agreed on upgrading the "Hot Line" MoscowWashington Direct Communications Link through satellite communication, and agreed on consultations in crisis situations to avoid the outbreak of nuclear war. SALT has led Soviet military and political leaders alike to understand as never before the indivisibility of strategy and arms control, and therefore of certain political-military considerations which impact on internal Soviet decision-making on military affairs. SALT has also led to recognition of the importance of both strategic and "political-military" interaction between the US and the USSR and indeed has enhanced considerably the importance of that interrelationship. Finally, in addition to the substantial first step in arms control marked by SALT I and the prospective further stabilization of strategic arms competition under SALT II, SALT as a common endeavor of the two superpowers has hopefully also led to the beginning of a more realistic common understanding of the strategic military balance and of a stabilizing role for strategic military power, as well as of limitations on that power. Books The Dubcek Era Revisited By Radoslav Selucky ALAN LEVY: Rowboat to Prague. New York, Grossman Publishers, 1972. VLADIMIR V. KUSIN: Political A. OXLEY, A. PRAVDA, and Z.A.B. ZEMAN: Prague Spring. THESE SEVEN BOOKS all contribute in different ways to our knowledge of the highly significant attempt to reform Czechoslovakia's Soviet-type political system that culminated in the "Prague Spring" of 1968 and the subsequent Warsaw Pact intervention that crushed it. Rowboat to Prague is an intelligent summary narrative of events, while William Shawcross' work is a biography of Alexander Dubcek, the man who gave his name to this brief era in Czechoslovak politics. Heinz Brahm's study concentrates on the important and difficult external, interparty aspects of the reform experience. Vladimir V. Kusin provides a brilliant analysis of the sociological backgrounds of the various political groups that spontaneously emerged in the Dubcek era, although he has reserved a discussion of the Communist Party-the most important power group on the Czechoslovak political scene in the years 196869 for a subsequent volume.' Mssrs. Oxley, Pravda, and Ritchie focus their attention on the Czech press, providing and intelligently commenting on a sampling of the diverse and conflicting views published there during the important years 1967-68. Mr. Zeman's book offers an informative report on the mainstream of the reform process both before and during the Prague Spring. Unquestionably the most satisfactory volume is Dr. Golan's Reform Rule in Czechoslovakia, 1 This essay will appear in a forthcoming volume, The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, edited by A. H. Brown and G. Wightman. Like the present volume by Dr. Kusin, it is part of an 11-volume series on "Political and Social Process in Eastern Europe," published by Macmillan Press, London, and distributed in the United States by Columbia University Press, New York. which supplements her earlier study of the reform movement2 to round out the most detailed account yet available in English of the origins and evolution of the Czechoslovak experiment. As one reads these books, however, the crucial question keeps coming to mind: Why did this highly original reform of a Soviettype system fail? Unfortunately, none of the present works provides a definite answer; and, what is even more unusual, a number of the authors do not even seem interested in this aspect of the Prague Spring. In seeking to arrive at a satisfactory answer, it seems essential to this reviewer to focus not only on the strengths and weaknesses of the reform program itself, but also on the strong and weak points of its practical implementation. Unlike philosophical ideas, political concepts must be judged, not according to their theoretical merits, but according to their practical results. Let us proceed, then, to reexamine the Dubcek era from this perspective. PART OF THE problem stems from the diversity of conceptions of the reform process which surfaced in 2 Galia Golan, The Czechoslovak Reform Movement: Communism in Crisis, 1962-1968, London, Cambridge University Press, 1971. the public debates initiated in early 1968. Not surprisingly, those persons like the former Social Democrats who had suffered discrimination, persecution, and imprisonment had quite different perceptions of the reform than the people in power. Dr. Kusin amply demonstrates how people's expectations and understanding of the reform varied from group to group -be it the workers, the intelligentsia, farmers, youth, or members of different nationalities and religions. Notwithstanding this diversity, the beginning and end of the reform rested with the liberal wing❘ of the Communist Party. Yet even this group consisted of two basic elements with apparently differing views of the reform. The first were the reform politicians—including, among others, Alexander Dubcek, Josef Smrkovsky, Frantisek Kriegel, and Joseph Spacek-who sought to improve and democratize both the political and the economic system according to the cautiously formulated principles of the Action Program adopted on April 5, 1968. The second group consisted of the reform intellectuals within the Czechoslovak Communist Party (CPCS): those specialists who served as the "brain trust" of the Party's Central Committee, Secretariat, and Politbureau who advised, and wrote speeches for, the top reform politicians; and who helped in drafting such basic conceptual documents as the Action Program. In contrast to the reform politicians, the reform intellectuals seemed to want to change the very structure of state socialism and to replace it with a planned, self-managed market economy with a pluralist political system. As a consequence of this dichotomy, the language used by the reform politicians and reform intellectuals (when they wrote or spoke on their own behalf) frequently differed. The politicians spoke in concrete terms, whereas the intellectuals dealt with theothe intellectuals dealt with theoretical and rather abstract models; retical and rather abstract models; the former pursued short-term goals (including the strengthening of their own political power), while the latter aimed at long-term systemic changes. Since the main political struggle of the pre-August❘ period was between the Communist reformers as a whole and the anti-reform wing of the party, it is difficult to determine how substantive the differences within the reform wing actually were. It is at least conceivable that, barring the Reviewers in This Issue RADOSLAV SELUCKY-Professor of Political Science at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada); formerly, as adviser to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the Economic Council of the Czechoslovak government, participated in drafting the economic and political programs for the Prague Spring and the 14th Czechoslovak Party Congress; author of Czechoslovakia: The Plan That Failed, 1970, and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe, 1972. FREDERICK C. BARGHOORNProfessor of Political Science at Yale University (New Haven); author of Politics in the CSSR, 2nd rev. ed., 1972; contributor to Robert Dahl, Ed., Regimes and Oppositions, 1973, and to a forthcoming volume on Soviet dissent edited by Rudolf L. Tokes. ABRAHAM BRUMBERG-former Editor of Problems of Communism and currently a Soviet affairs specialist in the US Department of State; author and editor of numerous writings in the field of Communist studies. ARTHUR W. WRIGHT-Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Soviet military intervention, new political conflicts might have emerged after the scheduled 14th Congress of the CPCS-this time between the leading reform politicians, with their practical concerns, and their intellectual advisers, less encumbered with tactical considerations. Putting such conjecture aside and looking beyond the sharp conflicts over questions of principle which characterized the open debate during the brief Dubcek era, one can safely say that on the level of practical politics there was wide support for Dubcek's program even among advocates of nonMarxist ideas. Politics is the art of the possible, and it can be stated Massachusetts (Amherst); currently editing the writings of the late Jerzy F. Karcz for a memorial volume on Soviet and East European agriculture. JUSTUS M. VAN DER KROEF-Dana Professor of Political Science and Chairman of the Department of Political Science, University of Bridgeport (Conn.); author of numerous works on Southeast Asian politics and Communist movements, including Indonesia Since Sukarno, 1972. LEA E. WILLIAMS—Professor and Chairman of the Department of Asian History at Brown University (Providence, R.I.); author of The Future of the Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, 1966, and works on China's foreign policy in Asia. WILLIAM L. PARISH, JR.-Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago; author of a forthcoming book on the village and family in rural China since 1949; contributor to The China Quarterly and American Sociological Review. BENEDICT CROSS-pen name of an American observer of Communist affairs who has recently lived in Latin America for several years. |