Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789ROO0100160007-7 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THURSDAY, MAY 31, 1984 31 What if the Soviets Are Driven by Fear~. What are the Russians up to? The Econ- omist of London concludes that the Soviets have gone into grumpy hibernation at least through the Chernenko era, White House aides say the Soviets are out to defeat President Reagan and some alarmists of both parties fear we are headed for war, cold or hot. The evidence that the Soviets are up to something is overwhelming. In the past six months they have walked out of Geneva talks on strategic and intermediate-range Viewpoint by Morton A Kondracke missiles,, pulled out of the Los Angeles Olympics and canceled a high-level diplo- matic mission to China. They have carried out large-scale naval maneuvers in the Caribbean and North At- lantic and have launched a major new of- .fensive in Afghanistan that included un- precedented carpet-bombing of the Panj- shir valley. They have installed new inter- mediate-range missiles in Eastern Europe and have moved more of their strategic- ,missile submarines near American coast- lines. The Soviets have continued their rear- mament of Syria, sent their defense minis- ter and 66 senior generals and admirals to conclude a multibillion-dollar arms deal with India and have closed another sale, reportedly valued at $2.5 billion, with Iraq. A Soviet-built MiG fired at a U.S. beli- copter that strayed over the Czech border. The Soviets also have restricted civilian air corridors into West Berlin. And on two occasions, Soviet ships have bumped against U.S. naval vessels. Internally, the Soviets have cracked down on dissidents. including physicist An- drei Sakharov and his wife, reduced Jew- ish emigration and restricted mail and phone communications with the West. All the while, they have taken every possible opportunity to denounce the Rea- gan administration and blame it for the breakdown of East-West relations. Konstantin Chernenko on April 8 specif- ically denied that Soviet policy was di- rected toward the U.S. presidential elec- tion, but Soviet meddling in West German elections last year provides a precedent for disbelieving him-. If the'Sotiets are playing American pol itics, they re doing so just as badly as h they did irk Germany, and they are likely to help reelect President Reagan much as they helloed install the Christian Demo- crats. Mr. Reagan will be only too happy to wra:p,*himself in the flag, d6clare that Moscow'(in addition to Havana, Managua and the Ayatollah) is against him and ask the electorate whom they prefer-them & him. The Democrats as well are playing into Mr. Reagan's hands by implying that they agree with the Soviets that the U.S. is prin- cipally to blame for the chill in U.S.-Soviet relations. When House Democrats voted against the MX missile and binary nerve gas-with presidential candidates Gary Hart and Walter Mondale urging them on -they also gave Mr. Reagan the opportunity to charge that his opposition was rewarding the Sovi- ets for their refusal to take part in arms talks. The convenrional wisdom among Ameri- cans right now is that U.S.-Soviet relations will improvq after November regardless of who wins. If a Democrat is elected ' well be back to detente. If Mr. Reagan is re- elected, theIS6viets will come back to ne- gotiate because he is the only president America has. But another theory worth considering is that internal crises in the Soviet Union have more to do with Soviet behavior tha I with the U.S. elections. If that's so, U.S.- Soviet relations may remain tense for some time. Recently published hearings of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress entitled "The Political Economy of the Soviet Un- ion" suggest that the Soviet leadership faces nothing but woe in the years ahead - economic stagnation, the burgeoning of non-Russian minorities, a declining stan- dard of living and an increasing inability to pay for the weaponry necessary to keep up with the U.S. American Sovietologists who testified at the hearings-and also analysts at the CIA-do not believe that the Soviet econ- omy is about to collapse, but they agree that Soviet growth rates are declining from the 3%-4% range of the 1970s to 2% for the 1980s. I'm neither an economist nor a Sovieto- logist, but the experts' evidence suggests that Soviet growth rates actually may be flat or negative. The CIA estimates that Soviet produc- Jivity has been declining at a rate of 0.8% a year and that the country's labor force will grow only 0.4% during the rest of this decade. There are other signs of decline. Ac- cording to Prof. Marshall Goldman of Wellesley College and Harvard, food is in short supply outside of the Moscow-Lenin- grad area and rationing has been imposed in 12 cities. According to Prof. Murray Feshbach of Georgetown University, infant mortality in' the Soviet Union is rising and life expec- tancy is falling. He also cited Soviet publi- cations to demonstrate that alcoholism and abortion are rampant. The Soviet Union has shown a seem- ingly endless capacity to squeeze its civil- ian sector to pay for military growth. If defense spending accounts for 12% or 13% of Soviet GNP, as most experts believe, then there is still room to squeeze, even in a declining economy. Suppose, however, that the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency is right, and the mili- tary actually accounts for 36% of GNP. In a declining economy, the Soviet leadership has to fear that in the long run it won't. be able to maintain its most successful activi- ties-building weapons and using them to increase Soviet power and legitimacy,.-, If these hypotheses are correct, there would seem to be four basic courses left, to the Soviets: (1) reform internally to -be- come more productive; (2) seek true de- tente with the U.S.; (3) continue the prp- ent slow decline, and (4) strike quickly for some strategic prize (oil, for example) while their military position is still strong. Reform seems 3ut of the question as long as party hack Chernenko is in power. The Soviets seem to be in no mood, -for detente except on their own terms, which the U.S. specifically rejected after the,Af- ghanistan invasion. The two remauqg choices are.most unpleasant, and the or- deal of deciding whether to decline or'h9k everything may account for Soviet surb- ness. I., No American can know for sure what is going on inside the Kremlin, but,if th6,So- viets are acting out of desperation, w .hat should America do? I think what we shouldn't do is scare them, squeeze them- and try to defedt them, as President Reagan seems ta. be doing. We also shouldn't imply, as Demo- crats sometimes do, that the Soviets can hope for a return to the old style of detente that led to Soviet adventurism and Ameri.- cab reaction. In dealing with a frightened, fractions superpower, the best policy for the U.S.4s one that is firm, consistent and availaige for fair bargaining. One of the best outlines for such a policy available today is Rich- ard Nixon's new book, "Real Peace.~;,, Mr. Kondracke is executive editot`df the New Republic.