Sir: In his article last week (`Thoughts on the Ukraine')
Auberon Waugh tells us that fissiparous tendencies within the Soviet Union, mainly nationalism, should be en- couraged (by whom? the West?) eventually to bring about the disintegration of the Soviet Empire.
To most of us such a policy must seem frankly madcap. But Mr Waugh thinks dif- ferently. As he says, 'There is no con- ceivable reason in logic or normal human psychology why the Soviet Union should react to internal collapse by loosing off its missiles at the West, and it is the voice of stupidity and cowardice which pretends this is the case.'
It is difficult to be impressed by this view which Mr Waugh would perhaps have us understand to be wise and courageous. If nationalist pressures do increase within the Soviet Union we may be sure that the regime will accuse an external power or powers of a good measure of responsibility. It was not long ago that the Soviet regime was blaming nameless American agents for spurring on Solidarity in Poland.
The reasons for this tactic are simple. Identifying an external power as the cause of troubles within deflects attention and blame from the actual internal conditions responsible. Further, the Soviet regime in particular if threatened could rally suffi- cient support by banging the patriotic drum to forestall collapse and even begin to reassert its power. For though the ethnic composition of the Soviet Union is chang- ing, over 50 per cent of its population is Russian and the great majority would re- main loyal.
But if the situation deteriorates so badly that the regime judges a war to be necessary in order to recreate internal unity, the policy of destabilisation Mr Waugh ad- vocates would probably furnish a pretext to initiate that war which need not, of course, be nuclear in the first phase. Was not the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands in- tended to create unity within Argentina?
Mr Waugh accepts, in his own words, that . . . the Soviet empire cannot last forever. No empire ever has.' This being the case, Mr Waugh need advocate only pa- tience and not foolhardy attempts at subversion.
Alasdair C. Rankin
Flat 121, 30 Petershill Court, Glasgow
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