COLUMN RIGHT / PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS : Bush Is Buying Into the Soviet Quagmire : The idea that the West can glue it back together is preposterous.

President Bush’s choice of Bob Strauss, Mr. Democrat himself, as our next ambassador to the Soviet Union is a clear indication that Bush has decided to channel billions of dollars in aid to Mikhail Gorbachev. Polls show that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to any such aid. To forestall Democrats from exploiting the issue politically, Bush would make it a bipartisan policy by placing Strauss in charge of negotiating the package.

This smart tactical decision hides a fatal strategic weakness. Bush is linking his success and that of our allies to the success of Gorbachev’s Soviet Union. The fact that only elites in Washington and Moscow support this plan does not send shivers down Bush’s spine as he prepares to jump into a quagmire infinitely larger than the insoluble Arab-Israeli conflict.

Gorbachev’s political skills are more apparent to Western leaders than to the Soviet people. He is extremely unpopular in his own country, as is the union itself. The process of dissolution is already under way as republic governments assume powers and responsibilities formerly exercised by the Kremlin. It should be apparent that there cannot be both a Soviet government and a Russian government.

Moreover, Gorbachev continues to commit internal political blunders. Recently his government introduced legislation that would give foreigners private ownership rights while continuing to deny similar rights to Soviet citizens. Foreigners first (or only) is an explosive formula for a government already on the rocks. It should have warned Bush that he is still dealing with rulers accustomed to acting without regard to public opinion.

The idea that the West can glue the Soviet Union back together with its money is preposterous for economic reasons also. No amount of foreign aid can compensate for socialist rules of economic behavior that keep an entire population from producing goods and services valued by markets. The Soviet Union simply lacks the institutions to use capital effectively, whether human, financial or physical capital. Without these institutions Gorbachev has no way to put Western aid to good use.

Western aid has nowhere to flow except into existing institutions. Dollars, marks and yen will allow the Kremlin to repurchase loyalties and to keep alive the very institutions that are the problem. At the very least, the reform process would become bureaucratized and bypassed by events.

It is naive to assume that Western aid strings would guarantee successful reforms. Advice from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other Western institutions is unlikely to be any more successful in the Soviet Union than it has been in Latin America and Africa. If IMF conditions cannot be successfully imposed on African and Latin American governments, they would amount to little more than water off a duck’s back in the Soviet Union.

Some Soviet reformers believe that Western money would allow them to woo Gorbachev away from communist hard-liners. But it could just as well involve us in choosing sides in internal Soviet politics and even in a civil war.

Despite all arguments, $30 billion a year can still appear a cheap price to pay for Soviet stability and integration into the world economy. Moreover, it would provide the Soviets with funds to repay existing loans and overdue bills to U.S. and European companies. If we don’t provide the money, Soviet relations with private investors and democratic governments are going to be clouded by default.

It is a seductive trap. Since the Western subsidies would work to prevent the necessary changes, they could easily escalate just like our troop commitments to Vietnam. We would soon hear arguments that $30 billion a year is not enough to do the job, but $50 billion would suffice. Moreover, these subsidies would be difficult to withdraw. Rather than face the consequences of such an unfriendly act, Western subsidies could become permanent entitlements, or a form of tribute to prevent already expressed threats of nuclear missiles falling into unintended uses.

The United States and its allies are thinking about the problem in the wrong way, focusing on the timing and amount of aid necessary to prevent economic catastrophe and political instability. Instead, President Bush should focus on leading the Soviets to liberty. The Soviet government will continue to sink until it learns to trust its own people and to look to their energies and initiatives as its greatest economic resource. Once the Soviet people have the right to private property and the freedom to pursue their own interests, the government will be amazed at their ingenuity.