Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 18, 1992                   TAG: 9203180343
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WILL WE ASK: `WHO LOST RUSSIA'?

Now Richard Nixon, that elder statesman of American politics, has taken the president to task for paying insufficient attention to the crisis in Russia. In a memo circulating around Washington - titled "How to lose the Cold War" - and at a foreign policy conference last week, Nixon described the choice facing the West:

Either help Russia evolve into a free-market democracy now, or rearm at much greater cost later if Russia reverts to being an inwardly authoritarian and outwardly hostile power.

The U.S. stance, said Nixon, has been "pathetically inadequate . . . in light of the opportunities and dangers we face." We have "failed so far to seize the moment to shape the history of the next half-century."

The danger, he warned, is that from the ashes of economic collapse will rise an extremist Russian nationalism, imperiling nascent democracies in Eastern Europe, encouraging totalitarian regimes elsewhere, and boosting the forces of worldwide militarism.

"If freedom fails in Russia, we will see the tide of freedom that has been sweeping over the world begin to ebb, and dictatorship rather than democracy will be the wave of the future."

Strong stuff. But - as much as we may hate to admit it - Nixon may be right. With qualifications.

One is that the democratic trend - and the fate of democracies worldwide - rests on far more than events in Russia. Poverty, overpopulation and environmental degradation threaten the sustainability of democratic advances across the globe. The end of the Cold War should bring opportunities and heightened attention not just to the former Soviet Union, but to developing countries that in the past were ignored or considered mainly in bipolar Cold War context.

The other qualification: There is cause for caution before throwing billions of dollars at Russia. In the former Soviet Union, corrupt monopolists continue to control manufacturing. Distribution systems remain irrational and corrupt. Hastily given aid, without provision for accountability and strict monitoring, might only prop up the status quo.

Still, on balance, Nixon is performing a useful service by focusing attention on the Russian crisis at a time when President Bush and Congress see nothing but political risk in raising the issue. Spooked by Pat Buchanan's isolationism, hard times at home and rising resentment against foreign aid, Bush shrinks from the challenge of educating Americans about the need for international leadership and a stronger aid effort.

The selling point is that such aid isn't charity, but an investment in national and international security. And a cheap investment at that, compared with the trillions America spent on armaments during the Cold War and the trillions more it might spend if hostilities and an arms race resume.

The familiar measures Nixon endorses - such as debt rescheduling, a "free-enterprise corps" of Western managers to teach capitalism and Western business practices, and greater support for the International Monetary Fund to help stabilize Russia's currency - are reasonable. If we are to avoid asking ourselves, "Who lost Russia?" the West needs to show leadership now. And President Bush is the one who needs to show it.

Bush could continue shrinking from the task - not standing for anything, as it were, except for his re-election. As another president once said: "But that would be wrong."