Tough Response

Meeting the Soviet threat

The Soviet Union has long been, and is destined to remain, the central concern of U.S. foreign policy. Yet American leaders have rarely set a consistent policy for dealing with the U.S.S.R., and have frequently responded haphazardly to each new challenge. To address this problem, the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan group devoted to the study of international affairs, sponsored a 14-member commission* to formulate a set of integrated goals and policies. Its report, titled The Soviet Challenge: A Policy Framework for the 1980s, was released last week. Among the commission's generally tough-minded recommendations:

The growing economic problems of the Soviet Union, such as declining productivity and crop shortages, have added to its longstanding insecurity and provoked it to amass military power, which it may use to influence the outcome of political struggles around the globe. "By almost any measure, the Soviet Union is a vastly more formidable foe than it was only a decade ago," says the report. This buildup must be countered by increased and constant American defense spending, approximately at 6% of the gross national product. "A strong U.S. military posture remains the first requirement of a comprehensive, long-term U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union," the commission concludes. Top priority should be given to "improving the quality and readiness of those forces already in existence." It calls the volunteer Army a "failure," and says serious consideration should be given to reinstituting the draft.

Arms control should be a component, but no longer the centerpiece of U.S. policy toward the Soviets. Says the report: "We cannot hope to achieve at the negotiating table what we are unwilling or unable to achieve in the wider world of defense policy." Negotiating limits on weapons would make the strategic situation more "predictable" and slow the pace of arms spending. But the commission could not agree on whether SALT II, a treaty now in limbo, should be revised—with major amendments—so as to become SALT III, replaced with a more modest agreement, or passed with only minor modifications.

The aggressive exploitation, by the Soviets and their proxies, of local political turmoil in the Third World will be a continual source of tension. Increased, instead of decreased, U.S. economic aid, and North-South economic cooperation, will be necessary to prevent serious difficulties in unstable areas like the Persian Gulf. America must be willing to use force and even selective covert action if that seems appropriate.

Calling the Soviet presence in Afghanistan an "open sore" in U.S.-Soviet relations, the commission contends the U.S. should "respond positively" to requests for military supplies from the Afghan resistance.