EUROPEAN SECURITY NEW CIVILITY EVIDENT IN WARSAW PACT STATEMENT

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32354, 21 July 1970, Page 14

EUROPEAN SECURITY NEW CIVILITY EVIDENT IN WARSAW PACT STATEMENT

(Reprinted from the “Economist” bu arrangement) The Russians and their Warsaw Pact partners are uncommonly civil to the N.A.T.O. allies these days. In private, they talk to them like long lost friends, playing down awkward issues and sometimes even discreetly apologising for the bad mafnners of their East German clients. In public, they go even further, showering Western capitals with diplomatic communications that are newly mild in tone.

The latest of the new soft-spoken Warsaw Pact communications, the memorandum containing new proposals about a European security conference that was issued by the pact’s foreign ministers at their Budapest meeting on June 22 and 23, excelled all its predecessors in .suavity. The memorandum’s “charming” tone (a N.A.T.O. spokesman’s description), and the way it was produced only three weeks after the N.A.T.O. ministers’ meeting in Rome at the end of May, were not the only things that impressed Western capitals What interested the experts more was the sight of a bunch of serious-looking concessions tucked away in the polite verbiage of the Budapest statement

Admittedly, the allied ministers who met at Rome had expected the first of these concessions: the Warsaw Pact Powers’ clear and unequivocal acceptance of the principle of American and Canadian participation in any European security conference It had been assumed that the Russians realised by now that their conference project would never get off the ground unless they abandoned the idea of excluding those two countries from the conference. And little needs to be said about the second new proposal from Budapest: to add culture to technology, economics and finance as an area of potential East • West cooperation which it would be desirable to discuss at a European conference. “Culture co • operation" could, of course, mean a freer East-West flow of people information and Ideas —which would be really interesting But it might merely mean, as a N.A.T.O. official put it, so many more Bolshois for so many more Sadler’s Wellses Flexible Agenda Greater interest is attached to two further points in the Budapest memorandum; the acceptance by the Warsaw allies of a flexible agenda: and their readiness to participate in multilateral bodies whose task would be to pave the way for East-West agreements either at a first security conference or at subsequent conferences.

This is clearly an improvement on the Russians' original proposal of a once and-for-all conference which would sanctify the status quo and. leave East Germany a more fully recognised State but nobody in the West any better off. Western officials were even more struck by the Communist side’s declared readiness to consider discussing troop reductions in Europe—which was deliberately included in NAT.O.’s Rome communique to test Russia’s eagerness for serious negotiations. The test has not been conclusive. The Budapest memorandum speaks of “reductions of foreign forces stationed on the territory of European countries.” N.A.T.O is interested in mutual and balanced reductions of all the forces stationed in central Europe. Moreover, Russia and Its allies want this subject to be discussed by an ad hoc body which would be set up at the security conference, and not by an East-West standing commission set up before the

conference, as was proposed by the N.A.T.O. Powers. Are the Russians simply making an inexpensive show of reasonableness which, without committing them to anything, might serve to bring the more sceptical Western Governments to a European conference table? This is certainly one plausible interpretation of their tactics. The Russians may also be trying to help the West German Chancellor (Dr Brandt). The publication in the West German magazine “Quick” of the draft of the proposed treaty on the renunciation of force worked out in Moscow by Dr Brandt's personal envoy, Mr Egon Bahr, has certainly provided Dr Brandt’s critics with new ammunition, in that it contains several significant West German, but no visible Russian concessions. So has the news of continued Russian stone walling at the most recent four-Power meeting on Berlin held on June 30. The Brandt coalition had made the achievement of a satisfactory agreement on Berlin a precondition for Its signature of the nonaggression treaty with Russia These setbacks are no doubt at least partly responsible fnr the delayed start of the official West German-Russian negotiations in Moscow But if the present uncertain political situation In Germany is an Important tactical consideration for the Russians. it is the more longterm factors, such as their quarrel with China and their domestic economic crisis, that give them reason to seek an accommodation in Europe. To those two factors must be added a third: Russia’s costly and far-reaching involvement in the Middle East.

It has long been clear, particularly since the armed clashes on the Sino-Soviet border last year, that the Russians are extremely anxious to avoid being involved simultaneously in political and military confrontations in Eastern Europe and the Far East. As China is a far more intractable problem for them, it is natural that they should be trying first to make deals with the West

West Berlin America, Britain and France are all ready to make such deals with Russia on condition that they do not involve unacceptable concessions over West Berlin or the Germans’ right to eventual self-determination. Their firm commitment on these two points is not just a matter of loyalty to their German allies. It would be extremely dangerous for the three West-

ern Powers to be made to appear, in the eyes of future generations of Germans, as accomplices in the permanent division of Germany. Within these limitations the search for agreements with Russia, of a kind which would bring about a lessening of tensions in Europe and financial savings, is both sensible and desirable. And this brings the argument back to the question of troop withdrawals.

It is highly unlikely that the Russians, who are still visibly uncertain of their hold on Eastern Europe, would be prepared to withdraw any large part of their forces now stationed there. But a withdrawal of a more limited kind is quite another matter. The Russians have on two occasions, in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, shown their determination to maintain total and absolute control over Eastern Europe. They have alsi shown their ability to do so quickly and efficiently by moving troops westward from Soviet territory.

It is just possible that they might be glad of a chance to transfer some of their 30odd divisions in Europe to the Chinese border. Such a withdrawal, however small would be welcome to Western Governments, especially with the prospect o f at least some American troop withdrawals after 1971. It would be more than welcome to various East European Governments. No New Era Unless some new and unexpected crisis intervenes, it is possible that talks on limited troop reductions could begin. This could, provided other conditions are fulfilled, make the holding of a European security conference more acceptable to the Western Powers. But even if a conference is held next year nobody should be led to think that a new era of full disengagement has begun. Above all it should not be supposed that any major liberalisation in Eastern Europe will Inevitably flow from such a conference.

Only a very different set of Russian rulers, presiding over a much more liberal regime at home, would be likely to decide on a policy of planned liberalisation-cum-detente in its European domain. Any agreements reached with Mr Brezhnev and his colleagues must be based on the continuance of the present European balance of power, which has at least given the continent peace and stability of a sort for a quarter of a century.