THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 7, 1994 TAG: 9412070006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
The Start I arms agreement was put on hold when the breakup of the Soviet Union created unexpected nuclear powers out of Ukraine, Kazakstan and Belarus. Now they have joined Russia and the United States in enacting Start I. But the deeper cuts of Start II may never occur unless issues of European security are resolved.
Russia is impatient to join the West in economic and security arrangements. But patience is going to be required. Though Russia is rich in resources, its fledgling market economy is years from justifying its entry into the European Economic Community.
Meanwhile, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic would like to crowd under the NATO umbrella. They want a security guarantee in case Russia backslides.
But Russia has warned that it would regard any move of NATO frontiers nearer its borders as an attempt to isolate it. Indeed, Russia has itself expressed interest in joining NATO. That would require a real shift of intellectual paradigm since the organization was devised to oppose Soviet expansionism.
Still, it would certainly be wrong to ignore or underestimate Russian fears of being dealt out of a reintegrated Europe.
President Clinton is undoubtedly right in saying NATO will have to decide whom it will admit to membership and can't permit non-members a veto. But that's far short of a program to reinvent European security. And Yeltsin should be heeded when he asks: ``Why sow the seeds of mistrust? After all, we are not enemies. We are all partners.''
Unfortunately, we aren't all partners yet. The mistrust lingers. So far, the West's stopgap solution has been to hold out the hope of eventual NATO membership to the more likely former members of the Warsaw Pact while leaving the timetable vague to placate Russia and hoping to muddle through.
Almost 50 years ago a group of wise men devised the Marshall Plan, NATO and the containment doctrine to deal with the devastation of World War II and the threat of communist expansionism. Where are the wise men today who will devise new arrangments for a post-Cold War world?
So far, they have not emerged in the Clinton administration, Yeltsin's Russia or Western Europe. But if a modus vivendi isn't found that eases fears and offers hope, the new cold peace Yeltsin warns about - or something considerably worse - could be next. If Clinton wants to reinvent himself as a foreign-policy president, he could do worse than start with this huge unresolved issue. by CNB