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Twenty-five years ago, when U.S. supremacy was unquestioned, one obstacle to clear thinking on foreign policy issues was complacency. The danger today is the opposite: excessive, obsessive pessimism. As a point of simple fact, the U.S., by every nonmilitary measurement, still far outstrips the U.S.S.R. as a superpower. America's gross national product is twice the size of the Soviet Union's; its standard of living is far higher; it is the world's pre-eminent producer and exporter of food; its magnetism for would-be immigrants, particularly from Communist lands, is stronger than ever; as the awards of Nobel prizes annually prove, the U.S. continues to lead the world in everything from computer technology to medical research to the exploration of the solar system.
Legitimate American worries about Soviet military might and Soviet aggressiveness tend to obscure the reality that the U.S.S.R. has major problems of its own. It has a rigid, inefficient economic system that simply does not work and a sclerotic, unimaginative leadership tied to an ideology that carries neither resonance nor conviction. The Kremlin leaders face growing restlessness in the East bloc as well as a long-term challenge from the non-Russian, predominantly Muslim minorities of the Soviet republics in Central Asia.
In short, the years ahead will offer opportunities as well as risks for the U.S., and a revitalized foreign and defense policy must take account of both. TIME offers a series of propositions for such a policy.
I he first priority of American foreign policy is to restore a modus vivendi in U.S.-Soviet relations, which means restoring the military balance.
For the past two decades, the Kremlin leaders have been amassing arms in all categories—conventional and nuclear, short-range and intercontinental, undersea and airborne. They have built up the capability of waging everything from counterinsurgency warfare and paramilitary operations to blitzkriegs and nuclear Armageddons. The arsenal is out of all proportion to the Soviets' legitimate needs of self-defense.
Strategic parity—that is, a rough equality between the superpowers in long-range nuclear weaponry—still exists. The U.S. is ahead in the number of missile warheads, heavy bombers and bases around the periphery of the U.S.S.R., and has a technological edge in antisubmarine warfare and missile-firing submarines. These offset Soviet advantages in the number and size of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMS).
In this matter, the U.S. must learn to live with parity. Whether America likes it or not, Leonid Brezhnev is quite correct in describing any U.S. quest for nuclear supremacy as misguided.
The U.S. cannot get there from here—not against a Soviet Union that is ready and able to match America in any kind of arms race. Even though the U.S. has a far stronger economy, the Soviet political system is better able to dictate—and absorb—the civilian sacrifices necessary to support a huge military machine.
While it is impossible to predict the exact composition and policies of the Politburo that will eventually take over from the gerontocracy that currently runs the Kremlin, there is every reason to expect that the younger men