A Full Court Press: The Destabilization of the Soviet Union

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Covert Action Information Bulletin, Issue #35, Fall 1990
"A Full Court Press: The Destabilization of the Soviet Union"
By Sean Gervasi


During the early months of the first Reagan administration, it became abundantly
clear that the U.S. was embarking upon a policy of confrontation with the Soviet
Union. Political observers had begun talking about a new Cold War. By 1982,
relations with the Soviet Union were becoming tense ‑ as were relations with
some NATO allies. In the U.S. and in Europe, the bellicosity of the Reagan
administration gave rise to a growing fear of nuclear conflict.

Yet, if the U.S. seemed intent upon confrontation, even upon "playing nuclear
chicken" with the Soviet Union, it was not at all clear what it expected to
achieve by doing so. The Reagan Administration's policies were clear, but the
objectives of those policies were not. Many observers began to fear, especially
in Europe, that some members of the new U.S. administration might actually want
a nuclear war, believing that the United States might somehow "prevail."

In fact, the Reagan administration was not driving towards nuclear war. Its
extremely aggressive policies were not meant to lead to war, but to change and
upheaval inside the Soviet Union. Those policies were part of a strategy aimed
at forcing the Soviet Union to retreat from the world stage and to adopt reforms
which would carry it towards a "regulated market economy," that is, towards the
dismantling of socialism.

A few analysts had seen what was happening. In 1982 Joseph Fromm made it clear
that there was something "behind [the] shift to [a] harder line in foreign
policy." The U.S was, in fact, "waging limited economic warfare against Russia
to force the Soviets to reform their political system." Fromm quoted an unnamed
U.S. official as saying that:

     The Soviet Union is in deep, deep economic and financial trouble. By
     squeezing wherever we can, our purpose is to induce the Soviets to
     reform their system ... I think we will see results over the next
     several years.

Unfortunately, such reports were few and far between at the time, and those that
were published appear to have been forgotten.

Observers in the West and in the Socialist Bloc have, on the whole, seriously
misunderstood the foreign and military policies pursued by the U.S. during the
last decade. These have been depicted as uneven and reckless, because most
analyses have focused on surface phenomena such as the expansion of military
forces or efforts to deny the Soviet Union new technologies rather than on the
strategy behind such policies.

This strategy now needs to be examined and debated for two reasons. Firstly, it
appears to have achieved a considerable measure of success. This is not
generally recognized, particularly among critics of the Reagan administration,
from the center to the left. Conservatives, however, are openly arguing that the
Reagan administration set in motion the policies which led to "the defeat of
Communism." The editor of Policy Review, the flagship publication of the
Heritage Foundation, wrote recently that the West had "won" the Cold War because
of the foreign policies pursued by conservative governments in every major
country of the western world. David Rubinstein, a sociologist at the University
of Illinois, was more specific. "The key difference in Soviet policy between the
1970s and the 1980s," he wrote, "is to be explained, not by further
deterioration of the Soviet economy, but in changes in U.S. foreign policy."

Secondly, there is substantial evidence that, having succeeded in aggravating
the crisis in the Soviet Union, the U.S. and it allies are now engaged in
building internal pressures there for further reforms. They are engaged in open,
large-scale interference in the internal affairs of the Soviet Union.
Conservative analysts are open about this. Rubinstein, for instance, expressed
his concern that "if the current sense of crisis is eased, the motivation for
further reform may be lost." And he concluded that "If internal pressure was a
key factor in motivating this policy [of reform], pressure may be required to
keep it moving forward."

Preparations
------------

One of the first public indications of the existence of a secret strategy to
apply pressure against the Soviet Union came in March 1981. Richard Pipes, a
senior National Security Council official in charge of Soviet affairs, gave a
press interview which caused some controversy. Pipes, a Soviet expert on leave
from Harvard University, told a Reuters correspondent that, "Nothing was left of
detente." Furthermore, he said, the new administration might soon pursue a
foreign policy "as radical as the new President's economic program."

The Reagan administration, he told the interviewer, was moving towards a
strategy of confrontation with the Soviet Union and with radical and socialist
regimes in the Third World.

The purpose of the strategy, Pipes indicated, was to change the world balance of
forces in favor of the U.S. and its allies. The key sentence in the Pipes
interview was, "Soviet leaders would have to choose between peacefully changing
their Communist system in the direction followed by the West and going to war."
And the New York Times described Pipes as saying that "there was no alternative
to war with the Soviet Union if the Russians did not abandon Communism."

These words did not come from a middle level government official. They came from
the senior National Security Council officer in charge of Soviet affairs, and
they were, for that reason exactly, seen as indicating a dangerous
aggressiveness on the part of the Reagan administration.

The Pipes interview rang alarm bells around the world. The White House
immediately disavowed the interview, claiming that Pipes's remarks did "not
represent the views of the administration." Even so, U.S. allies protested
vigorously. The Financial Times of London, warned that U.S. allies would be
angered by any attempt to play what it called "a dangerous game of 'chicken.'"

Then the storm fell as suddenly as it had arisen, and nothing more was heard of
the matter.

In retrospect, it seems likely that Pipes was being used deliberately to alarm
the Soviets so that they would try to match the U.S. military expansion then
under way, particularly in the nuclear field. The Pipes "leak" is entirely
consistent with a strategy of "spending them into bankruptcy," or "weakening
Russia's economy." The strategy itself, however, involved much more than the
threat of nuclear war.

A large number of studies by the RAND Corporation carried out in the early 1980s
shed considerable light on the wider strategy, and make it clear that the Reagan
administration was not preparing for war but mounting a sophisticated attack on
the Soviet economy.

The RAND Corporation is a California think tank which carries out a great deal
of classified research, especially for the military. Its experts move in and out
of government. And it is routinely asked to analyze and comment upon military
and intelligence planning documents which are not accessible to an ordinary
congressman. RAND, like a number of similar organizations, is in effect a part
of the military‑intelligence complex.

Many of the RAND studies in question were commissioned by the Department of
Defense. And the published papers were often "sanitized" versions of classified
studies. The titles of the papers themselves were suggestive. They included
"Economic Leverage on the Soviet Union," "The Costs of the Soviet Empire,"
"Sitting on Bayonets? The Soviet Defense Burden and Moscow's Economic Dilemma."

Taken together, these papers were essentially concerned with two issues. The
first was "economic stringency" in the Soviet Union, especially from the late
1970s. The second was what measures NATO countries could use to make that
"economic stringency" more acute.

These papers, moreover, developed a clear analytical line of argument, which may
be summarized as follows:

• Economic growth in the Soviet Union had begun to slow in the late 1970s,
increasing the difficulties of meeting the various claims on resources.

• At the same time, the Soviet Union was entering a "leadership crisis," as
leadership of the Communist Party was being passed to a younger generation.

• The United States and its allies could take various actions which would
force the Soviet Union to increase its defense spending and its economic and
military assistance to allies and friends.

• They could also take measures to deny the Soviet Union access to credits,
key imports and modern technology, which is especially important for increasing
productivity and accelerating growth.

• Such measures would either reduce the overall volume of resources available
to the Soviet Union, hold back the growth of productivity or force resources to
be shifted from domestic consumption and investment.

• Each of these effects would aggravate the difficulties confronting the
Soviet leadership in a stagnant economy.

• A combination of measures "to impose costs" on the Soviet Union might be
expected to lead to a fall in investment and/or living standards.

• A combination of such measures, consequently, might generate pressures
within the Soviet Union for withdrawing from the world stage and for political
and economic reforms.

Thus the RAND studies seemed to be preparing the groundwork for a kind of hot
Cold War aimed at weakening and possibly even breaking the back of the Soviet
economy. In the 1980s, after a decade of detente, this was remarkable enough in
itself. It is clear, however, that analysts believed the ultimate aim of this
strategy should be to force change upon the Soviet Union:

     Thus the Reagan administration sees Soviet economic troubles as an
     opportunity to complicate further their resource‑allocation dilemma
     in the hope that additional pressure would result in a reallocation of
     resources away from defense or ... would push the economy in the
     direction of economic and political reforms.

The Reagan Doctrine: A "Full Court Press"
-----------------------------------------

The fact that the RAND Corporation and other think tanks were, in the early
years of the last decade, studying the possibilities of the strategy in question
does not prove that the Reagan administration ever adopted such a strategy.

However, in mid‑1982, evidence began to emerge that the Reagan administration
had actually adopted precisely the kind of policy which RAND had been studying
and which Pipes had referred to.

In May 1982, a second White House official, a consultant to the National
Security Council, met with a small group of reporters to give a background
briefing. The subject was U.S. policy towards the Soviet Union. According to one
reporter, the White House official outlined an extremely aggressive policy, and
his remarks actually alarmed some of those present. Helen Thomas, the UPI White
House correspondent sent a dispatch about the meeting which contained the
following passage:

     A senior White House official said Reagan approved an eight‑page
     National Security document that undertakes a campaign aimed at
     internal reform in the Soviet Union and the shrinkage of the Soviet
     empire. He affirmed that it could be called a 'full court press'
     against the Soviet Union.

In basketball, a "full court press" is a strategy of maximum pressure against
one's adversary in every part of the court. It is an onslaught.

A little more than a week later, documents relating to this strategy were being
referred to and quoted in the press. On May 30, Richard Halloran of the New York
Times published a report on the Reagan Administration's policy for fighting a
nuclear war. He had obtained a copy of the "Fiscal Year 1984‑1988 Defense
Guidance," Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger's controversial document on
"prevailing" in a prolonged nuclear war. The Secretary's "Guidance" document
recommended a major escalation in the nuclear arms race. Quite apart from that,
it indicated that many other measures were being taken to "impose costs" on the
Soviet Union. Halloran wrote:

     As a peacetime complement to military strategy, the guidance document
     asserts that the United States and its allies should, in effect,
     declare economic and technical war on the Soviet Union.

Halloran also quoted the document directly as saying that the United States
should develop weapons that "are difficult for the Soviets to counter, impose
disproportionate costs, open up new areas of major military competition and
obsolesce [sic] precious Soviet investments." According to Halloran, the
document also stated that western trade policies should "put as much pressure as
possible on a Soviet economy already burdened with military spending. "

Thus Halloran's article made it clear that many elements of a "full court press"
had been incorporated into the "1984-1988 Defense Guidance."

William Clark, then Reagan's National Security adviser, hinted at the existence
of a "full court press" at the time that the Defense Guidance document was
leaked to the New York Times. Speaking at Georgetown University on May 20, 1982,
he described emerging U.S. strategy as including "diplomatic, economic and
informational components built on a foundation of military strength." Clark was
saying that Cold War rhetoric, policies towards East‑West trade, "public
diplomacy," rearmament, etc., were all connected, all part of an overall plan.
And he indicated that this strategy had a new purpose: "We must force our
principal adversary, the Soviet Union, to bear the brunt of its economic
shortcomings."

By mid‑1982, a number of studies, press reports, government documents and
official speeches had revealed the existence of a clear, coherent strategy
towards the Soviet Union. This strategy went well beyond the traditional
policies of containment. The Reagan administration was seeking not to oppose
Soviet policies in the world, but to destabilize the Soviet Union itself.

Despite Clark's remarks about the various "components" of U.S. strategy, it was
still difficult to tell precisely what that strategy was. No one had identified
its constituent elements, except in the most general terms. So the outlines of
the "full court press" were only faintly visible. And the purpose of the
strategy, "internal reform" in the Soviet Union, was not at all clear. The
Reagan administration's new strategy did not actually come into clear focus
until the spring of 1985. It was then that Jeane Kirkpatrick provided a fuller
description of the "full court press."

In a speech before members of the Heritage Foundation on May 10, 1985,
Kirkpatrick described what she called the "Reagan Doctrine," which was, in fact,
a doctrine setting out the general lines of U.S. strategy towards the Soviet
Union. "What I shall term 'Reagan Doctrine,' " Kirkpatrick said, "focuses on
U.S. relations with the Soviet Union and its associated states. "

Kirkpatrick was careful not to reveal too much about the aim of the "full court
press." She described the principal aims of the Reagan Doctrine as being "to
redress the correlation of forces, stop Soviet expansion, clarify the nature of
the contest. She did not mention "internal reform" as an objective of U.S.
policy, but did emphasize the need to pursue these objectives simultaneously.

In the body of her speech, Kirkpatrick described the various components of the
Reagan Doctrine in some detail, something which no one had done previously. And
in so doing, she made it clear that they were all part of a coordinated plan, as
William Clark had suggested three years earlier.

According to Kirkpatrick, the Reagan Doctrine included the following important
components:

• "rebuilding defenses," that is, expansion of U.S. military forces;

• "developing new defenses," including the Strategic Defense Initiative;

• "development and deployment of advanced weapons in the U.S. and Europe;"

• withholding "from our adversaries advanced technology of military
importance;"

• "support for freedom‑fighters," that is, low‑intensity war and proxy
war;

• propaganda, or what Kirkpatrick called "a response at the ideological level
to 'semantic infiltration' and moral disarmament;"

• a foreign assistance program that would "utilize aid to expand and preserve
freedom."

Kirkpatrick left out of her account a number of components or policies which
were clearly a part of the effort "to redress the correlation of forces" and to
"stop Soviet expansion." These included such policies as the destabilization of
Eastern Europe, the broad policy of economic as distinct from technical denial
and the continuation of arms control negotiations to moderate the Soviet
response to the U.S. military build‑up.

Overall, Kirkpatrick's is the best single description of the Reagan Doctrine on
the public record. It provides some insight into the general purposes of U.S.
strategy, while holding back from giving away too much. It should be clear that
the Reagan Doctrine is the "full court press" which some reporters had briefly
seen three years earlier behind the "buzzing, blooming confusion" of the "shift
to a harder line in foreign policy."

Destabilization: 1982‑1990
--------------------------

The typical campaign of destabilization has involved two elements. The first is
external pressure; the second is internal manipulation. The attacker is bent on
creating disruption and turmoil in the target country. But that is only its
first objective. The ultimate purpose is to produce political change, typically
a change of government, a coup d'etat or even a revolution. There can be no
assurance, however, that disruption and turmoil will produce the desired
political results.

Therefore, in most cases, the attacking power also intervenes in the internal
political process in the target country. It does so in order to ensure that
things move in the direction it wants. This intervention is usually covert; and
it involves two steps. The first is the identification of, support for,
strengthening and even creation of political assets. These are influential
individuals, civic groups, trade unions, youth groups, cultural organizations,
and media organizations which are in conflict with or hostile to the government
of the target country. These assets are then manipulated and used to farther the
political purposes of the attacker.

This is what the United States and other western countries have been doing
inside the countries of the Socialist Bloc. And they have been intervening in
the Soviet Union in an increasingly open fashion.

In mid‑1982, at the very moment that it was starting a "full court press"
against the Soviet Union, the Reagan administration was also preparing a
large‑scale intervention in the internal political affairs of that country.

At that time, the administration launched a remarkable initiative, which was
described as a "quasi‑governmental program aimed at promoting democracy in
developing countries and, where possible, in Communist nations." According to
U.S. officials, the project was intended "to place political aid to developing
countries on the same level as military and economic aid." Essentially, "the
promotion of democratic forces overseas" was to be achieved "through open
financing of political parties, labor unions and newspapers," and the provision
of technical assistance.

Previously operations of this nature had been the exclusive province of
intelligence agencies. They were generally viewed, when detected, as
interventionist and illegitimate. This new "Project Democracy" was no less
interventionist, but it was well camouflaged. It proclaimed the indisputable
desirability of democracy and so cloaked itself in virtue. A "quasi-governmental
institution," the National Endowment for Democracy, would later be created to
administer the project. And the press dutifully reported that its launching
"would avoid the appearance that it is a United States Government undertaking."

The really controversial issue, of course, was whether the project would be used
to "promote democracy" in Communist countries. The Reagan administration was
determined to use it for that purpose. In the spring of 1982, then Secretary of
State Alexander Haig said:

     Just as the Soviet Union gives active support to Marxist‑Leninist
     forces in the West and the South, we must give vigorous support to
     democratic forces, wherever they are located, including countries
     which are now Communist.

     We should not hesitate to promote our own values, knowing that the
     freedom and dignity of man are the ideals that motivate the quest for
     social justice. A free press, free trade unions, free political
     parties, freedom to travel and freedom to create are the ingredients
     of the democratic revolution of the future, not the status quo of a
     failed past.

There is no doubt that the phrases, "a failed past" and "the democratic
revolution of the future" were intended to refer to the present situation in the
Socialist countries and its hoped for resolution.

Subsequently, the Reagan administration harnessed many forces to "promote
democracy" in the Soviet Union and other countries east of the Order. These
included the AFL‑CIO, U.S. business, private sector organizations ‑some of
which were intelligence agency fronts‑the National Endowment for Democracy,
political parties and foundations in NATO countries and the Republican and
Democratic parties. By 1984, the program was well under way, especially in
Poland and the Soviet Union.

It was in 1984 that Richard Pipes re-emerged to call attention to the
possibilities in U.S. policy towards the Soviet Union. In an article in Foreign
Affairs Pipes explained how the growing crisis in the Soviet Union could, and
should, be resolved.

In Pipes's view, the Soviet Union was in a "revolutionary situation." And he
quoted Lenin on the subject. However, what was lacking at the time, he said, was
"the subjective element, the ability and will of social groups and social
parties to transform the 'revolutionary situation' into a revolution."

"But a way could be found around even this obstacle, as events in Hungary,
Czechoslovakia and Poland have shown..."

The only real way out of the crisis for the Soviet elite was by reform. And
Pipes noted that, in the past, they had "consented to make changes only under
duress caused either by humiliations abroad or upheavals at home." At the time
Pipes was writing, the "full court press" had long been under way. And it had
begun to produce greater economic difficulties in the Soviet Union, as well as
"humiliations abroad."

In Pipes's view, the Soviet elite had to be made to understand that "reforms"
were "the price it must pay for its survival." Pipes, of course, had a clear
idea of exactly what the Reagan administration was doing, and planning to do, to
threaten that survival:

     The key to peace, therefore, lies in an internal transformation of the
     Soviet system in the direction of legality, economic decentralization,
     greater scope for contractual and free enterprise and national
     self‑determination.

In short, Pipes was calling for the dismantling of socialism in the Soviet
Union. As he had indicated in 1981, the Soviet Union would either have to " move
in the direction of the West" or face the prospect of continuing "humiliations
abroad," unsustainable costs and greatly intensified pressure.

Finally ‑ years before the crisis in the Socialist countries assumed its
present dimensions ‑Pipes called for exactly the kind of intervention which
was being set in motion under the banner of "promoting democracy." "The West,"
he said, "would be well advised to do all in its power to assist the indigenous
forces making for change in the U.S.S.R. and its client states." And that is
just what the United States and other countries have been doing.

It is not possible here to examine the many means which the West has used to
manipulate the internal situation in Socialist countries over the last eight
years. But they have been numerous. Obviously, throughout this period,
intelligence agencies in the West have been highly active inside the Socialist
countries, although very little has been written or reported on the subject. So
it is difficult to know what effect covert actions have had on the situation.

What is striking today, however, is that so many public agencies and private
organizations are doing exactly what intelligence agencies have done in the
past. Government agencies, foundations, business groups, media organizations,
human rights groups, trade unions and others are all supporting and aiding
opposition groups, particularly in the Soviet Union. They are openly aiding and
guiding forces hostile to Socialist governments. They are, in short, actively
working to produce that "internal transformation," of which Pipes spoke six
years ago.

One has only to read the documents of the National Endowment for Democracy
(NED), the Department of State, and the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public
Diplomacy to understand the scale of this intervention. What is equally striking
is that this intervention is now openly talked about without the slightest
criticism or protest from the Congress, the mass media, or opposition political
groups in our own country. In January 1990, at a meeting of the U.S. Advisory
Commission on Public Diplomacy, Lawrence Eagleburger, the Deputy Secretary of
State, called for an expanded role for U.S. agencies in assisting
anti‑Communist groups in Eastern Europe:

     One of the things we need to do ‑ and President Bush is clearly on
     that road with regard to Poland and Hungary ‑ is to establish a
     mechanism within the government that helps provide the opportunity for
     the private sector to engage itself directly in the Polish experiment,
     the Hungarian experiment or other experiment [sic] that are about to
     take place in Eastern Europe.

Speaking at the same meeting, Carl Gershman, the President of the NED, told his
audience that the Endowment was already "deeply engaged" in the election process
in Czechoslovakia.

Conclusion
----------

The fact that the Reagan administration set out to destabilize the Soviet Union
in the early 1980s is startling in itself. The ambitiousness and scope of the
"full court press" have no historical precedent in modern U.S. foreign policy.
At the same time, it is difficult to know exactly how to assess the effects of
these U.S. policies on the Soviet Union. Obviously a number of factors have
contributed to the present chaos in the Soviet Union and to the effort to
reintroduce capitalism there.

Thus the internal situation in the Soviet Union might well have led to a
deepening crisis over the years, even without U.S. pressure and manipulation.
However, change might not have gone as far as it has, or gone so rapidly. And it
might be that the new Soviet leadership would have chosen to remain within the
bounds of socialism, something which it now appears to have rejected. Rubinstein
may be overstating the case when he says that "the key difference in Soviet
policy ... is to be explained, not by further deterioration of the Soviet
economy, but in changes in U.S. foreign policy." But he may not be far off the
mark. U.S. policies have undoubtedly helped to move things very far very fast in
the Soviet Union, particularly in recent years when aid to the anticommunist
opposition has involved annual expenditures in the tens of millions of dollars.

There needs to be further investigation of the facts before we can properly
weigh the importance of U.S. policy in bringing about "the end of the Cold War."
As this article indicates, there is some question whether the Cold War is indeed
over.

Once that issue has been settled, if it can be, a host of additional facts
deserve consideration, not the least of which is the fact that the cost of the
"full court press" undoubtedly helped to create economic chaos in our own
country.