Is the Soviet Union a phenomenon unique in international relations or is it a state among states? Can the United States count on the U.S.S.R. acting like a government run by rational men, or must Washington concentrate on defending itself against fanaticism, recklessness, and violence? Does Moscow have a “foreign policy” in the ordinary sense, or is the Kremlin instead engaged in nothing more than a global revolutionary conspiracy?
These questions, so central to the cold-war strategy of the United States, obviously depend for their answers on a judgment about Soviet motivations. Ever since the beginning of the Cold War, both the popular image of the Soviet Union in the United States and the great majority of American policy decisions have been built on an assumption of Soviet uniqueness, irrationality, and conspiracy. The United States, in other words, postulates a set of internal motivations as controlling Soviet behavior and seeks the key to their comprehension within the Kremlin itself.
Now, after more than 15 years, the U.S.S.R. continues to baffle, surprise, and embarrass the United States. Moscow is as unpredictable as ever; the motives that underlie each tortuous maneuver are debated endlessly by duly certified experts, but American official and popular bemusement remains unrelieved. Something is obviously wrong with the analysis and evaluation of the Soviet threat.
There is no lack of data on which to base theories of Soviet conduct; for many analysts, as a matter of fact, there is far too much. The difficulty lies not in a shortage of facts, but rather in the basic premises in terms of which the facts are classified, evaluated, and interpreted.
The advocates of the doctrine of Soviet uniqueness have been obliged to ignore too much of the evidence to develop a sound basis for American policy; their approach, furthermore, has denied the United States the use of many predictive tools. If the-idea that the U.S.S.R. is something special is abandoned, however, in favor of the less sensational and more cautious thesis that the Soviet is more like other states than it is different from them, much of the mystery and impenetrability of Soviet policy disappears.
This essay is an argument in favor of this second approach. It contends that the motivations of the Soviet Union in world affairs can be more accurately and more usefully grasped if Soviet behavior is analyzed as the responses of a sovereign state to the demands of the international political system. Far from calling for a revolution in American thinking, the thesis expressed here demands no more than that the United States return to the analytical technique used for centuries by successful statesmen.
Working policy makers in any government have always been vitally interested in the motivations of the other states with which they must deal. Cynical by profession, however, they long ago learned not to take doctrine at face value, not to be taken in by policy statements or ideological absolutes. In statecraft, only one method of determining motivations is accepted as operationally reliable: inference growing out of observed patterns of behavior. To be trite: actions speak louder than words, the proof of the pudding is the eating thereof, and if it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck.
In diplomacy no state motivations can be postulated in advance. The behavior of a state is instead observed closely so as to discover repetitive patterns of action. If a state does the same thing in the same way in a certain type of situation over and over again, it is probable that a continuing motivation is driving it and—very importantly—it is more likely than not to behave this way again if the same sort of situation comes up. A prediction based on such a finding of motivation can be easily tested by noticing whether and to what extent the state does indeed act as expected. If the estimate squares with the fact, we can consider that a useful motivational base has been discovered.
Applying this method of analysis to the U.S.S.R. has two advantages over other techniques. First, the analyst must—by his own terms of reference—incorporate all the behavioral evidence instead of only those facts that support an already developed hypothesis; second, it develops more realistic and precise grounds for anticipating Soviet responses to American moves. Instead of interpreting each maneuver of the Kremlin as vindicating a prescriptive judgment, it concentrates on building a causal theory that evolves from the historical record. Its application demands a fresh look at all Soviet actions since 1945, each event to be interpreted in its actual decisional and situational context rather than with reference to the well-advertised Communist blueprint for world conquest.
To arrive at Soviet motivations in this way requires certain preliminary and preparatory steps by an American analyst. He must first be very firm with himself, approaching the evidence with open mind and suspended judgment. He must promise himself to be guided only by acts and not by words. He must finally be willing to test his findings against contemporary Soviet policy, for no theory—however attractive otherwise—is worth the effort of its formulation unless it is relevant to the problems of the here and now. These preparations made, he is ready to attack his problem.
The first casualty of such a new look at the record is the doctrine of internal motivation. The Soviet, throughout its history and especially since 1945, has been exceptionally sensitive to changes in the international environment and quick to adapt itself to them. The idea that Moscow roams the world at will, stirring up trouble, tension, and crisis whenever and wherever it wishes, is entirely unsupported by the facts. The Soviet has indeed found many places in which to cause trouble, but for Moscow to capitalize on a soft spot requires that the soft spot be there in the first place.
Soviet ideologists have long contended that the U.S.S.R. can control its environment; this is a key point in Marxist dogma. Rut Stalin could not, and Khrushchev cannot create a crisis in any part of the world unless the raw materials of crisis are already present. No fuel means no fire; Moscow has never been able to find any way to break this rule.
This is the most important and fundamental point. It means that the U.S.S.R., like all other states, has a policy based on responding to environmental change rather than one of initiating such changes itself. It means that Soviet policy can and should be analyzed in terms of reaction rather than provocation. It means that the conspiracy theory, whether true or false, becomes irrelevant, for Soviet long-range purposes are less significant to the United States than Soviet capacity to act. It means, finally, that the Soviet Union has a foreign policy that in its essentials is pretty much like that of any other state.
The next striking point about Soviet conduct is its diversity. The Kremlin’s policy does not display the conceptual or operational unity its apologists claim and with which the West often credits it. Moscow does a great many things for a variety of reasons, and to wrap them all up in a single package—even one labelled so seductively as “world conquest”—demands an oversimplification of events and a suppression of a large part of the record. The Soviet instead has acted much as any great power acts: it has done different things at different times for different purposes. Soviet motivations are not unified, but multiple.
This observation, far from complicating the analytical problem, really simplifies it. It makes possible and useful the examination of Soviet behavior in search of identifiable patterns that persist across time. Each such pattern, once isolated, points to the motivation that is its inspiration. If the Soviet has for 15 years been consistent in pursuing a particular line, the United States may safely infer motivation and develop a response based on the clear probability that Moscow will continue to do the same sort of thing.
Here an extremely important caution must be entered. American policy makers are interested in the nature of Soviet motivations and in their policy consequences. It is vitally important for them to know what the U.S.S.R. really wants and how badly it wants it. Of only peripheral relevance to policy, however, is the related—and tempting—issue of why the Soviet may want a particular objective. The search for ultimate causes of Soviet behavior is the appropriate province of the research scholar and the psychoanalyst, not the responsible decision maker. The United States is interested in discovering a better base for predicting Soviet behavior, not in learned (and usually indecisive) arguments about whether the Soviets follow the dictates of Communist ideology, the promptings of Russian national interest, or some combination of the two.
In the tangled history of Soviet action in the postwar period, the discovery of clear patterns is no easy matter, complicated as it is both by the flood of ex post facto commentary and the many twists and turns of Soviet policy. A closer look at the period, however, suggests one basic conclusion immediately: the U.S.S.R. has operated (and operates today) simultaneously at several different levels of intensity. On some questions the Kremlin has been willing to take major risks and make deep commitments. At the other extreme, however, in many cases the Soviet has refused to commit itself at all deeply but has rather exerted great effort to keep its intensity level quite low. Between these two lies an area of intermediate commitment and moderate tension.
These variations in intensity level, so consistently displayed throughout the cold-war period, reveal clearly the outlines of the articulated priority system that governs Soviet calculations. To the Kremlin some things are more important than others and justify greater risk, deeper commitment, and more prolonged effort. No lower-priority purpose is ever permitted to obstruct one of higher rank; on the contrary, the Soviet is always prepared to sacrifice a minor enterprise to the more insistent claims of greater ends. The constant, skillful, and ruthless application of priority judgments marks Soviet policy as truly cast in the classic mold.
Three different intensity levels structure Soviet behavior. The next step in the analysis requires that each be characterized. What, in other words, is the common denominator of all first-priority, high-intensity moves? What sort of thing is the Soviet content to work at with minimum intensity and low priority? What about the intermediate zone? The answers to these questions, by identifying each level of action, come close to the final establishment of the real motivations of Soviet policy.
The discovery of the top-priority purposes of the U.S.S.R. is relatively simple when the intensity factor is used as a measuring system. Since 1945, the Soviet has acted on several occasions with great intensity and a heavy burden of risk; perhaps the most easily recalled of these are the Berlin blockade of 1948, the suppression of the Hungarian rebellion in 1956, the U-2 crisis in 1960, and the Berlin wall affair of 1961. Less sensational, but of equally high intensity, has been the utter Soviet rejection of on-site inspection as a condition of any arms-control agreements.
What do all these have in common to justify the high priority Moscow has placed on them? Only one factor appears in all of them: The Soviet saw in each a dangerous violation of the security system with which it has surrounded itself, particularly with regard to its vulnerable western flank in Europe. No other sort of problem has been able to elicit such immediate and extreme response from the Kremlin.
Thus, the top priority motivation of the U.S.S.R. as it has demonstrated it in action since 1945 has been the protection of its physical security, especially in the West. The renaissance of Germany has on the record frightened Moscow more than any other single postwar event, and Soviet leadership has been willing to incur the greatest risks in its attempt to impede Germany’s progress.
A lowest-priority undertaking for the Soviet is marked by limited commitment, minimum risk, and a real (if often concealed) willingness either to compromise or be driven back by superior power. Such enterprises have generally brought the U.S.S.R. into crisis areas of relatively low sensitivity and interest but of fairly good prospects of gain. Beginning with the Iranian adventure of 1946 and continuing through later operations such as its involvement in the Greek civil war, the Korean War, its penetration of the Middle East via Egypt and Syria, its role in the civil war in Laos, and its attempted takeover in the Congo, the Soviet has demonstrated its propensity to fish in troubled waters for whatever is there for the catching.
There has been, of course, no detailed plan or timetable in all of this, Wherever an attractive opportunity offers, Moscow will make a moderate investment in hope of profit. If events turn out well, any prizes are gratefully accepted; if, however, the situation becomes unfavorable, the Soviet is always ready to cut its losses, salvage what (if anything) it can, and get out.
This is opportunism pure and simple. The Soviet will expand its sphere whenever it can, but only if it can do so cheaply. No overt expansionist attempt beyond its security periphery has ever been judged by Soviet leadership to be worth more than a modest effort, strictly controlled against possible escalation. From its first attempts in Iran and Greece to its current interference in Vietnam, Cuba, Guinea, and other troubled areas, the Soviet has kept its intensity level low. The expansionist motivation of Soviet policy is transparent, but becomes operative only under terms and conditions established by higher-priority concerns and is never allowed to become controlling.
The intermediate level of Soviet action is somewhat less cohesive. The Soviet supports a broad range of policies with an intensity much greater than mere opportunism but clearly below the extreme reactions it reserves for identified security threats. Here, for example, is found Soviet policy in the United Nations, its relations with Red China, its general approach to disarmament, and—most interestingly—the bulk of its head-to-head Cold-War encounters with the United States. There is no direct security risk to the Soviet involved in most relations with America, and obviously no serious hope of expansion. Yet the U.S.S.R. is motivated powerfully to pursue a strong line in competing with the United States for prestige and world leadership.
These disparate enterprises all stem from a single classic motivation. The Soviet considers itself a great power in the traditional 19th- century sense and does everything it can to make good its claim to such rank. In the international system before World War II, a great power—a world leader—had certain well- understood characteristics: a geographic and functional totality of interests, the right to participate directly in the settlement of any issue in which it cared to involve itself, recognition of its special role by all lesser states, and full acceptance as a status equal by the other great powers. These privileges of great power the Soviet has asserted since 1945 and has set itself unceasingly to acquire and demonstrate.
Thus, the U.S.S.R. refuses to be bound by majority decision in the United Nations and clings fiercely to the veto to protect its position. It rejects any disarmament proposals that either impair its own view of status equality or impugn its past record. The rise of Red China directly menaces Soviet leadership of the Communist bloc. And an important continuing dimension of the Cold War is Moscow’s adamant insistence on full acceptance by the United States as a status power and prestige equal.
Nothing frustrates and infuriates a newly- rich and ambitious social climber so much as to have the cherished symbols of his “arrival” denied him. All his wealth and power count for nothing with the dominant social group that withholds the final accolade of membership in their circle. This reaction characterizes Soviet policy with astonishing aptness. With its past history as a pariah safely behind it and with its power base established beyond question, the Soviet is now anxious to be taken fully into the inner circle of world affairs. American-led opposition, however, bars Moscow from the status so feverishly sought by any reformed revolutionary: respectability. Soviet reactions are the stronger because of their root in frustration.
What the Soviet gives unmistakable indication of wanting is no less than a duumvirate with the United States for the joint control of the world. The United Nations system, with its evolving small-state coalition aimed at shackling the great powers, strikes Moscow as ridiculous and contrary to the nature of things. The American East-West negotiating formula that involves including the leading European allies of the United States also in Soviet eyes misses the point. Britain and France are simply not equal either in power or prestige to either the U.S.S.R. or the United States; for America to insist on their participation again violates what the Soviet sees as the natural power structure of the world.
There are many reasons why the Soviet so enjoys meetings at the Summit, particularly head-to-head sessions between Khrushchev and the President of the United States, such as occurred at Camp David and Vienna. Not the least important, however, is a very traditional compulsion: this is the way great powers historically have settled questions among themselves. A bilateral summit conference between the Soviet and the United States seems to Moscow to be a peculiarly appropriate vehicle for disposing of large questions and at the same time would serve as an unarguable demonstration that the parvenu had finally reached the top of the status ladder.
Pending this happy day, however, the Soviet presses the status and prestige race with the United States. Almost any issue except a naked security problem is seized by the Kremlin as a pretext to prove its equality (or, in many cases, superiority) to the United States before at least three different audiences: the Soviet peoples, the American public, and world opinion. This search for international deference clearly transcends the urge for expansion, as shown most recently in Laos. The U.S.S.R. is solicitous of its world image; only on direct and immediate security questions, such as the Hungarian rebellion or the Berlin wall, does it act without regard to its carefully husbanded status.
So the Soviet betrays in its record of action a three-layer set of motivations. Of highest priority is the protection of its physical security, interpreted comparatively narrowly at least with regard to certain other major states. Second in importance is the demonstration of its great-power status and role, shown most directly in its competition with the United States but affecting its behavior in all parts of the world. Finally, its lowest-priority motivation is the pursuit of expanded power and influence in areas outside its security perimeter, undertaken as opportunity offers and with only minimum risk.
Looked at in the round, the most remarkable aspect of Soviet motivations as they are revealed in policy is how old-fashioned they are. There is something almost quaint about Moscow’s anachronistic concept of a great power arid a generous touch of unreality in its formulation of its security requirements as demanding a reverse cordon sanitaire on its western border. Conceptually, Soviet foreign policy is still in the late 19th century—a point often made about many other values and ideas of contemporary Soviet life.
Put this way, Soviet policy is neither revolutionary, mysterious, nor baffling, but instead is a highly stylized and traditional exercise in the manipulation of power. It has been often pointed out that a state may do three things with power: protect it, demonstrate it, or increase it. Moscow does all three, although at differing levels of intensity. The inspiration for such a policy is not to be found in the writings of Karl Marx but rather in the examples furnished by Napoleon’s France and the Kaiser’s Germany.
Thus, the U.S.S.R. is shown by its own conduct to be in the grand tradition of great- power politics of an earlier and simpler day. Many of its tactics and almost all of its verbalizations are novel, but the calculations behind them are as old as the state system itself. The Soviet proves itself to be a state among states, a familiar rather than a unique phenomenon in history.
The United States can as a result of this conclusion call upon all the wisdom men have accumulated during more than three centuries of statecraft to aid in the evaluation of Soviet moves. No special insight, doctrine, or technique is necessary; traditional methods of analysis provide the most reliable avenue of approach to a traditional policy. The gain in precision and perspective to be had by shifting from an apocalyptic to a historical- analytical base in studying Soviet behavior cannot help but improve the quality of American responses.
This is by no means to argue that Soviet policy is simple to counter or that there is no real threat. The problem facing the United States becomes no smaller when cast in these terms; indeed, it may well be a more perilous and complex task to cope with a realistic Soviet Union than an ideological one. After all, both Napoleon and William II were responsible for repeated crises, prolonged tension, and destructive war.
But Soviet policy is at least understandable when set in a historical frame, and Soviet behavior yields to rational analysis. With the dimensions of its task made visible by clear insight into what the Soviet Union is up to, the United States can better develop an effective and resourceful counter-strategy even to such a major long-term danger as the U.S.S.R. presents.