PERSPECTIVE ON SOVIET-AMERICAN RELATIONS : Bush Had Strength Not to Use Trumps : The Soviets are playing for time. To their relief, the President resisted right-wing pressures to apply the heat.

It will be awhile before a definitive assessment of the latest Soviet-American summit is possible, when more becomes known about matters discussed but not yet revealed and when it becomes clearer how far words will be translated into actions.

But with the perspective of almost a week’s reflection, and leaving aside the pageantry and the popular excitement, there are some aspects of the summit whose significance deserves a bit more emphasis than they have received.

From the Soviet point of view, the most important result was that the Soviet leadership came away reassured that the Bush Administration could be counted upon not to exploit Soviet weaknesses and troubles--a matter that the Soviets had approached with some uneasiness and a sense of vulnerability.

The most significant observation on this point was made by the independent-minded commentator for Izvestia, Alexander Bovin: “Bush has all the trumps but he didn’t play them. Gorbachev played equal in an unequal position.” The Soviets are, of course, aware of the residual right-wing pressures in this country to declare victory in the Cold War, and to pressure the Soviet Union not only for maximum concessions but also with the objective of hastening the collapse of the Soviet Union. They were relieved that President Bush resisted these pressures and declared U.S. interest in the continuation of the Soviet reform efforts.

A related point is that this summit marked a considerable advance in the level of awareness each side brought to the internal politics within the other country. They met not simply as two entities but as leaders seeking to manage and to balance complex political forces at their backs. Each sought to take account of this additional level of negotiation.

Further, the Soviets recognized that only a centrist and confident conservative Administration could have successfully weathered the containment of right-wing pressures in the United States. The attack from right-wing columnists and politicians has been swift in coming--on Lithuania, trade, Jewish emigration and alleged “concessions” on arms control. While George Bush, buttressed by support from public opinion, could handle these attacks, a Democratic Administration would have felt politically vulnerable to these charges (as the cautious sentiment among Democrats on Capitol Hill demonstrates).

Before the summit, the Soviets had been growing increasingly restive and resentful about the non-responsiveness of the United States on the two issues of major importance to them--arms control and trade. They had staked a great deal on their concessions and overtures to the United States and had come to feel that this gamble had not paid off. In arms control, they felt that Washington was playing for unilateral advantages and was not politically prepared to engage in a major effort to limit the military competition. On trade, they saw the United States holding back, deterred by residual suspicions from engaging in more substantial trade relations pending a clarification of the outcome of the reforms in the Soviet Union. As a result, the Soviets have been increasingly seeking to cultivate economic relations with Western Europe, particularly with West Germany.

Now, although they feel that the direction of U.S. policy is more favorable, at least in tone, they are realistic enough to recognize that progress may be slow. But they face the future with somewhat greater patience and equanimity.

Although, as has been widely noted, Mikhail Gorbachev’s success at the summit may be of only marginal help to him in facing his domestic problems, about which he spoke with remarkablecandor and confidence during his visit, he is palpably restored and confident as he returns to what is likely to be a critical month ahead. All of his major issues--the economy, Lithuania and ethnic violence, the polarization of politics and the future of the Communist Party--are coming to a head in this period. Of critical importance will be the outcome of the remaining regional and local elections and the selection of delegates to the Communist Party Congress scheduled for July 2. These will determine whether he will have a working majority among the party apparatchiks, or whether he will be obliged to let the party decline into splits and desuetude while he shifts his power base to the office of the presidency in the state structure.

The unresolved issue concerning the future relations between a reunited Germany and NATO--which is a shorthand reference to the broader set of issues concerning the restructuring of the United States with Europe--can best be understood as a dramatic illustration of the way Gorbachev’s reforms have produced unintended and unforeseen consequences, abroad as well as at home. During the period, in 1988 and early 1989, when Gorbachev was urging the Communist Party leaders of Eastern Europe to make timely concessions to the pressures for reform--in the belief that the process could be controlled and the parties could maintain traction during the period of change--it gradually became clear that the resistance of the old party leaders and their failure to make timely responses would result in their total loss of power as popular pressures mounted and took to the streets. Particularly in East Germany, the unanticipated speed of this disintegration--and the consequent acceleration of the movement toward German reunification--would undermine the Soviet position in Central Europe. The belated recognition of this outcome was reflected in the Soviets’ rear-guard efforts to salvage some remnants of their influence by some ill-defined formula for a European security system.

The dilemma for the Soviet Union is that while it badly needs German economic support for Eastern Europe and for itself, Moscow now contemplates with fear the prospect of the emergence of Germany over the coming decade as the dominant power in Europe, which the weakened Soviet Union can see no way of counterbalancing.

The only way out for the Soviets’ is to play for time to seek interim measures for a transitional period while Germany becomes embraced in a strengthened European Community, NATO evolves into a political structure for U.S. participation in European developments and the pan-European institutions begin to take on vitality and substance.