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CHAPTER VIII

WHAT KIND OF ATLANTIC PARTNERSHIP?

On too many vital issues--from Suez to the Congo, from Southeast Asia to Berlin--the policies of the major allies have been unilateral or divergent. Two solutions are usually offered for this state of affairs: (a) an improvement in the process of consultation; (b) the development of a united Europe with federal supranational institutions as the precondition for an Atlantic partnership among equals.

The Problem of Consultation

The inherently difficult problem of coalition diplomacy is magnified under present conditions by three factors:

(1) The firm commitment of the United States and the U.S.S.R. to the existing balance of power provides their allies with increasing scope for purely national actions.

(2) The internal workings of modern government are so complex that they create a variety of obstacles to meaningful consultation. Nations sometimes find it so difficult to achieve a domestic consensus that they are reluctant to jeopardize it afterwards in international forums. The American tendency to confine consultation to an elaboration of its own blueprints often reflects a desire to avoid complicating still further our own increasingly complex decision-making process.

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(3) As governments have found in their own domestic experience, access to the same technical data does not guarantee unanimity. In an alliance of states very unequal in size and strength, differences are almost certain to arise. And they are likely to be intensified because the histories of the states vary widely and because of a technology of unprecedented destructiveness and novelty.

The American historical experience causes our policymakers to be reluctant to admit that the process of consultation may have objective limits. United States society, with its large area of consensus, encourages the belief that all problems are soluble through goodwill and a willingness to compromise. A rationalistic streak produces a conviction that there are single, universally valid answers to most problems and that agreement is sure to emerge if the interested parties gather around a table. This produces a temptation to conduct alliance diplomacy by analogy to the domestic policy of stable societies.

However, the most difficult issues of coalition diplomacy are more complicated. Differences in history, geography and domestic structure become relevant. The analogy to domestic policy breaks down.

In stable societies, domestic decisions tend to be accepted because there is a consensus on legitimacy. Those who are overruled generally consider maintenance of domestic order more important than any particular grievance; if they do not, domestic policy acquires some of the characteristics and sanctions of foreign policy and, in extreme cases, leads to civil war.

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In stable societies those who are overruled retain the hope of winning another round later or of influencing the implementation of the decision. In democracies, there exists the possibility of changing the government with the next election.

In a coalition of sovereign states, these safety valves are not available. Legitimacy resides in the individual governments. Decisions require their consent--this is the essence of sovereignty. Even when they agree to be bound by majority vote--a rare occurence in coalitions and not the case with NATO--their sovereignty implies the right to renounce the treaty. In short, those who dissent and are prepared to insist on their sovereignty cannot be bound indefinitely.

If fundamental differences among sovereign allies persist, the partners are torn between the desire to maintain the appearance of unity and the attempt to vindicate their views. The need to present a facade of harmony has at least three consequences: (a) It puts a limit on the sanctions that can be applied to a recalcitrant ally. (b) One of the few pressures available is to mobilize domestic pressures against an obstructive partner, thus multiplying resentments. (c) Because misgivings are sometimes subordinated to an appearance of amity, the real views of the governments cannot always be deduced from their formal statements. Simultaneously--and somewhat contradictorily--a premium is placed on intransigence. Ruthless allies can use their partners' desire for harmony to impose a desired course. But if this happens too frequently, there is a dangerous build-up of frustration which cannot be smothered indefinitely by declarations of friendship. This has been happening in the Atlantic Alliance.

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Consultation, therefore, is far from a panacea. It is least effective when it is most needed: when there exist basic differences of assessment or of interest. It works best in *implementing* a consensus rather than in *creating* it. Nevertheless, an improvement in the consultative process should be one of the primary objectives of the Alliance.

Many of our schemes for strengthening NATO have taken the form of making our predominant position psychologically more acceptable; we try to create a structure which ______ physically prevents any ally (except the United States) to act autonomously. This tends to turn our allies into advisors in an American decision-making process.

It then becomes relevant to inquire whether such a system healthy for the long-term political vitality of the Alliance.

The effectiveness of any process of consultation is tested by the answers to the following questions: Who has a right to be consulted? Whose voice carries weight? Who has enough competence?

These three questions do not necessarily have identical answers. Many agencies in our own government have a right to express their views, but not all carry the same weight. When some Europeans ask for a greater voice in our decisions in return for giving up some of their military autonomy, the issue they raise is: compared to whose voice *within* the United States government? That of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency? Or the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Or the State Department? Or the Commerce Department? In

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our interdepartmental disputes, the outcome is clearly affected by the
constituency which the agency or department represents. The weight given to
advice is inevitably related to the competence that it reflects and this in
turn depends on how seriously a given department takes its role.

These considerations apply even more strongly in an alliance of
sovereign states. The challenge is less to provide a forum for the
expression of a point of view--important as this is--than to bring about a
framework which encourages the emergence of responsible attitudes. Setting
up lines of communication without paying corresponding attention to what flows
through them is to evade the key problem. If the United States insists on
retaining a dominant position and complete freedom of action, we will
probably find that in time Europe's political will will be broken. Before a
government makes a major effort to acquire the competence necessary for
developing a serious point of view, it must be convinced that its views
matter, not only by the grace of a senior ally but also because of structural
necessities. If coalition diplomacy becomes an exercise in affecting
essentially American decisions, most of our allies will lose the incentive to
make responsible judgments. The kind of leader comfortable with such a
relationship may be only too ready to shift the burden of difficult choices
to our shoulders; this very quality may make him an unreliable partner when
he is most needed in times of crisis. Tutelage, in short, cannot be made
into a healthy relationship.

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American policy has not always been sensitive to the psychological prerequisites for effective consultation. It generally holds that influence in the Alliance is apportioned as in a stock company: the partner with the largest number of shares in a common enterprise is supposed to have the greatest influence. Roles are assigned according to the principle of division of labor.

Influence is, of course, an intangible quality. However, to measure it entirely in terms of contribution to a common effort is much too mechanical. President de Gaulle, with his disconcerting habit of cutting through slogans to the underlying reality, has put his finger on the fact that as long as the Alliance remains composed of sovereign states, a too rigid conception of "integration" can easily lead to an evasion of responsibility. Difficult decisions can be avoided and failure can be blamed on other allies. Even a major effort may not result in a corresponding increase in influence. In an alliance of sovereign states, a country's influence requires that its effort be considered essential and that its partners do not take it for granted. In determining an ally's real--as opposed to his formal--role, one can do worse than inquire what its choices are in case of disagreement. To combine technical integration with insistence on sovereignty can in time erode the moral basis of joint action.

Heretofore, American policy has assumed that the chief obstacle to close United States-European cooperation on a global scale is that the resources of the European nation-state are inadequate for the requirements of the modern age. According to this school of thought, a politically integrated Europe will be prepared to share our world-wide burdens.

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world responsibility--as distinct from the preservation
of national interests--is, in our observation and
experience, not universal among the NATO membership. 5

Aside from the fact that our European allies are likely to
consider a "disinterested" foreign policy as mecurial and unsteady,
the distinction misses the central point. The chief reason for
the reluctance of most of our allies to assume world responsibility
is precisely because in the past decade they have been obliged to
give up their global interests. Sharing our burdens would supply an impetus
to Atlantic cooperation only if the Europeans had the same view as we
of what is at stake outside of Europe and if they believed that the United

Ball, "NATO and World Responsibility," *op. cit.*, p. 215.

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States would curtail its commitments but for their assistance. Neither condition is met today. The very commitment of the United States to a global role--our often-invoked sense of world responsibility--reduces the incentive of our allies to share in it, much as the commitment of Britain and France to the European balance of power permitted the United States to evade the problems of security in the period before 1941.

The problem can therefore be defined as follows: For responsible attitudes to emerge, the participants in a consultative process must be something more than advisors. Influencing another country's actions or sharing its burdens is demoralizing in the long run.

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There are two choices before the Atlantic Alliance: the gradual merging of sovereignty into a new North Atlantic political structure or a traditional alliance of sovereign units—with Europe perhaps forming a single entity. If we follow the first course, we must be prepared for a much greater surrender of our freedom of action than anything we have so far envisaged. In the long run it will prove impossible to combine our preferred strategic doctrine with an uncompromising insistence on our sovereignty. If we claim freedom of action while depriving our allies of theirs, either NATO will collapse or else our allies will grow into impotent appendages to our decision-making process. This will cause them to become completely absorbed in themselves, indolent and essentially irresponsible.

As long as the United States does not seem prepared for the surrender of sovereignty which a real North Atlantic Political Community would imply, the issue becomes what system is most vital in the long run in an alliance which will remain composed of sovereign units. Is it better to create a structure that automatically involves all its partners in every crisis around the world? Or is it wiser to build a system that grants its members some autonomy? On many issues—particularly East-West relations—united action is essential. With respect to others, some degree of flexibility seems useful. Over the next decades the United States is likely to find itself increasingly engaged in the Far East, in Southeast Asia and in Latin America. Our European allies will almost certainly consider that their vital interests are not at stake in these areas.

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If the Atlantic Alliance is completely centralized, policy may grow stagnant. The Alliance will be able to agree only on doing nothing. The Soviets may use our involvements in other Continents as a pretext to blackmail Europe. This, combined with the lack of interest among Europeans in the issues involved, may strain the Alliance beyond the breaking point.

If we look beyond the immediate future and visualize an increasingly powerful China fomenting the already strong tendencies toward turmoil in other parts of the world, the strain on our resources and ingenuity may well be too great if we remain the sole trustee of Europe's policy as well. The day will come when we will consider a measure of autonomy in Europe a blessing rather than an irritant. In this century no one could have foreseen at the beginning of any decade what the world would look like at its end. Things have not grown less complicated or more predictable. Those centers of initiative which still exist should not be discouraged. It is not always the least responsible allies that wish to reserve some measure of control over their destiny.

If we face the fact that the interests of Europe and the United States are not identical everywhere, it may be possible to agree on a permissible range of divergence. Each partner will regain a measure of flexibility. The temptation for Soviet adventures might be reduced. Europe could assume greater responsibility for its defense and its future. Put positively, **forming the Atlantic Alliance** will have to decide whether to emphasize immediate convenience or long-term political

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vitality. At any given point of time, centralization of decisions guarantees the greatest degree of coordination. Critics of such schemes can always be put on the defensive by being accused of fomenting distrust. In the long term, however, excessive concentration of decision-making in the hands of the senior partner may deprive its allies of the incentive to be responsible and it may create profound fissures when a conflict of interests becomes apparent.

If the Alliance cannot constitute itself into a more embracing political community--and realism compels us to confess that this is unlikely in the next decade--a structure which makes possible a variety of coordinated approaches could enhance the vigor of our policies and the self-confidence of our allies.

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I believe the present Administration /the Kennedy Administration[
... holds the ... view, which has come to be termed the
"dumbbell" concept--meaning that an economic and political
alliance is stronger if it has been agreed to by partners of
equal weight on both sides.²

The European side of this partnership is to be a United States of Europe organized on federal lines with supranational institutions.

There is no doubt that the dumbbell concept represents one form
of Atlantic partnership. But an excessive, almost doctrinaire commitment
to it runs the risk of treating a symbol as the only possible reality.
This may cause us to beg the key questions by the very terms in which we
state them.

The single-mindedness with which the dumbbell concept has been
pursued obscures three questions: Is it true that partnership is possible
only among equals? What has been the real progress toward
European political integration? To what extent is it in the American interest
to promote one form of European unity to the exclusion of other possible
plans?

Given the nature of America's relations with the rest of the world,
it seems strange that partnership should be said to be possible only among
equals. The assertion that we can deal effectively only with countries
of equal strength is notconducive to inspiring confidence among the weak
nations of the world which constitute a majority. Moreover, the proposition
is open to doubt. History would seem to indicate that the most difficult
and rigid partnerships are those among equals--witness for example the
alliance between Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire prior to World War I.

2

Christian Herter, "Atlantica," *Foreign Affairs*, Vol. 41, No. 2 (January 1963), p. 301.