Gorbachev needs to look good atop the summit in Washington. He wan is to do deals on arms and trade. But his internal problems are debilitating. Soviet right-wingers are already stewing over the loss of Eastern Europe, and his generals are bridling at grounding arms and reunifying Germany. Gorbachev does have reverse leverage: the Soviet Union may be disintegrating but with its 380,000-strong troop presence in East a Germany, it can still create obstacles to a new order in Europe. Bush won’t want to push the Soviet leader too far. But he must also contend with the Republican right. They want Bush to pry the Baltic States free while making no significant concessions on arms control or trade in high technology. Anything less they will call a blunder–or a sellout.
The summit is sure to be useful. But it will produce less than both sides had hoped for. The superpowers will agree to reduce the stocks of their deadliest long-range nuclear missiles (eliminating obsolete weapons while leaving the way clear for a new generation of nukes). They will say they are prepared to phase out chemical weapons. But they may stumble over German unity. Bush will push NATO membership for Germany; Gorbachev will call on the long Russian memory of World War II and demand neutrality. Trade may be a sticking point, too: Bush has decided to renew most-favored-nation status for Beijing, but to postpone it for Moscow.
That leaves plenty of time for summit hoopla: leaderly photo opportunities, statesmanlike sound bites, tuxes and toasts at the state dinners. Some Americans talk about helping Gorbachev–apres lui, le deluge?–others want to keep all the distance they can. The truth is that President Bush can work only on the margins of Gorbachev’s future. Gorbymania is dead in the Soviet Union. The West may soon give it up, too. With the collapse of communism, the future of the United States and Soviet Union–and the rest of the world with them–now depends on a careful sorting out of genuine national interests–not the politics of celebrity.
