No Place to Turn

DESPITE assurances from the Administration that the Soviet walkout from the medium range missile talks last month was mere posturing, the Soviets' indefinite departure from the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) last week points to more serious problems with the nature of superpower arms control discussions.

Arms talks between the U.S. and USSR are now limited to Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction talks, which seem doomed to failure, and crisis prevention talks.

Hard liners have greeted the two Soviet actions as typical of Soviet crisis-making politics, saying that they resemble the way in which Krushchev fueled the Berlin crisis in the '60s. As Zbigniew Brezinski, President Carter's National Security Adviser, reportedly said last week, the hard-liners have counseled the Administration to "stay cool and on course."

But moderates in the Administration and around Washington are beginning to view the current stalemate in American-Soviet relations as symptomatic of a graver failing. As the moderate Sen. Charles Mathias (R-Md) wrote in Foreign Affairs last June, the real danger in American-Soviet relations is simple: they focus only on arms, a subject on which the United States and Russia clearly have trouble agreeing. During the Reagan Administration that myopia has in fact increased, where once our negotiations with the Soviets included culture and trade, they have now been divided into several types of arms talks entirely bereft of other forms of interchange.

Nearly all the cultural and trade exchanges between Russia and the United States, except for our grain deal and normal diplomatic procedures, are now entirely suspended. And arms reduction talks are now diminishing visibly into politicking because progress has been slow or nonexistent.

Because we have concentrated all of our negotiations on arms we have no place to turn for responsible discussions.

IN THE MIDST of last week's second talks breakdown, the Reagan Administration shared no misgivings about the dreary state of affairs. In a press conference that followed the Soviet decision, President Reagan said. "I think this is more encouraging than a walkout and simply saying they won't be back. "In answer to a later question, he expressed his hope that a summit discussion might be in the offing in the near future. But the Reagan response showed how complacent the Administration is toward relations with the Soviets, which have now fallen to perhaps their most serious depression ever.

The Reagan Administration sees the current problem as just another example of Soviet intransigence, and ironically concludes that the new Soviet attitude is an affirmation of their hard-line policy. The president assumed long before he went into negotiations that the Soviets wouldn't talk unless they were essentially up against the wall. And now that they are up against the wall and not negotiating, Reagan predicts a warming in relations.

Nonetheless, it seems clear that the President is not too far off in his assessment of the Soviet position. Bereft of areas in which to maneuver, the Soviets seem to be waiting for a new President, and hoping that their stalling on the arms talks will assure the election of a President who is less of a hard liner and easier to negotiate with. Equally complacent and seemingly bent on their own hard line, the Russians seem equally agreeable to prolonging our present brand of confrontational politics.

But one development from last week's jockeying is hopeful. In what was called the Declaration of Brussels, the NATO alliance last week called for "a long term constructive and realistic relationship based on equilibrium, moderation and reciprocity."

Although it was based on a plea to the Soviets to return to the arms tables, it also urged a "firm linkage" between the U.S. and the USSR, and pledged the need for a broader dialogue between the two countries.

Here, it seems is the crux of the problem and the way in which talks between the two Superpowers might be resumed. If the United States and Russia begin talks and realistic relations on the basis of firm alliance rather than on propaganda, then the issue of arms talks, under the larger cover of general wide common concerns, might more easily be resolved.

Perhaps officials from both sides will see why the negotiations have failed and will push on to find new roads for dialogue. Unfortunately, however, the fact that the talks have ended just before the beginning of an election year seems likely to rule out any sincere negotiating. It seems likely that the Reagan Administration, hoping to prove that their stance was the right one, will hold their positions, while the Soviets, secure in the knowledge that an election is around the corner, will likely hold to theirs. In light of this recurring political confrontation, it seems unlikely that the NATO resolution will be more than rhetoric.