RUSSIA’S YEAR AND ITS LESSONS EXPANSION OF POWER AND INFLUENCE AN OMINOUS OMEN

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32819, 20 January 1972, Page 10

RUSSIA’S YEAR AND ITS LESSONS EXPANSION OF POWER AND INFLUENCE AN OMINOUS OMEN

(By

R. H. C. STEED

in the "Daily Telegraphy," London)

(Reprinted by arrangement)

Despite patchy efforts by the West to check its own downward slither, Russia emerged clearly last year as the world’s greatest military and diplomatic Power. The fruits of her stupendous nuclear and conventional arms expansion since the 1961 Cuban missile crisis really began to pour in.

Russia has enormous additional built-in advantages from her central position, her unified command over her allied-satellites, her control over public opinion and the freedom and readiness of her leaders to act without scruple of any kind at home and abroad. Another asset, which should not be underrated through familiarity, is the Communist creed. Despite all its failings, it provides in practice more in the way of a discipline and a unifying patriotic ideology than anything the disorientated and still much-too-divided West has to offer. It also remains a most potent cen-trally-directed weapon to undermine the free world. Key to power The easy-going and overconfident West must learn the lesson that in the exercise of international power it is no longer only economic and military strength and potential that count, but immediately available and usable superior force in key areas. This is what gives the Russians their preponderance where it matters. In nuclear weapons Russia and America are now, on balance, about equal. This compares with a Russian numerical inferiority of about one to five in 1961, with technical inferiority to match. What is particularly alarming now is the speed at which Russia is catching up in those types of weapons in which America still retains a lead, and, above all, Russia’s obsession with “first-strike” knockout weapons targeted on American launchers, whereas America concentrates on deterrence through the ability to retaliate.

On the European front the Warsaw Pact has a superiority over N.A.T.O. of between two and three to one in troops, armour and aircraft. Russia’s advantage in speedily-available reserves is enormous. On the whole her troops are better trained, having a twoyear conscription period compared with a year to 18 months in N.A.T.O.

Superiority over China

On her Eastern front, although Russian forces may be numerically inferior on the ground, their technical superiority is so great and their command of the air so unchallenged that they certainly have the initiative. In addition Russia has, of course, an enormous nuclear superiority over China, including a monopoly in tactical nuclear weapons that will last for some years yet, and a strategic first-strike capability that will probably last for decades.

From this base, and with such material and psychological advantages, Russia is pursuing traditional imperialist ambitions on a vaster scale than the most thrusting i of the Tsars. As her strength : grows and her influence • expands, so she can increase ' the weight, speed and range I of her probes, penetrations : and infiltrations. All the time the limits are widening of what she can achieve without risk of a general- war which would be fought, locally and globally, to her increasing > advantage. The Middle East is an out- : standing example. A few . years ago it was unthinkable that the West would have allowed an area of such crucial strategic importance to come under Russian influence and increasingly under Russian control. The American Sixth Fleet, whose superiority in the Eastern Mediterranean was considered as the essential southern cornerstone of N.A.T.O. is now neutralised by Russian land-based aircraft operating from Egyptian, Syrian and other bases. Russian missile crews and MiG pilots—including some flying the MiG 23, for which the West has no match — have intervened directly and on a large scale in the Arab-Israeli war, thereby introducing incalculable factors into the balance. This is a piece of unchallenged effrontery unparalleled in Great Power relations. A global bonanza The Vietnam war has proved a global bonanza for aggressive Russian diplomacy. Russian aid in aircraft, missiles and other sophisticated weapons, combined with conventional support from Russia’s rival, China, enabled North Vietnam—at fearful cost to its own people—to weaken and i humiliate America. The benefits accrued to Russia throughout the world, among other places in Europe, where only by the ; skin of President Nixon’s ’ teeth has it so far been possible to postpone the reduction of America’s drug- . ridden and demoralised forces. Now at last the fabulous dividends from this par- | ticular investment seem to be drawing to an end, although Russia is doing her best to keep the Vietnam pot boiling. But Russia had other irons in the fire. The Tashkent settlement, when Russia was strong enough to be a . mediator but not an arbiter, established her prestige m Southern Asia. Since then she has sedulously, with an

eye to the future, made her-i self India’s main arms | supplier. The reward came at the] psychological moment of the J Sino-American rapprochement. The Russo-Indian treaty of August, sweeping aside the vestigal pretences of Indian non-alignment, is as pregnant for Asia as the Stalin-Hitler pact was for Europe. It was the green light for India to go to war—admittedly in the face of considerable provocation. The arms poured in, as they had previously poured with similar results into Egypt. The result is that Pakistan, ] China’s protege, is cut downto less than half its former j size. Even the remainder is fragile and fissiparous. China’s strength had obviously been greatly overrated. Barely recovered from the Cultural Revolution, she is now in the throes of another leadership crisis. All she could do was to make the most of her newly-achieved United Nations membership to hurl empty abuse at Russia and India—this time herself the paper tiger. Tool of Russia

India, on. the other hand, now dominates the subcontinent and its marches. She has become the tool of Russia to the extent that she depends desperately on Russian arms supplies and because her military interests are, for the time being, identical with Russia’s. No longer at the mercy of Chinese whims and vagaries, India can protect herself by extending her influence around China’s borders. For Russia this is a massive contribution to the encirclement and containment of China. Western disarray in the face of this Soviet triumph was demonstrated by America’s ineffectual remonstrances at India’s invasion of East Pakistan, and was greatly increased by lofty and superior criticism of America by her allies. Have they, one asks oneself in desperation, forgotten that America is the major upholder of the balance of power through most of the world, and the sole effectual repository of international morality? It is because of their failure, even on their own doorstep, to carry their share of the burden of common de-

i fence that Mr Nixon has had to swallow his pride and i make the pilgrimage to {Peking to bring in China to restore the balance of power. This being so, how can Mr Nixon start his dialogue with Chou by saying: “Too bad about the Parks, but of course they asked for it”? In Europe, thanks to Herr Brandt’s Ostpolitik, Russia has at last achieved the consolidation of her satellite empire and acceptance by the West of her war-time gains. It is now only a question of time before West Berlin falls into her lap. Harmony needed 1 So, 1971 was certainly | Russia’s year. Will 1972 1 sweep aside all these nasty : old-fashioned power-politics 1 and be the year of detente, ' European Security Con- ‘ ference, balanced N.A.T.0.- ! Warsaw Pact force reduc- : tions, East and West German 1 rapprochement, a Russo- • American missile agreement 1 and a successful Nixon--1 Brezhnev summit? ■ In the missile negotiations, ‘ thanks to Mr Nixon’s success in preventing the more lunatic depredations of the unilateral nuclear dis-

armament lobby, the Americans will be meeting the Russians as equals. Some limited agreement is therefore possible, perhaps with wider hopes for the future. For the rest, no major agreement can benefit the West in the long run so long as it leaves Russia with her present enormous military preponderance across Europe and complete freedom to continue pushing vigorously and successfully in the Middle East and elsewhere. Russia’s aim. is patently to lull the West with talk of detente while proceeding to separate Europe from America and the European countries from each other. Fortunately America’s selfextrication from Vietnam and Britain’s entry into the Common Market should provide a basis on which the West can begin to redress the adverse balance. But unless Europeans can act in closer harmony among themselves in foreign affairs and defence, and unless friction with America can be eliminated — on both counts the France that General de Gaulle has left behind him is by far the worst offender —the opportunity will be wasted.