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[y]

IV. United States Remedies for the Nuclear Dilemma--The Multilateral Force.

The Administration has adopted, pursuant to a goal of a single, centrally-controlled nuclear force for the Alliance, to arrest the spread of nuclear weapons within the Alliance.

(a) It has indicated increasing willingness to permit Europeans to share in the targeting of our strategic forces, ~~the vast majority~~ of which remain under our expansive control.

(b) It has "assigned" nuclear submarines subject to agreed NATO guidelines.

(c) It has pushed--ambivalently and with various degrees of intensity--the creation of a NATO multilateral force.

Of these steps, the first is constructive even if it does not go to the heart of the problem. It is no doubt highly desirable for Europeans to know of the targeting of our strategic forces and to participate in planning, ~~its use in the~~ common defense. This is a useful demonstration of partner-ship. It does not, however, alter the United States' monopoly position with respect to the use of nuclear weapons. It

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[y]

is meets, to some extent, addresses one horn of the dilemma, the problem of meeting the interests of all allies in a common war plan. It does not solve the more important problem of the political control of these weapons, specifically the decision to enter nuclear war.

As for the assignment of Polaris submarines to NATO, this measure was first announced by President Kennedy in Ottawa in May, 1961. It was then repeated with considerable drama by Secretary McNamara at the NATO Ministerial meeting in Athens in 1962. At that time, it was stated that five Polaris submarines had been assigned to NATO with more to come. In his report to the House Armed Services Committee on January 30, 1963, Secretary McNamara pointed out that we had "earmarked a fully operational Polaris force to the NATO command."

However, it is important to understand what this "earmaking" consists of. The submarines are normally

All forces in NATO are national forces. At this time of command news of US forces from Washington change the appropriate US leaders. NATO leaders are planning attacks on allied forces assigned to them only during OVERL

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provided the governments concerned agree to implement these plans? Or are they to be considered a delegation of authority to the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic to use nuclear weapons in certain specified contingencies without further reference to political authority?

If guidelines are to be interpreted in the former sense--
as a form of contingency war plan--they will have all the
*are another version of the advantages previously described for joint targeting.* However, in that case it is not clear why a formal assignment to NATO was necessary or how the NATO-committed Polaris forces are distinguished from our other strategic forces. *If, on the other hand, the guidelines are to determine*--even pro-
*not the targets but visionally*--the circumstances in which nuclear weapons are to be used, serious problems would arise. A guideline so conceived not only includes; it also excludes. It defines not only when nuclear weapons are to be used, *employed* but the circumstances when they will not be used. It is possible that the only

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contingency where all allies would agree in advance is the
case of a massive Soviet nuclear attack on Europe--the cir-
cumstance about which there is likely to be least doubt and

the 'seemly need for additional specifications'. In
where prior specifications may only magnify concerns. In
short, if the guidelines are too vague, they may multiply
concerns; if an attempt is made to be too specific, they will
magnify divisions.

Whatever else the guidelines will accomplish, they will
not affect the United States veto or for that matter, the
right of any of the other allies to determine whether the
circumstances to which the guideline refers have in fact
arisen. At the same time, on the other hand, it may be
that, however, the notion is that there could be a
predelegation of authority either to the Secretary General
of NATO or to some Allied Commander or to both acting in con-
cert--as has sometimes been suggested--this would represent
an unprecedented abdication of constitutional responsibilities.

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It is difficult to see any President or Prime Minister taking ~~this step.~~ Were it taken, it is certain that the predelegation of authority would be confined to the most obvious and unambiguous cases of nuclear aggression, for which the very act of predelegation may indicate uncertainties likely to ~~much problems if it runs.~~ magnify doubts. In short, guidelines have the uses and limitations of joint targeting; they are but a small step in the direction of solving NATO's nuclear dilemma.

These considerations come to a particular focus with respect to the kingpin of our NATO nuclear policy: the NATO multilateral force. This proposal has had a checkered history. It was first advanced for study by Secretary Herter in December, 1960. It was then cold-shouldered in the first few months of the Kennedy Administration. Then in Mary, 1961 at Ottawa, President Kennedy announced a willingness to consider " a NATO sea-borne force which would be truly

proposing, it was not clear whether our proposal was put
forward in order to be accepted or to be rejected.

Three months later, in September, 1962, the Special
Assistant of the President for National Security Affairs,
McGeorge Bundy, spoke in terms of a multilateral European
force: "It would be wrong to suppose that our aversion for
individual weak and non-integrated nuclear forces would auto-
matically be extended to a unified and multilateral European
force which could be effectively integrated into joint NATO
defense planning." This speech said nothing about what we
understood by "multilateral," "integrated" or "unified."

Two months later, in November 1962,
Under Secretary of State George Ball re-
turned to the theme of a NATO force. He argued that we thought
a NATO multilateral nuclear force militarily unnecessary.

However, "should other NATO countries so desire, we are ready
to give serious consideration to the creation of a genuinely

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[y]

multilateral medium-range ballistic missile force fully coordinated with the other deterrent forces in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization."

A month later, at the regular NATO Ministerial Conference in December, 1962, nothing was done about the creation of a NATO multilateral force. A week later, on December 21, 1962 (check) President Kennedy and Prime Minister MacMillan signed the Nassau Agreement, which provided not for one but two multilateral forces of Great Britain and France together with a United States contribution of nationally-owned submarines; another in which the non-nuclear countries of NATO would create a "truly" multilateral Polaris force which was later explained to mean that it would be jointly financed, owned, planned, manned, and operated.

Nothing was said about how either multilateral force was to be controlled, deployed or gargetted. Two weeks later--

-57-

before President De Gaulle's press conference--the ubiquitous Secretary Ball was back in Paris to explain to the NATO Council that the multilateral NATO force, which he had declared militarily unnecessary two months previously, was now a high priority goal of the Kennedy Administration. Indeed, he was suggested to have offered that the United States was ready to begin training submarine crews of mixed national composition immediately.

This sequence of events is important to keep in mind because it might well lead even political leaders less suspicious of United States motives than President De Gaulle to doubt whether we really had a "grand design" or whether we were not simply offering palliatives to perpetuate our hegemony.

In any event, after President De Gaulle's press conference, the multilateral force composed of the presently non-nuclear powers was pushed energetically. "Informed sources" were

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quoted as having said that we would create a force sufficiently
strong so that the Federal Republic of Germany in particular
would see that the advantages of our notion of multilateral-
ism far exceeded any benefits to be gained by association with

France. Thus, the already difficult issue of multilateral
control became further complicated because we had to make mem-
bership in the "mixed" force a test of Atlantic solidarity.
Livingston Merchant has been appointed to carry out the
negotiations to bring this force into being.

Since then, the United States position has continued to
shift.
oscillate. Despite the offer to train submarine crews, we have
recently indicated that surface ships might be a better solu-
tion, because of Congressional opposition to making Polaris
submarines available and the difficulty of manning them with
mixed crews. Secretary McNamara and President Kennedy have
spoken of both a European and an Attantic multilateral force.

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But the practical requirements they make for either cause the
*must be integrated* distinction to be ephemeral. They agree that there must be

a single claim of command, and that the multilateral force
*must be fully coordinated with ours*. In the light of

a Secretary McNamara's strategic theories, this *must* mean that either a NATO or a European nuclear force has to be under ultimate United States command, (since we supply 95% of the total forces.)

At the very least it implies an absolute United States veto. For the McNamara strategy of a controlled response against the Soviet retaliatory force presupposes, according to our own statements, central control of all the strategic forces of the Alliance. Indeed, *each one main advantage of a multilateral over a national force is to permit centralized control*. And, as the President has *emphasized* in his press conference of ..., this control must be in the hands of one man.

"The United States will make clear "the New York time reported on February 27" that there will be only one finger on the trigger of any similar force established by NATO. If that is the case, there will be no

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striving to retain nuclear independence, cannot afford any
anymore and would be a further isolation. The Federal Republic of Germany has seen
in agreement to the multilateral NATO force of mixed crews
an opportunity to reassure us about Atlantic solidarity.

The other European countries that have agreed to participate, -
at last report Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, are more likely to
do so to keep an eye on Germany and not because of strategic
CONVICTIONS,
considerations.

Indeed, any reflection about the structure of this force
composed of mixed crews
gives as much reason to worry about those that agree to join
as about those who refuse. For one thing, the requirement
of mixed manning of submarines is a symptom of extraordinary
distrust of our allies. The chief reason is to prevent any
national government from withdrawing part of the force. As
an instrument of positive control, it seems that shipboard
is the most unsuitable place for the exercise of a veto.

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[y]

In short, a multilateral NATO force with a United States veto would multiply safety catches but not triggering devices and even largely the safety catch would be made illusory because the major part of our nuclear strength would remain outside of NATO control.

Can we give up the veto? It is not easy to see how a country can abdicate so fateful a decision to a majority vote of allies, no matter how close. The constitutional issue would surely be formidable. Moreover, what would giving up the veto mean? Does it mean that we would go to war with part of the Polaris missiles assigned to NATO? In terms of Secretary McNamara's testimony, this partial employment of nuclear power is what must in all circumstances be avoided. And it is in any event difficult to imagine making a commitment to go to nuclear war with only the smallest part of our forces.

But if we agree to go to war with our entire nuclear arsenal, what is the point of creating a NATO Force? Then it would be

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[y]

wiser to create a political control body for the Alliance as
a whole and agree to go to war on the basis of whatever majority

vote seems indicated,

It is sometimes suggested that this dilemma could be

solved by constituting the multilateral force as a European

force, which would avoid the issue of the veto. But this is

prohibited by our prevalent strategic doctrine with its em-

phasis on a single target system, rapid response and unified

command. Then again, the European nations now envisaged as

participants in the multilateral force are unlikely to ask us

to leave it. Such a gesture would defeat one of the purposes

for joining it: the demonstration of Atlantic solidarity.

It would greatly increase the financial burden of joining the

force. And it would yield our allies no greater control over

their destiny. A multilateral force composed of the Federal

Republic, Italy, Belgium and Denmark is not likely to be

-65-

unanimous about the decision to go to nuclear war except in
conditions so overwhelmingly clear that the United States veto
would present no concern even for the most suspicious.

Indeed, if one purpose of the multilateral force is, ~~as is often alleged, to give the Federal Republic of Germany~~ some voice in nuclear matters, ~~it is not clear what reassurance they would derive from substituting an Italian veto for that of the United States.~~ The danger in the multilateral force as now projected is that those who want serious control over their nuclear destiny will not remain long content with the while for projected arrangements, ~~WMXXX~~ those who go along ~~WXXX~~ such motives as pleasing us, defying France or keeping an eye on Germany will soon grow tired of the expense and search for other options.

This becomes apparent when the financial implications of
our proposal are examined. The number of missiles most frequently

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mentioned for the NATO nuclear force is three hundred or some eighteen Polaris submarines. It is interesting that this represents four times the delivery vehicles of the French Mirage force and three times that of the projected British Polaris force. In order to prevent the development of the existing national nuclear forces, we are engaged in the curious process of diffusing an even larger number of weapons to a gropp of countries not now in the nuclear business and with no immediate prospect of entering it.

The cost of an individual Polaris submarine has been estimated by the British Defense Minister Thorneycroft at around $150 million. The UK NATO Polaris force would then require a capital expenditure of $2.7 billion. Operation costs for a single submarine have been estimated at around $20 million a year or $360 million a year for the entire NATO force. If one adds such expenses as communication systems and shore

-67-

installations, the yearly maintenance cost is likely to be

$1 billion. Though the apportionment of this expense has

not yet been established, it is clear that the Federal Republic could pay less than one third. ~~XNXX~~ (This has been estimated, etc.)

operational costs and the amortization of the capital investment will amount to a minimum of $500 million yearly for the next five years.

The Federal Republic or an increase of 11% in its defense spending (with the German budget increasing probably by more than 10%) is not feasible.

And these figures do not include vessels which will be necessary.

The costs for a surface fleet equipped with German minis would be somewhat less. But if one considers warships and the like, the costs to protect the Polaris fleet would probably not significantly rise.

Can anyone seriously believe that this can be a permanent state of affairs? Is it not infinitely more likely that after a few years we would face in relation to some of the projected members of the NATO nuclear force the same problems we now confront with France?

Our present proposals grant the

Ez3

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need for a separate force, but they do not grant the equality
which would give that force meaning. Having gotten into the
nuclear business with our assistance, some of the countries now
projected as participants will indeed be much better placed
than France is today, to raise the nuclear issue in a few years
They will not have to argue about the possession of nuclear
this
technology--since XXEX will have been conceded--XXX but about
the control of a force where their influence is patently out of
proportion to their contribution. If we resist these pressures,
we may bring about a violent swing towards De Gaulle's con-
ceptions. Nothing is more likely to promote Third Force
tendencies in Europe or a form of neutralism than for us to
engage our prestige in pressing for a force which makes no
sense militarily, does not alter significantly existing control
arrangements, yet requires a heavy European financial contribu
tion.

-69-

The multilateral NATO force is thus likely to combine the
disadvantages of every course of action. It will not stop
the diffusion of nuclear weapons; it may well accelerate it.
It will neither stop the acquisition of nuclear arms by Germany
nor satisfy over any extended period whatever demands may exist
in the Federal Republic for a great voice. It will stop the
building up of shield forces, for none of the countries reported
ready to join the NATO nuclear force is likely to increase
its defense budget beyond the heavy expenditures required for
the multilateral force. France will be isolated, but at a
heavy price. The inevitable disputes about the control of the
NATO force may only serve to prove De Gaulle's thesis of the
United States desire for hegemony. We will have shifted the
relative weight in Europe towards countries which, while in the
short term are more pliable, may prove in the long term more
unstable. The partnership of the West cannot be obtained by
the multilateral force of Germany in the multilateral force
of the West.

Correspondence/ April 25 issue/1

(197 lines)

To the Editor: Congratulations to Henry Kissinger for his brilliant, incisive, and courageous critique of our NATO policy concerning nuclear weapons. Congratulations also to you for an outstanding public service in publishing it, despite a length beyond your customary limits.

It is hard to single out any portion of Kissinger's article for special praise. All of it needed saying, and he says it extremely well.

BERNARD BRODIE
The Rand Corporation
Santa Monica, California

To the Editor: I cannot in the space of a letter comment on the merits or the meaning of Mr. Kissinger's proposal for helping the French and the British build nuclear strategic force. However, I would like to correct the false impression that he creates, I am sure unwittingly, about the series of studies that I led beginning in 1951 on the problems of deterrence. Mr. Kissinger suggests that these studies had to do principally with what he calls "controlled-counterforce general war" and "nuclear superiority...in the age of nuclear pl-

["Correspondence/4", "Zurheizsitz um x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x

Correspondence/5

oriented toward city targets; and she,
unlike America, spurns allied politic-
al guidelines.

A multilateral force can go astray,
but it is now open to all in NATO to
shape it from the beginning toward a
use that reconciles joint control with
responsible global strategy; arms with
arms control. Mr. Kissinger's altern-
is-
ative/to subsidize those whose estab-
lished programs defy such reconciliation.

MALCOLM HOAG
The Rand Corporation
Santa Monica, California

To the Editor: After reading Henry Al-
issinger's a methodical summary of the
pompous, academic, and contradictory p-
ositions dictated to our Allies, one
can only be amazed that the concept of
an Atlantic Alliance is still adhered
to, even in principle.

JAMES R. GRAY
Atlanta

To the Editor: Professor Kissinger has
wisely counseled us to view the probl-
em of NATO's nuclear dilemma in a pol-
itical context--a context shaped by le-
gitimate European aspirations for gr-

correspondence/ &
cater control over Europe's destiny
and for greater influence on Alliance
policies. The problem of nuclear for-
ce is obviously and important issue.
However, as recent experience amply
demonstrates, it is not the only iss-
ue. We should not expect that by mak-
ing accommodations to European wishes
with respect to nuclear force we will
insure harmony in the Alliance. Sin-
ce we face an extended period of adjus-
tment to Europe's phenomenal post-war
revival, we should not, for political
reasons, accept nuclear solutions wh-
ich themselves are technically and st-
rategically unsound. To advocate solu-
tions without enquiring into their tech-
nical and strategic effects may well
create new political difficulties for
the future.

It seems to me that the dominant Eu-
ropean argument for a nuclear force of
their own, whether national, multinat-
tional, or multilateral, is that it wou-
ld place a finger on the Ameri-
can nuclear trigger. Many things might
be said about how this would affect
the American national interest. I will
confine myself to a single observat-
ion: the coursed Dr. Kissinger proposes

Correspondence/7

abcde:zbcdeabc

is at least as likely as any other to
lead to exacerbated political controv-
ersy among the Atlantic allies.

LAWRENCE S. FINKLESTEIN
New York

To the Editor: Dr. Kissinger is right
in urging us to adopt a more co-operat-
ive attitude toward France. President
Kennedy should follow the advice Gener-
al Marshall gave our foreign service
offers when he was Secretary of State:
"Don't fight the problem, gentleman.
Solve it."

Our nuclear policy toward our NATO al-
lies has, in fact, been too nationalis-
tic in approach. We should realize th-
at leading a Western coalition means ce-
operating with our allies, not just tell-
ing them what we *X/* is good for them.

ERNEST T. CLOUGH
Boston

Advance A JOURNAL OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

BRUCE K. CHAPMAN PUBLISHER

GEORGE F. GILDER EDITOR

MICHAEL LAURENCE MANAGING EDITOR

CHRISTOPHER BEAL ASSOCIATE EDITOR

BRUCE HARB ART EDITOR

301 G STREET SOUTHWEST • WASHINGTON 24, D. C. • DISTRICT 7-0567

April 26, 1963

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Harvard Center for International Affairs
Divinity Avenue
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

Enclosed is a copy of the first part of the final section (V Where Do We Go from Here) of your *Reporter* article with three relatively minor changes to improve the integrity of the argument independent of sections I through IV.

1) insertion of the words "thrown into disarray by European resistance" following the word "reappraisal" in the second paragraph.

2) substitution of the final two paragraphs of page 28 of *The Reporter* for the sixth paragraph of section V.

3) changing the first sentence of section V to read, "It is still possible - though it is getting late - to prevent this development etc." Reduction from plural to singular of the words "these developments" is to accord with the new paragraph preceding.

The story continues verbatim to the end of section V.

We are grateful for permission to use this section, which is precisely appropriate to our needs. Provided that the changes are acceptable to you and *The Reporter* the story will go to the printers next Wednesday, May 1. It will be printed with credit to *The Reporter*.

GFG:vlm

Enclosure

cc: Mr. Philip Horton, *The Reporter*

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

It is always difficult to reverse course. The longer a given
policy is maintained, the more vested interests--in dedication, in
conception, and in bureaucratic perisitence--it is bound to create.
Yet sometimes the wisest policy is to resist the temptation to rely
on momentum, and to step back and take stock.

Perhaps the best way to begin a reappraisal of our current policies
toward Europe, thrown into disarray by European resistance, would be
to ask ourselves what our real interests in Europe are. We should
examine what kind of structure we desire in the long term rather than
seek for devices to head off immediate pressures.

The goal of a strong, unified, and self-sufficient Europe, which
for a decade and a half was as valid American policy has consistently pursued
developed in 1947. We may not have fully understood then that an
economically powerful Europe would be more self-assertive in the political
and military field as well. We may have believed subconsciously that
our policy would relieve us of economic burdens without requiring

[lc]

NATO - 2

a redefinition of Atlantic relationships. But whether or not we fully
reslized the implications of what we were doing, the Europe of today
stands as a testimony to our foresight and our ability to subordinate
short-term advantage to long-term benefits.

However, in the past few years there has been a tendency to recoil
before the inevitable implications of our policy. It was always in the
cards - indeed, it was our stated purpose - that as Europe regained
its economic health it would also seek to develop its own specific
policies. It never occurred to us originally that the relations of
the European states to each other should not be closer than each of
them was to the United States. On the contrary, the original conception
was that a cohesive Europe would be a more effective partner for the
United States. Atlantic partnership was then thought of in terms of
establishing a relationship with a Europe whose internal structure
would be firmer than the Atlantic bonds.

This great conception can be reversed today only by undermining
the structures that have been laboriously developed over the past fifteen
years. Fifteen years ago it might have been possible to try

[LC]

NATO - 3

to construct an Atlantic Community on the most favored nation principle:

that is, that no nation have closer relations to any other than to the

United States. Today this attempt jeopardizes all that has been achieved.

The real problem is whether we are ready to face an independent
European center for decision on nuclear matters, and rely on political
consultations to relate European purposes to ours.

So far, we have indicated a preference for continued hegemony.

Terms like "multilateralism" and "interdependence" have hidden the reality of an attempt to maintain undivided physical control - which in terms of our strategic doctrine has to mean U.S. control. Given European pressures in the opposite direction, this policy has forced us to adopt remedies more dangerous than the ill they have sought to cure. We have purchased brief respites in allied disputes by mortgaging the future.

Almost every program that we have advanced in the name of our notion of multilateralism has had the practical consequence of accentuating rather than ameliorating NATO's nuclear dilemma, and therefore it has

NATO - 4

undermined the long-term political stability of the Atlantic Alliance.

It is still possible - though it is getting late - to prevent this development by fostering a European nuclear identity growing out of the British and French programs. It is often said that such a course would divide the Alliance. But surely we are not going to maintain that partnership is possible only with nations incapable of independent action. Moreover, if we cut through the phrases to the facts, a separate European entity need be no more divisive in the military than in the economic field. In both instances it

[4]

April 17, 1963

Mr. George F. Gilder
ADVANCE
301 G Street Southwest
Washington 24, D. C.

Dear Mr. Gilder:

Thank you for your letter of
April 2nd.

I am terribly sorry but I have
overcommitted myself and cannot write
anything now. If you want to publish
excerpts from my article in THE REPORTER
you can do so provided you let me know
what excerpts you are going to use.

Kind regards.

BRUCE K. CHAPMAN PUBLISHER
GEORGE F. GILDER EDITOR
MICHAEL LAURENCE MANAGING EDITOR
CHRISTOPHER REAL ASSOCIATE EDITOR
BRUCE BARB ART EDITOR

April 12, 1963

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Center for International Affairs
Divinity Avenue
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

Due to delays in the receipt of other articles we have extended our deadline to May 1. I am grateful for anything you can do for us - as specified in my letter of April 2.

BRUCE K. CHAPMAN PUBLISHER

GEORGE F. GILDER EDITOR

BRUCE RABB ART EDITOR

April 2, 1963

Mr. Henry A. Kissinger
Harvard Center for International Affairs
Divinity Avenue
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

Dear Mr. Kissinger:

I have two proposals. First, in connection with your conversation with Bruce Chapman, I would be extremely grateful if you could prepare, using your Reporter article sections 4 and 5 as a basis, an article for Advance on the implications of the Merchant odyssey and other recent administration overtures to Europe.

Most useful for our purposes would be an article which begins with a brief and general introductory statement that the latest administration attempts to create a multilateral nuclear force illustrate the American misconceptions which have undercut NATO cohesion; and continues with the last two paragraphs on page 28. Then, rather than going through the whole history of the multilateral proposals, concentrate on the latest attempt to circumvent de Gaulle and on the new proposal for a surface polaris fleet. Then conclude with section five more or less as it stands. I enclose a copy of an article I wrote in January which covers the Skybolt and Nassau imbroglios among other things (an article for which your previous efforts on the subject were indispensable inspiration). Our deadline is April 17.

Second, I wonder if you could keep Advance in mind over the next eight or nine months for an essay on some general foreign policy topic for ultimate inclusion in a collection of essays designed to influence the writing of the 1964 Republic platform. The prospective book will include other essays on foreign and defense policy topics by William Butler of Chase Manhattan (Foreign Aid), Congressman John Lindsay (Immigration), and Thomas B. Curtis (The draft), Assistant Professor John Saloma of MIT -- an associate editor -- (the State Department), and myself (the arms race). Most of the essays will appear first in quarterly issues of Advance. Also included will be a similar series of essays on domestic issues, plus a general study of Republic philosophy and traditions and their continuing relevance by Malcolm Moos and an article on the potentialities and limitations of a party platform by Bruce Chapman.

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THE REPORTER

THE MAGAZINE OF FACTS AND IDEAS

MAX ASCOLI, Editor and Publisher

Executive Editor, Philip Horton Managing Editor, Robert Bingham

Senior Editor, Gouverneur Paulding Washington Editor, Douglass Cater

Assistant Managing Editor, Derek Morgan Copy Editor, Donald A. Allan

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Writers: Claire Sterling, Marya Mannes, Edmond Taylor,

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Staff: Elizabeth Parsons (Asst. to the Editor), Louisa Messolonghites (Asst. to Mng. Ed.), Ruth Ames (Librarian), John A. Anderson Jr., Barbara Carter, Lee Culpepper, Nora Magid

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Published by The Reporter Magazine Company, Nathan W. Levin, President

VOLUME 28, NO. 7

MARCH 28, 1963

THE REPORTER'S NOTES .................................................. 14

NATO'S Nuclear Dilemma

Henry A. Kissinger 22

I. THE U.S. STRATEGY

II. SECOND THOUGHTS ON FLEXIBLE RESPONSE

III. THE CASE FOR NATIONAL NUCLEAR FORCES

IV. PROPOSED UNITED STATES REMEDIES:
THE CREATION OF A MULTILATERAL FORCE

V. WHERE WE GO FROM HERE

At Home & Abroad

A RETURN TO THE FRONTIER .................................... Eileen Chang 38

'CHICAGO AIN'T READY FOR REFORM' .......................... Hal Bruno 41

ASPECTS OF ZANZIBAR (SKETCHES) ............................ Angela Conner 44

NEW DRUGS: IS GOVERNMENT SUPERVISION ADEQUATE? .. Morton Mintz 46

Views & Reviews

THE LAST 'FRENCH' COMPOSER? .................................... Roland Gelatt 52

THE AERIALISTS (VERSE) ............................................ Nancy Price 56

Books:

A TOUCHING TALE OF LOST ILLUSIONS .......................... John P. Roche 58

A CITY UPON A HILL ............................................ John William Ward 61

A LAND BEYOND HELP? ............................................ Denis Warner 62

ONE MAN'S TREASURES ............................................ Sarel Eimerl 64

THE REPORTER PUZZLE .................................................. 55

THE REPORTER, March 28, 1963, Volume 28, No. 7. Second-class postage paid at New York, New York, and at Dayton, Ohio. Published every other Thursday except for omission of two summer issues by The Reporter Magazine Company, 660 Madison Avenue, New York 21, N. Y. © 1963 by The Reporter Magazine Company. All rights reserved under Pan-American Copyright Convention. Subscription prices, United States and U. S. Possessions: One year $7, Two years $11, Three years $14. Additional postage for Canada and Pan-American Union, $.50 per year; all other countries, $1.00 per year. Please give four weeks' notice when changing address giving old and new address. Send notice of undelivered copies on Form 3579 to: The Reporter, McCall St., Dayton 1, Ohio. Indexed in Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature and Public Affairs Information Service.

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# NATO's Nuclear Dilemma

HENRY A. KISSINGER

THE ATLANTIC ALLIANCE is going through another of those critical re-examinations which over the past two years have been recurring at ever shorter intervals. Once again there is wide debate over the relative emphasis to be given to nuclear as against conventional arms, the nature of nuclear war, and the relationship of various national nuclear forces to each other. The United States has resurrected its proposal for a multilateral NATO force and is urging it as the touchstone of Atlantic solidarity.

The discussions are complicated by the fact that the domestic politics of some key allies give a tentative and unreliable quality to the expressions of their present leaders. What with the imminent succession to the chancellorship in Germany, the elections pending in Britain, and the political realignment being pursued in Italy, the voice of Europe reaches us in an extremely distorted manner.

This makes it all the more essential for us to understand what is involved. For the issue before NATO far transcends military strategy.

What is at stake is the organization of Europe, the domestic stability of major allied governments, and the future of the Atlantic Community.

A redefinition of relationships was inevitable, and it would be unfair to attribute to the United States the sole responsibility for the current impasse. It is equally of no help to blame the present state of affairs entirely on our European allies. We can in any event do less about the policy of other countries than that of our own. In order to understand why we have acted as we have, it is important to analyze the assumptions behind our NATO policy.

## I. The U.S. Strategy

Four major elements can be discovered with various degrees of explicitness in the U.S. strategy for NATO:

(a) "Flexible Response." The first component has been identified with the phrase "counterforce strategy." There have been many variations of this theme. It has been argued by Secretary McNamara that even after

absorbing a Soviet surprise attack, our strategic retaliatory forces would be able to destroy the entire Soviet target system. In other words, we would be able to "win" a general war—even after conceding the first blow—in the sense that after the nuclear exchange we would still possess reserves of nuclear firepower while the Soviets had expended theirs.

In his more recent pronouncements Secretary McNamara has been more modest. Now the argument is that our reserve of protected firepower will enable us to conduct a "centrally controlled" nuclear war which provides the opponent a maximum incentive to spare the civilian population by giving us the option to do likewise.

(b) Antagonism to National Nuclear Forces. Our concern with the ability to fight a centrally controlled general war against a single (though unspecified) target system has caused us to be extremely hostile to the existence of national nuclear forces (other than our own) within the Alliance. President Kennedy has described the French force de frappe

22

THE REPORTER

[L]

as inimical to NATO, and Secretary McNamara's epithets have been equally blunt.

Our opposition to the British retaliatory force has been less explicit. Yet the arguments used against the French apply here as well. In both cases, the requirement of central control is interpreted to mean that the strategic nuclear weapons of the Alliance must be "integrated" and "responsive to a single chain of command"; in other words, that they must be an adjunct to the U.S. strategic forces.

### (c) Tactical Nuclear Weapons.
Similar hostility has been shown to tactical nuclear weapons. It might seem that if a general nuclear war can be fought with restraint, it should be possible to limit the employment of tactical nuclear weapons to a geographically confined area. However, Secretary McNamara and his associates have held the contrary view. Secretary McNamara has repeatedly pointed out that tactical nuclear weapons involve a grave risk of escalation and should not be considered a substitute for conventional defense.

At the same time, the tactical nuclear weapons deployed overseas are said not to be really necessary for the kind of strategic exchange envisaged by the McNamara theory. They are not well enough protected and not easily susceptible to central control. In Secretary McNamara's statements they are therefore described as a "bonus" which our strategic planning cannot really count on.

### (d) Conventional Defense.
If our leaders consider European national nuclear forces irrelevant and tactical nuclear weapons overvalued, it follows that the European contribution to NATO should be in the field of conventional defense. This argument has been pressed insistently. "The decision to employ tactical nuclear weapons," Secretary McNamara said in his report to the House Armed Services Committee in January of this year, "should not be forced upon us simply because we have no other way to cope with a particular situation."

The corollary is that the most desirable objective would be to resist a Soviet conventional attack with purely conventional means, a task which,

it is often said, is well within the capabilities of the West. Secretary McNamara in his recent testimony indicated that present NATO conventional capabilities were adequate to deal with any "major incursion." Nevertheless, he urged that they be strengthened to give us "capabilities for dealing with even larger Soviet attacks"—in other words, a massive, sustained Soviet offensive.

To understand the European reaction to these propositions it is important to compare them with what has heretofore been traditional NATO doctrine. Until the advent of the Kennedy administration the ground forces in Central Europe had been considered the "shield" and the nuclear forces the "sword." It was part of NATO doctrine that a massive Soviet attack on Central Europe would be met with some form of nuclear retaliation practically from the outset; the conventional forces were to deal only with minor probes. It was never considered that a full-scale conventional defense of Europe should be attempted. Most Europeans have been convinced—in large part by the previous U.S. policymakers—that deterrence would be enhanced by confronting the Soviets with the strong likelihood that major aggression against Europe would mean nuclear war.

In the light of this, it is not easy to understand the repeated expressions of outrage by administration spokesmen about European doubts with respect to the continued validity of our nuclear guarantee. For the rationale of the new strategy is precisely that the traditional NATO doctrine has lost some of its validity. Why else did the Kennedy-Macmillan Nassau communiqué reverse the original significance of sword and shield, calling the nuclear weapons the "shield" and the conventional weapons the "sword"? It is not easy to see what other interpretation can be made of the following statement by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Alain C. Enthoven on February 10: "... We will have no sensible alternative to building up our conventional forces to the point at which they can safely resist all forms of non-nuclear aggression. Our forces will be adequate if we can never be forced because of weak-

ness to be the first to have to resort to nuclear weapons." Though neither the doctrine of "flexible response" nor the build-up of conventional forces need have produced the present crisis of confidence, they have been so handled as to produce that result.

## II. Second Thoughts
### On Flexible Response

One of the most important efforts of the Kennedy administration has been to subject military strategy—and particularly nuclear weapons—to political control not only before hostilities but during military operations as well. The previous notion had been that if deterrence failed there was no logical stopping place.

The Kennedy administration has rightly insisted that when the lives of tens of millions are at stake, military operations cannot be left to their own momentum. It has sought by various devices to ensure that strategy would remain at the service of policy even during hostilities. "... We are now arranging our forces, and making our strategic plans," said the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, McGeorge Bundy, on February 16, "on such a basis that even if ... there should be some nuclear exchange, we might be able to make such choices of action that it would still be deeply in the interest of the other side to refrain from further attack."

The important objective of flexible response has, however, been pushed by the Defense Department and in our NATO policy to such extreme and one-sided conclusions that it threatens the cohesion of the Western Alliance. In the process, it has become identified with another strategic notion—that of controlled-counterforce general war. This theory is the product of a series of studies conducted at the RAND Corporation during the 1950's under the direction of Albert Wohlstetter. Wohlstetter and his colleagues effectively argued that there was nothing automatic about the nuclear stalemate. On the contrary, the balance of terror was "delicate," depending on such factors as the vulnerability of the bases of the retaliatory force,

March 28, 1963

23

the relative state of active and passive defense, and the ability to reach enemy targets.

Nuclear superiority was a meaningful concept even in the age of nuclear plenty. A general war could be won or lost by the destruction of the opposing retaliatory force. This goal would be significant even if we suffered a surprise attack. In that case, by destroying the weapons earmarked for a second attack we could reduce damage and greatly improve our bargaining position.

This subtle theory has been accepted almost completely by Secretary McNamara—and not by accident. For many of his key advisers are RAND “alumni” and had helped work out the Wohlstetter doctrine.

By October, 1961, Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell L. Gilpatric asserted that we possessed nuclear superiority. In January, 1962, Secretary McNamara spelled this out to the Senate Armed Services Committee: “We conclude there is no question but that today our strategic retaliatory forces—bombers, missiles, and Polaris—are fully capable of destroying the Soviet target system even after absorbing an initial nuclear surprise attack . . . and without any help from the deployed tactical air units or carrier task forces which, of course, have the capability for attacking those targets with nuclear weapons.”

This statement had two implications: (1) it was possible to win a general war even by striking second; (2) nuclear weapons deployed overseas were not essential to our strategy. The skepticism toward nuclear weapons deployed overseas extended to tactical nuclear weapons as well. “I, for one, have never believed in a so-called limited nuclear war,” said Mr. Gilpatric. “I just don’t know how you build a limit into it once you start using any kind of nuclear bang.”

WITH ANY nuclear war likely to be all-out, what was the U.S. strategy for such a conflict? “Our forces can be used in several different ways,” said Secretary McNamara early in 1962. “We may have to retaliate with a single massive attack. Or we may be able to use our retaliatory force to limit damage to ourselves before [the enemy] have

launched his second salvos. We may seek to terminate a war on favorable terms by using our force as a bargaining weapon—by threatening further attack . . .” These pronouncements culminated in Secretary McNamara’s famous speech at Ann Arbor in June, 1962, where he declared that “to the extent feasible, basic military strategy in a possible general nuclear war should be approached in much the same way that more conventional military operations have been conducted in the past. That is to say, principal military objectives . . . should be the destruction of the enemy’s military forces, not of his civilian population.”

To pursue this strategy, all nuclear weapons of the Alliance had to be under tight control, indeed under a single command, which in effect meant U.S. command. “. . . We have consistently stressed the importance of a single, integrated strategic nuclear force responsive to a single chain of command, to be employed in a fully integrated manner against what is truly an indivisible target system,” Secretary McNamara reported to the House Armed Services Committee on January 30, 1963.

The McNamara doctrine, for all its subtlety, contained many ambiguities. For example, Secretary

McNamara has never clarified which he considered more important: the attempt to spare cities or the effort to destroy the Soviet retaliatory force. He could mean that in case of general nuclear war we would attempt to spare cities but would destroy known strategic bases located near them. Or else he could have in mind that we would avoid hitting even military targets if attacking them involved a probability of heavy civilian casualties.

If the first interpretation is accepted, the practical difference between the McNamara strategy and

the traditional notions of massive retaliation may be relatively slight, for it is likely that many Soviet strategic bases are located close to nearby populated cities. At the same time, a Soviet disarming attack would have to seek to destroy all airports capable of handling strategic bombers, including civilian airports. Vast civilian casualties would therefore be inevitable. This in turn is bound to affect our own choice of targets.

If, on the other hand, the McNamara doctrine implies that we would spare Soviet cities in all circumstances provided that the Soviets do likewise, a nuclear stalemate is the likely consequence. If the Soviets spare our cities, they will not be able to destroy our retaliatory force. If we spare Soviet cities, a great part of their force may survive.

THE MOST PLAUSIBLE interpretation of the McNamara theory, then, is that the need to disarm the opponent will transcend the incentive to spare cities. However, during the 1960's, the reliability of even such a notion of counterforce strategy is certain to decline. As the retaliatory forces multiply and become more dispersed, it will grow increasingly difficult to pinpoint the targets precisely or to give the President enough confidence that their exact location is known, which amounts to the same thing.

Moreover, as missile systems become more diversified and sophisticated, some will be hardened as underground installations, some will be mobile on land, others at sea. This will enormously complicate the problem of co-ordinating an attack.

Thus, even if the proportion of the Soviet retaliatory force we were able to destroy were to remain constant—an unwarrantedly optimistic assumption—the absolute number remaining is bound to increase. Whatever its technical feasibility, there are bound to be increasing political and psychological obstacles to a strategy that is based on frag mental intelligence and that depends on large numbers of weapons for which there is no operational experience in wartime.

Moreover, the early formulations of the McNamara doctrine had the curious consequence of casting into

24

THE REPORTER

LC

doubt our nuclear commitment to NATO—particularly among those Europeans who accepted Mr. McNamara's assurances of our strategic superiority. If our nuclear superiority was as overwhelming as Secretaries McNamara and Gilpatric maintained, the traditional doctrine of the nuclear "sword" and the conventional "shield" would continue to be effective. The Soviet Union would be deterred from a massive attack on Europe, for this would trigger a decisive blow by the U.S. strategic forces. The Soviet Union could not escape this dilemma by means of a simultaneous attack on the United States, for—by Secretary McNamara's hypothesis—this would still lead to the destruction of the entire Soviet target system. If, nevertheless, we reversed the definitions of the "sword" and the "shield," the implication that we were reluctant to use our nuclear superiority in the face of a massive Soviet attack on Europe was, to say the least, conceivable. Our ambivalence about the significance of our proclaimed nuclear superiority was a major factor in creating confusion about our purposes.

The awareness of those ambiguities, both technical and political, has led Secretary McNamara to reformulate his counterforce theory. In his statement to the House Armed Services Committee on January 30, he emphasized that even under conditions of controlled response, a general nuclear war would still produce casualties numbered in the tens of millions. This was because "even if we were to double or triple our forces we would not be able to destroy quickly all or almost all of the hardened ICBM sites. And even if we could do that, we know no way to destroy the enemy's missile-launching submarines at the same time." Secretary McNamara went on to say that our strategic forces were designed to destroy virtually all of the soft and semi-hard military targets in the Soviet Union and a portion of the hardened sites. No significant capability for destroying missile-carrying submarines would be developed.

With respect to other NATO nuclear forces, Secretary McNamara emphasized that they would have to be integrated into a single command

with ours in order to make possible an instant response. The President reiterated these requirements in his press conference of February 14 and added that the decision to retaliate might have to be made in five minutes.

The new version of the McNamara strategy has removed some of the previous ambiguities, but it has raised a host of new ones. For it is not clear now just what the purpose of our retaliation is to be. Secretary McNamara mentions only one "scenario" for general nuclear war. This, significantly, is not a full-scale attack on Europe, but a nuclear attack on the United States.

Given the disparity in the size of strategic forces between the Soviet Union and the United States, it is hard to see what would induce even a rash Soviet planner into so reckless a course. According to Secretary McNamara's testimony of January 30, our capability after absorbing a first blow should be sufficient "to strike back first at the Soviet bomber bases, missile sites, and other military installations associated with their long-range nuclear forces to reduce the power of any follow-on attack—and then if necessary, strike back at the Soviet urban and industrial complex in a controlled and deliberate way."

A U.S. strategic force that can absorb a Soviet surprise attack, strike back at Soviet military targets, and still be sufficiently strong to attack urban centers in a deliberate way must be enormously superior to the Soviets'. Moreover, most of our ICBMs will be in hardened sites and the Polaris will be mobile at sea. It is almost impossible to imagine circumstances in which the Soviets would launch an all-out attack on such a force. It is not conceivable that the Soviets will act with reckless foolishness; but it is not wise to base all of U.S. and NATO strategy on what might easily be a very special contingency.

But assuming the unlikely eventuality of a Soviet first strike against the United States, Secretary McNamara's latest testimony leaves the targets of our retaliatory blow far from obvious. He has emphasized that we could not destroy many of the hardened Soviet sites and prac-

tically none of the missile-carrying submarines. Presumably, however, the Soviets would have launched their missiles from the soft sites in their first attack. This would leave empty airbases for our retaliatory "counterforce" blow—and airplanes will not for long constitute a major portion of the Soviet retaliatory force.

Moreover, Secretary McNamara implies that because we are numerically superior and therefore in a position to spare Soviet cities, the Soviets will have what he calls an "incentive" to spare ours. Of course, Soviet military theorists have consistently denied the possibility of the kind of war outlined by Secretary McNamara. This would not be decisive were it not in accord with the realities of the strategic equation. For a war of attrition, even if it were technically feasible, cannot be in the interest of the weaker side. As we reduced the Soviet retaliatory force, the sensible strategy for the Soviets would be to begin attacking our cities, perhaps "controlling" their response by destroying some smaller towns first. To be sure, we could retaliate in kind. But whatever the significance of the notion of superiority in a war confined to military targets, there can be little doubt that a saturation point is soon reached when civilian populations become the objective./

This is why our allies have been so unenthusiastic about Secretary McNamara's argument that national nuclear forces are dangerous because they are unsuitable for discriminating targeting. As he has frequently pointed out, the Soviet delivery vehicles aimed at Europe far exceed in number those deployed against the United States. He has also emphasized that even a "controlled" nuclear war would produce far greater casualties in Europe than in the United States—in other words, casualties exceeding the tens of millions estimated for North America. In these conditions, the prospect of "controlling" general war cannot be an incentive to the Europeans to give up their own nuclear programs; the contrary is likely to be the case.

In short, what started out as a quest for maximum flexibility has produced a new form of rigidity. We have polarized options between con-

March 28, 1963

25

ventional war and a kind of general war that with every passing year will acquire the very characteristics of uncontrollable massiveness we have tried to avoid.

The McNamara doctrine in fact confuses the highly desirable objective of invulnerability and effective political control with a strategy that has as its chief objective the destruction of the opposing retaliatory force. If both sides achieve the kind of invulnerability that Secretary McNamara has postulated, the counterforce strategy envisaged in our public pronouncements will become less and less reliable. In such circumstances, Secretary McNamara's "scenario" is much too one-dimensional. With a well-protected force, there should be much more time available than the five minutes mentioned by the President to respond to Soviet moves. Quick time of delivery should not be confused with hair-trigger response. On the contrary, it is to our interest-apart from considerations of Alliance policy-to give policymakers the maximum amount of time for considering their response. Political control over nuclear weapons does not require U.S. hegemony over all nuclear weapons within the Alliance.

A rich country like ours may be able to afford protection against even remote contingencies. If there is even a small possibility of saving millions of lives, it should be taken. But it is one thing to develop an option for controlled general war; it is quite another to subordinate all our NATO policy to preparation for this contingency.

The insistence on a single nuclear force under U.S. control for the entire Alliance has come to appear as a U.S. effort to dictate not only allied strategy once war has started but also the decision of when and where to fight a nuclear war. The tendency to treat the members of the Alliance as subsidiaries of a large corporation has turned interallied dialogue into a shrill debate over abstractions. Our quest for technical options-reflecting the subordination of the State Department to the Defense Department-has limited the range of our political choices. This is why the new strategy has led to what is probably the most serious crisis in NATO's history.

### III. The Case for National Nuclear Forces

The nature of the crisis is underlined by the inability of the two sides to agree on what really is in dispute. We have called national nuclear forces-particularly the French effort-divisive, inimical to the West, based on distrust of the United States, and prone to obsolescence. It has been said that the French nuclear program is based on a rejection of the interdependence of the Atlantic Community.

The French have not helped matters by pressing their own arguments with a kind of Cartesian rationalism that sometimes threatens to turn valid arguments into parodies. It is one thing to argue the undeniable fact that in the age of nuclear plenty the old notions of nuclear protection must be modified and that a redistribution of responsibilities on nuclear matters is required. It is quite another to insist that this ends all possibility of one country's coming to the assistance of another. Both sides have had a tendency to set up straw men for debating purposes: the French, the bogy of our complete unreliability; the United States, the futility of the French quest for complete self-sufficiency. In demonstrating that France-or Great Britain-cannot win a nuclear war by itself, we have neglected to examine the more sensible arguments on behalf of European nuclear power. And we have shown little understanding of the political and psychological mo-

enhances the credibility of the response but also lowers the risks of the aggressor to an acceptable level.

Few Europeans agree with our judgment about the feasibility of a purely conventional defense. Most of them believe that a great gap in conventional power exists and that we have adjusted our intelligence estimates to fit our strategic preference. Their judgment may be mistaken, but we must remember that we have no advantage in experience over the Europeans in the analysis of conventional war.

In any event, Europeans have too many memories of the defeat of supposedly adequate conventional forces not to ask what happens if our assessment turns out to be mistaken. Even those who favor as a more modest goal a "pause" before nuclear weapons are used-and they are not in a majority-must be concerned about the options available at the end of that pause.

But the acceptance of our goal of non-nuclear defense and the theory behind it still does not remove all pressures for the development of European nuclear strength. Europeans are bound to want to have a share in determining their fate if the Soviets do not follow the strategy preferred by the United States. What if the Soviets use nuclear weapons on Europe only? Even more, what if they use them on Europe in the controlled, flexible way recommended by Secretary McNamara? It is a great deal to ask of the Europeans to concentrate all their military efforts on weapons that can be overcome by the introduction of nuclear arms while the United States reserves control over the weapons at any level of conflict that is not purely conventional. Such a situation would be made to order for Soviet "nuclear blackmail."

WORDS like "nuclear interdependence" should not obscure the fact that there is an inevitable difference of perspective between ourselves and some of our allies. If the NATO area is looked on as a unit, a strategy that exposes a limited territory to the fluctuations of conventional combat may seem eminently

tives behind the French and British nuclear programs.

Our new strategic doctrine, for all its subtlety, does confront our allies with serious dilemmas. It is difficult to decide at what point the effort to develop a tolerable strategy not only

26

THE REPORTER

sensible. To the allies on whose
territory such a war would be fought,
however, a Soviet penetration of
even a hundred miles might well
spell the end of their national ex-
istence. They have compelling in-
centive to strive for a strategy that
poses the threat of maximum devas-
tation for the Soviets. Europeans are
almost inevitably more concerned
with deterrence than with defense.
They will prefer a strategy that
seems to magnify the risks of the ag-
gressor rather than reduce the losses
of the defender.

Of course an improvement in NATO's conventional capability is desirable. But as in the nuclear field, we have pushed valid arguments to such extremes as to defeat our objective. The notion of a purely conventional defense of Europe goes much further than arguing for an improved capability to resist Soviet local pressures. It has the paradoxical consequence of removing the incentive for a conventional build-up as well as raising the nuclear issue in an acute form.

In this context, such statements as
Under Secretary Ball's to the NATO
parliamentarians last November are
extraordinarily double-edged. Secre-
tary Ball argued that the Cuban
crisis proved the importance of
superiority in conventional weapons.
It was fortunate that the Cuban
crisis occurred in an area of over-
whelming U.S. conventional superi-
ority. But most Europeans are
convinced that in Europe the reverse
relationship obtains. They tend to
draw two lessons from the Cuban
episode: that they were faced with
nuclear war without being consulted
and that a settlement was made by
the two nuclear powers without the
participation of Cuba—the country
which was most concerned but which
possessed conventional weapons only.

The incentive for nuclear forces
thus cannot be assessed entirely in
terms of military operations. The
issue of peace and war does not arise
in terms of either-or. There are
many intermediate stages where a
country's bargaining position de-
pends on the risks to which it can
expose an aggressor. To some of our
European allies it appears that even
a small nuclear force is more effec-
tive for this bargaining purpose
than a few more divisions, whose

effectiveness in every case depends
entirely on a solid allied front, thus
in effect giving a veto to the least
resolute ally.

During the Berlin crisis it was
often said that since the United
States has the entire responsibility

for nuclear defense, we would re-
serve the right to negotiate even
without the consent of our allies.
(President Kennedy made this quite
clear, for example, in his press con-
ference of May 9, 1962). And last
October, McGeorge Bundy wrote:
"Outside the nuclear field, in which
mutual understanding must include
the present fact of our special respon-
sibility, our claims upon our allies
can be entrusted to the formula of
reciprocity." In these terms, our
allies have an incentive to develop
national nuclear forces not only to
bargain with the Soviet Union but
also to gain a greater influence over
our actions.

Since the chief impetus for the
European nuclear programs derives
from intangibles of political and
psychological influence, it is im-
mature to turn the issue into a per-
sonal debate about the integrity of
the assurances of a particular Presi-
dent. For the Europeans to forgo
national nuclear programs would be
to resign forever from a realm of tech-
nology on which their future security
and indeed their economic welfare
will depend to a greater or lesser
extent. It would mean entrusting
their fate not to this President but
to all future Presidents, and not only
on clear-cut issues of war and peace
but with respect to every nuance of
policy. In effect, this would trans-

form Europe from a partner into a
satellite.

Apart from the moral issue this
raises, Europe has had too many
recent proofs of the inability of one
President to commit another not to
want some means of determining
its own fate. The change in emphasis
in U.S. strategic thinking over the
past two years, the preeminent way
in which we canceled Skybolt, with-
drew the Jupiter bases, and altered
the strategic doctrine of NATO, in-
dicates that no President can pos-
sibly predict the judgments of his
successors in an age of extraordinar-
ily volatile technology.

BUT THE PROBLEM goes deeper still.
Europeans, living on a continent
covered with ruins testifying to the
fallibility of human foresight, feel
in their bones that history is more
complicated than systems analysis.
They have had too much experience
with the nuances of interpretation
that are possible with all formal
commitments. They know that in
this century no person, however
wise, could have predicted at the
beginning of any decade what the
world would be like at its end. They
do not believe that they must be
able to describe the exact circum-
stances in which they might have to
rely on their nuclear forces in order
to wish to reserve some degree of
control over their destiny.

Our frequently expressed outrage
at the seeming European doubt
about the reliability of our nuclear
guarantee has blinded us to the fact
that we have in effect accused our
allies of being too irresponsible to
be entrusted with the ultimate
means for their protection. The
asymmetry—to use a favorite word
of the new strategic analysis—be-
tween the two kinds of distrust is
pronounced. For if the Europeans
are wrong, the chief penalty is a
certain duplication of effort; while
if they are right, our policy would
seal their fate.

Our arguments that we oppose
European nuclear efforts because
they are useless tend to be overdone
even on the purely technical plane.
A few hundred British and a few
score French delivery vehicles can-
not be without some impact on So-
viet calculations. The Soviets cannot
launch a pre-emptive attack against

March 28, 1963

27

these forces even if their bases are vulnerable. As long as the NATO guarantee retains any validity, such an attack would involve an immense risk of U.S. retaliation—as the President pointed out with respect to the NATO nuclear force in his press conference of March 6. And in launching other forms of attack the Soviets must surely consider whether the objective is worth the very large—even if not decisive—casualties that could be inflicted by the British and French retaliatory forces. The real basis of our opposition to national nuclear forces, then, is not so much their ineffectiveness as the fact that we do not want to be drawn into nuclear war against our will.

Of course this concern casts a curious light on our frequently repeated assertions that no difference in the conceptions of vital interests between us and Europe is possible. Above all, the fear that France and Great Britain may prove more reckless than we can only be based on a misunderstanding. They must know—perhaps better than we—that using their forces independently would be a desperate last resort, though we can hardly expect them to advertise this fact. Whatever they may say now, they will learn that they must think of their nuclear forces much as Sweden and Switzerland think of their armies. Neither country is able to withstand a full-scale attack by a major power. Both would prefer allies in such a case. Their military forces do give them the possibility of posing risks that an aggressor may consider out of proportion to the objectives to be achieved. And they may gain time for allied assistance to be effective.

The frequent insinuations that those of our allies developing nuclear programs prefer to do without the Alliance are the result of a grave misapprehension. Taking out fire insurance does not indicate a liking for fires. On the contrary, it may prevent a remote contingency from turning into an obsession and thus free energies for more constructive tasks.

WE THUS REACH the heart of the issue raised by European nuclear forces. Does the interdependence of the Atlantic area have to be

vindicated by a structure in which only one ally possesses the physical ability to engage in nuclear war? Is the test of Atlantic partnership really a "single strategic force" integrated into a "single chain of command," as Secretary McNamara asserts? Or is it possible to have several centers of decision co-ordinated politically so that their power serves a common end?

After all, one of two things is likely to happen with respect to European nuclear power: either our allies will realize the importance of coordinating their forces with ours,

or they will assume the major burden of their own defense, which is what we have always said we wanted. All considerations of technology, strategy, and policy indicate that the former is by far the more likely outcome. Our allies—if they understand their own interests—will always prefer the assistance of our enormous nuclear arsenal. This has been our experience with Great Britain. It is likely to be our experience with France, if we ever get away from scholastic arguments over the relative merits of "integration" and "coordination" and face practical issues of how to relate a French nuclear force to the common defense.

A policy of confidence in our European allies is all the more necessary because the range of our control over events is extremely limited. A British strategic force exists. A French nuclear program has been in operation for nearly a decade. Attempts to atrophy them are liable to

lead to the most extreme formulations of strategic doctrine and to the most dangerous, because vulnerable, strategic design. Or else, if we succeed, we may well discredit not a particular defense policy but all attempts to assume responsibility for national defense. Then we will have brought about the kind of Third Force that should really worry us: one based on the resentments of the impotent and relying on the manipulations of the irresponsible. Not everyone who gives us no trouble will give us support. This is illustrated by the contrasting behavior of President de Gaulle and Premier Fanfani during the Cuban crisis. The former backed us without reservation; the latter adopted an essentially noncommittal policy.

To be sure, many of the formulations on behalf of European nuclear forces have been extreme and one-sided. A rudimentary technology has produced an often crude strategic doctrine. But these theories are subject to the same evolutionary process as they have been in the United States. We should not judge a mature European program by its beginnings—which, moreover, are needlessly protracted by our opposition.

So far, we have indicated a preference for continued hegemony. Terms like "multilateralism" and "interdependence" have hidden the reality of an attempt to maintain undivided physical control—which in terms of our strategic doctrine has to mean U.S. control. Given European pressures in the opposite direction, this policy has forced us to adopt remedies more dangerous than the ill they have sought to cure. We have purchased brief respites in allied disputes by mortgaging the future. Almost every program that we have advanced in the name of our notion of multilateralism has had the practical consequence of accentuating rather than ameliorating NATO's nuclear dilemma, and therefore it has undetermined the long-term political stability of the Atlantic Alliance.

28

THE REPORTER

[L]

# IV. Proposed United States Remedies: The Creation of a Multilateral Force

The administration has adopted three policies in pursuit of its goal of a single, centrally controlled nuclear force for the Alliance.

(a) It has indicated increasing willingness to permit Europeans to share in the targeting of our strategic forces, which remain almost entirely under our exclusive control.

(b) It has "assigned" nuclear submarines to NATO subject to agreed NATO guidelines.

(c) It has pushed—ambivalently and with various degrees of intensity—the creation of a NATO multilateral force.

Of these steps, the first is constructive even if it does not go to the heart of the problem. It is no doubt highly desirable for Europeans to know of the targeting of our strategic forces and to participate in planning. Joint targeting does not, however, alter the United States monopoly position. To some extent, it meets the interests of all allies in a common war plan. It does not solve the far more important problem of political control, specifically the decision to enter nuclear war.

As for the assignment of Polaris submarines to NATO, this measure was first announced by President Kennedy in Ottawa in May, 1961. It was then repeated with considerable dramatic effect by Secretary McNamara at the NATO ministerial meeting in Athens last year. At that time, it was stated that five Polaris submarines had been "assigned" to NATO, with more to come. In his report to the House Armed Services Committee on January 30, 1963, Secretary McNamara pointed out that we had "earmarked a fully operational Polaris force to the NATO Command."

However, it is important to understand what this "earmarking" consists of. All forces in NATO are national forces. The line of command of U.S. forces runs from Washington through the appropriate U.S. headquarters. NATO headquarters are planning outfits that control forces "assigned" to them only during specified maneuvers or in war. Each

ally, of course, retains the right to go to war according to its own constitutional processes.

With respect to Polaris forces, the line of command runs from Washington to the U.S. Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic. The same admiral is also NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic.

The practical effect of the "assignment" of Polaris to NATO is that the admiral involved can give orders in his capacity as NATO commander to himself in his capacity as United States commander. Whatever hat the admiral wears, the President continues in ultimate control of our Polaris force. Our veto remains ab-

solute. The influence of our allies over the targeting and planning of this force is not noticeably greater than over those strategic forces which remain under exclusive U.S. control—particularly if Europeans can participate in the targeting of the latter. In other words, the "assignment" of the Polaris force to NATO is largely symbolic.

In fact, the influence of our European allies on nuclear strategy has actually diminished with respect to the three Polaris submarines "assigned" to the Mediterranean to replace the Jupiter missiles in Italy and Turkey. The Jupiter missiles were subject to the double-veto system; that is to say, Italy and Turkey had to agree before the Jupiters could be fired. The only influence Italy and Turkey will have over the Polaris submarines in the Mediterranean is through NATO guidelines, if these can be agreed upon.

The notion of guidelines presents serious problems of its own. Are they to be conceived as a kind of contingency plan for the employment of nuclear weapons, provided the governments concerned agree to implement these plans? Or are they to be considered a delegation of authority to use nuclear weapons in certain specified contingencies without further reference to political authority?

If guidelines are to be interpreted in the former sense—as a form of contingency war plan—they are another version of the joint targeting previously described. But in that case it is not clear why a formal assignment to NATO was necessary or how the NATO-committed Polaris forces are to be distinguished from our other strategic forces.

If, on the other hand, the guidelines are to determine not the targets but the circumstances in which nuclear weapons are to be used, serious problems would arise. A guideline so conceived not only includes; it also excludes. It defines not only when nuclear weapons are to be employed but also the circumstances when they will not be used. It is possible that the only contingency in which all the allies would agree in advance is a massive Soviet nuclear attack on Europe—the circumstances about which there is likely to be least doubt and where the seeming need for prior specification may only magnify uncertainties. In short, if the guidelines are too vague, they may multiply concerns; if an attempt is made to be too specific, they will magnify divisions.

Whatever else the guidelines may accomplish, they will not affect the United States veto or, for that matter, the right of any of the other allies to determine whether the circumstances to which the guideline refers have in fact arisen. At the same time, predelegation of authority to use nuclear weapons either to the secretary-general of NATO or to some allied commander or to both acting in concert—as has sometimes been suggested—would represent an unprecedented abdication of Constitutional responsibilities. It is difficult to see any President or Prime Minister agreeing to this step. If it were taken, it is certain that the predelegation of authority would be con-

March 28, 1963

29

fined to the most obvious and
unambiguous cases of nuclear aggres-
sion, raising uncertainties about the
ambiguous cases that have caused
much greater worries. In short, guide-
lines have the uses and limitations
of joint targeting; they are only a
small step in the direction of solving
NATO'S nuclear dilemma.

T
Hese considerations come to a
particular focus with respect to
the keystone of our nAto nuclear
policy: the nAto multilateral force
composed of mixed crews. This pro-
posal has had a checkered history. It
was first advanced for study by for-
mer Secretary of State Christian
Herter in December, 1960. It was
then cold-shouldered in the first few
months of the Kennedy administra-
tion. Then in May, 1961, at Ottawa,
President Kennedy announced a
willingness to consider "a nAto sea-
borne missile force, which would be
truly multilateral in ownership and
control..." Our European allies
were invited to make proposals to
this end.

Given the fact that none of our
allies possessed sea-borne nuclear
systems and that a command and
control system even for a national
force is not a simple matter, the
probability that our allies would
come up with a meaningful control
system was not great. Indeed, many
believed that the problem would be
recognized as insoluble. Our allies
were then expected to ask the Presi-
dent to act as executive agent of the
Alliance with respect to nuclear
weapons.

When this did not happen, the
United States a year later again of-
fered to consider a nAto nuclear
force, provided our allies first built
up their conventional forces and
came up with an acceptable control
system. Since the control problem
had not become any easier and since
most of our allies were dubious
about the need for the kind of con-
ventional build-up we were propos-
ing, it was not clear whether our
proposal was put forward in order
to be accepted or to be rejected.

Three months later, in September,
1962, McGeorge Bundy spoke in
terms of a multilateral *European*
force: "It... would be wrong to sup-
pose that the reluctance which we
feel with respect to individual, in-

effective, and antiquated forces
would be extended automatically to
a European force, genuinely unified
and multilateral, and effectively in-
tegrated with our own necessarily
predominant strength in the whole
nuclear defense of the Alliance."
This speech said nothing about what
we understood by "multilateral,"
"integrated," or "unified."

Two months later, Under Secre-
tary of State George Ball returned
to the theme of a nAto force. He
argued that we thought "a European
nuclear contribution" to nAto mili-
tarily unnecessary. However, "should
other nAto nations so desire, we are
ready to give serious consideration
to the creation of a genuinely multi-
lateral Medium-Range Ballistic Mis-
sile force fully co-ordinated with the
other deterrent forces in the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization."

At the regular NATO ministerial
conference in December, 1962, noth-
ing was done about the creation of
a NATO multilateral force. A week
later, on December 21, President
Kennedy and Prime Minister Mac-
millan signed the Nassau Agreement,
which provided for two multilateral
forces: one that would absorb the
strategic forces of Great Britain and
France together with a United States
contribution of nationally owned
submarines; another in which the
non-nuclear countries of NATO would
create a truly multilateral Polaris
force, which was later explained to
mean that it would be jointly fi-
nanced, owned, planned, manned,
and operated.

Nothing was said about how either
multilateral force was to be con-
trolled, deployed, or targeted. On
January 10, prior to President de
Gaulle's press conference, Under
Secretary Ball was back in Paris to
explain to the nAto Council that the
multilateral nAto force that he
had declared militarily unnecessary
in November was now a high prior-
ity goal of the Kennedy administra-

tion. Indeed, he was reported to have
suggested that the United States
was ready to begin training subma-
rine crews of mixed national com-
position immediately.

This sequence of events is impor-
tant to keep in mind because it
might well have led even political
leaders less suspicious of U.S. mo-
tives than President de Gaulle to
doubt whether we really had a
"grand design" or whether we were
not simply offering palliatives to
perpetuate our hegemony.

In any event, after President de
Gaulle's press conference, the multi-
lateral force composed of the pre-
ently non-nuclear powers was pushed
energetically. "Informed sources"
were quoted as having said that we
would create a force so strong that
the Federal Republic of Germany in
particular would see that the advan-
tages of our notion of multilateral-
ism far exceeded any benefits to be
gained by association with France.

In order to thwart French nuclear
pretensions, we proposed to create
a counterweight by bringing some
of the non-nuclear European coun-
tries into the nuclear field. The al-
ready difficult issue of multilateral
control has thus become further com-
plicated because we have made mem-
bership in the "mixed" force a test
of Atlantic solidarity. Livingston
Merchant was appointed to carry out
the negotiations to bring this force
into being.

SINCE THEN, the U.S. position has
continued to shift. We have re-
cently indicated that surface ships are
a better solution than submarines.
Secretary McNamara and President
Kennedy have spoken of both a Eu-
ropean and a NATO multilateral
force. But the practical requirements
they impose make the distinction
elusive. They agree that any NATO
force must be "integrated" with our
strategic forces; there must be a single
chain of command and a single fin-
ger on the trigger. In the light of
Secretary McNamara's strategic the-
ories, this must mean that either a
European or a NATO nuclear force
has to be under ultimate U.S. com-
mand. "The American representa-
tives also will make it clear," the
New York Times reported on Febru-
ary 27, "that there will be only one
finger on the trigger of any nuclear

30

THE REPORTER

force established by NATO. It will be
that of the President of the United
States."

In giving multilateralism this defi-
nition, we are trying to defend At-
lantic solidarity on an issue and with
a solution certain to magnify allied
disagreements in the long run. The
valid and important concept of inter-
dependence can only be discredited
by association with schemes that de-
prive our allies of the physical possi-
bility of independent action while
we reserve this right for ourselves.
U.S. dominance in the nuclear field
may be a desirable solution from our
point of view—though it is apt to
prove shortsighted. But we should
not call such an arrangement a part-
nership, and we must recognize that
it will generate rather than alleviate
pressures for change.

At the moment, the political con-
stellation of Europe prohibits an
articulation of this problem, perhaps
even its clear recognition. Great
Britain, though in practice striving
to retain a nuclear independence
very similar to France's, cannot af-
ford any further controversy. Never-
theless, the much-heralded "assign-
ment" of the British V-bomber force
to NATO has had the same signifi-
cance as our previous "earmarking"
of Polaris submarines. It was a sym-
bolic act that did not diminish
British control. It is not clear wheth-
er the assignment of national forces
represents the total British contribu-
tion to NATO's nuclear arsenal. But
Britain's national program can
leave resources for only a token con-
tribution to the multilateral force
composed of mixed crews.

As for the other allies, West Ger-
many has seen in agreement to a
multilateral NATO force of mixed
crews an opportunity to reassure us
about Atlantic solidarity and to
enter the nuclear field. The other
European countries that have agreed
to participate—at last report Italy,
Belgium, and, perhaps, the Nether-
lands—are more likely to do so to
keep an eye on Germany than be-
cause of strategic convictions.

Indeed, any reflection about the
structure of the multilateral force
composed of mixed crews gives us as
much reason to worry about the
allies that agree to join as about
those who refuse. For one thing, the
requirement of mixed manning is

a symptom of distrust, since the chief
reason is to prevent any national
government from withdrawing part
of the force. Is every national con-
tingent to receive separate instruc-
tions before the missiles can be fired?

No wonder nearly all the military
commanders, U.S. as well as allied,
regard mixed manning with extreme
distaste.

Apart from the problem of what
may be termed control by the threat
of mutiny, it is difficult to see just
what would be achieved by the pro-
posed force. According to Secretary
McNamara's testimony, it cannot be
used independently of our much
larger forces. In any event we would
presumably keep control over the
nuclear warheads of the NATO mul-
tilateral force—according to the
McMahon Act, we would have no
other choice. Even if the law were
changed with respect to the physical
control over warheads, the problem
of the veto would remain.

If we retain the veto, one of two
things would happen. If we decided
to engage in nuclear war and our
allies refused, we would use the
Strategic Air Command and our en-
tire Polaris force, including that part
of it "assigned" to NATO. If the situ-
ation were reversed—that is, if our
allies wished to use nuclear weapons
and we disagreed—neither the NATO
force nor SAC could operate.

CAN WE GIVE UP the veto? It is not
easy to see how a country can
abdicate so fateful a decision to a
majority vote of allies, no matter
how close. The Constitutional issue
would surely be formidable.

Moreover, what would giving up
the veto commit us to? Does it
mean that we would not obstruct the
utilization of the NATO force in

which we participate? In terms of
Secretary McNamara's testimony, this
partial employment of nuclear power
is what must in all circumstances be
avoided. In any event, it is difficult
to imagine making a commitment to

go to nuclear war indirectly and
with only the smallest part of our
forces.

But if we agree to go to war with
our entire nuclear arsenal, what is
the point of creating a NATO force?
Then it would be wiser to create a
political control body for the Alli-
ance as a whole and agree to go to
war on the basis of whatever ma-
jority vote seems indicated. (Such a
commitment would probably still
not meet the need. Even under exist-
ing arrangements, we could refuse to
aid our allies if we are reluctant to
honor our NATO commitments, and
that situation would not change
under the new scheme.)

It has also been reported that
the United States is willing to ac-
cept a European commander for the
proposed multilateral force. But this
is either a palliative or a source of
concern. If political control is effec-
tive, the veto will remain regardless
of the nationality of the com-
mander. If political control is
not reliable, we would be in a posi-
tion of showing more confidence in
a European military man than in
the constitutionally established lead-
ership. Unauthorized use is likely to
be a particular problem in an or-
ganization deliberately constructed
so that its members can have no
primary allegiance to any of the
established political entities.

WHAT OF the argument that the
proposed NATO force could in
time be transformed into a European
force if our allies request it? We

March 28, 1963

31

have repeatedly hinted at our ill-
ingness to consider this prospect.
However, there are two major ob-
stacles. The first is our strategic doc-
trine. Our insistence on a unified
command, a single target system, and
the need for instant response is as
inconsistent with a separate Euro-
pean force as with national forces.

Even if we are prepared to change
our strategic doctrine, serious prob-
lems would remain. The only way a
NATO force as now conceived could
be transformed into a European one
would be for our allies to ask us to
withdraw from it. This would de-
feat the prime purpose of many of
the smaller countries in joining the
force: to demonstrate Atlantic soli-
darity. Such a step, even if it were
politically feasible, is much more
likely to accentuate allied divisions
than beginning with an explicitly
European program. Moreover, as
long as France is not part of a NATO
force and Britain's contribution is
token only, any attempt to turn it
into a European force will raise
the specter of German domination
and thus create powerful antago-
nisms in other European countries.

It can be argued, of course, that
the fear of German domination will
make Britain and France more eager
to join the multilateral force. This
is doubtful. But even if it were cor-
rect, such a process of arriving at a
European force would be extremely
worrisome. It would be better for
the long-term stability and cohesive-
ness of Europe if West Germany
joined a Franco-British program
than for Britain and France to be
obliged to seek membership in a
grouping of which Germany is the
senior European partner. History
has been altered by smaller nuances.

This suggests the need to re-
examine another of the assumptions
behind our advocacy of the NATO
force. The NATO force is often said
to be a device to avoid the issue of
nuclear weapons in German hands.
The contrary is likely to be the case.
The multilateral force as now con-
ceived may wind up by frustrating
every member. If West Germany is
seriously interested in acquiring
strategic weapons, the multilateral
force is apt to prove only an interim
step and may turn out to be the
easiest way of getting Germany into
the nuclear business. The danger in

the multilateral force is that those
who want effective control over their
nuclear destiny will not long remain
content with the projected arrange-
ments, while those who go along
for such motives as pleasing us, defy-
ing France, or keeping an eye on

Germany will soon grow tired of
the expense and will search for other
options.

This becomes apparent when the
financial implications of our pro-
posals are examined. The number of
missiles most frequently mentioned
for the NATO nuclear force is
three hundred. It is interesting
that this represents four times the
delivery vehicles of the French
Mirage force and three times that
of the projected British Polaris
force. We are in the curious position
of opposing the existing national
nuclear forces, but in order to
thwart them we are engaged in
diffusing an even larger number of
weapons to a group of countries not
now in the nuclear business and with
no immediate prospect of entering it.

The cost of a fleet of Polaris sub-
marines is estimated at more than
$1 billion a year, or an increase of
twelve per cent in the defense spend-
ing of the participating countries.
A fleet of merchant ships has been
estimated to cost upwards of $500
million, or an increase of seven per
cent. And as the technical problems
of placing Polaris missiles on mer-
chant ships is studied and the re-
quirements for assuring invulner-
ability are analyzed, the costs are
liable to mount.

For this heavy expense, the par-
ticipants would obtain no signifi-
cant increase in control over nuclear
weapons. Can anyone seriously be-
lieve that this can be a permanent
state of affairs? Is it not infinitely

more likely that after a few years we
would face repetitions of our cur-
rent problem with France in rela-
tion to some of the projected
members of the NATO nuclear force?

Our present proposals grant the
need for a separate force, but they
do not grant the equality that
would give that force meaning.
In a few years, after they have
gotten into the nuclear business
with our assistance, some of the
countries now projected as partici-
pants will indeed be much better
able to raise the nuclear issue than
France is today. They will not have
to argue about the possession of
nuclear technology—since this will
have been conceded—but about the
control of a force where their influ-
ence is patently out of proportion
to their contribution. If we resist
these pressures, we may bring about
a violent swing toward de Gaulle's
conceptions. Nothing is more likely
to promote Third Force tendencies
in Europe than for us to engage
our prestige in pressing for a force
which on our own showing makes
no sense militarily, does not alter
existing control arrangements sig-
nificantly, yet requires a heavy
European financial contribution.

THE multilateral NATO force is thus likely to combine the disadvantage of every course of action. It will not prevent the diffusion of nuclear weapons; it may well accelerate it. It will neither stop the acquisition of nuclear arms by West Germany nor satisfy over any extended period whatever demands may exist there for a greater voice on nuclear matters. It will stop the building up of conventional forces, for none of the countries reported ready to join the NATO nuclear force is likely to increase its defense budget beyond the expenditures required for the multilateral force. Among the many inconsistencies of our present position is the simultaneous pressure for the NATO multilateral force and an increase in European conventional strength. The two policies are incompatible.

Finally, the NATO nuclear force
will not represent any significant
burden-sharing. Since some of the
European countries will possess
some kind of veto, our strategic
planning could not count on the

32

THE REPORTER

NATO force. The strategy envisaged by Mr. McNamara would then require us to maintain whatever strategic forces are thought necessary for a U.S. counterforce response—as if the NATO force did not exist.

As for other political effects often advertised as the chief, if not the sole, purpose of the NATO nuclear force, allied cohesion is unlikely to be strengthened. On the contrary, Europe will be fragmented even further. France will be isolated, but at a heavy price. We will have shifted the relative weight in Europe toward countries which, while more pliable in the short term, may prove more unstable in the long run. If the influence of West Germany in the multilateral force becomes too great, neutralism may grow in Britain, Scandinavia, and the Low Countries. (The New York Times of March 9 reported that the Federal Republic would contribute about two-thirds of the European share of the NATO force, or about forty per cent of the total costs, and that influence in manning and operational control would be proportionate to the financial contribution.)

The effort to isolate France by developing in the nuclear field a structure in which West Germany would be the key European member may in fact overstrain the fabric of European cohesion and Atlantic solidarity, and also undermine the domestic stability of West Germany. It is in nobody's interest—least of all West Germany's—to set in motion events that can only end with suspicion and concern in most of the countries of the West about Germany's nuclear role. This is bound to aid the Soviet thrust to divide the West through the fear of Germany. A divided country, which in the space of fifty years has lost two wars, experienced three revolutions, suffered two periods of extreme inflation and the trauma of the Nazi era, should not—in its own interest—be placed in a position where, in addition to its inevitable exposure to Soviet pressure, it becomes the balance wheel of our Atlantic policy. We are encouraging tendencies that we may later regret. There must be better ways for West Germany to demonstrate its devotion to the Atlantic Alliance than to become the

largest European contributor to a multilateral nuclear force.

THE DANGER of our present course thus goes far beyond disputes about strategic theory. An issue as complicated as the control of nuclear weapons within the Alliance cannot be expected to have a quick or a neat solution. Nevertheless, the frequent and rapid changes of our position undermine our reputation for reliability—whatever the merit of particular proposals.

How can the most well-disposed governments follow our lead when our proposals are in a constant state of flux, moving from indifference to eager advocacy of a NATO force and from submarines to merchant ships all within two months?

Even so staunch a friend as Great Britain must be bewildered. First we abruptly canceled Skybolt. Then Prime Minister Macmillan loyally supported the Nassau Agreement with the argument that the acquisition of Polaris submarines would align Great Britain with our strategic thinking and our NATO concepts. A month later we proposed that the multilateral NATO force of mixed crews be composed of merchant ships. This leaves Prime Minister Macmillan exposed to the criticism of having purchased an unnecessarily expensive system for Great Britain. It makes us vulnerable to the charge of foisting a second-best system on the Europeans. And the situation is made the

more poignant by the fact that Britain has been asked to join both forces.

Our friends do not know what to support. Our opponents are encouraged to exert pressure or at least to procrastinate in order to elicit other offers. Open-mindedness is often a virtue. But we must remember that

the leader of a great coalition simply cannot afford to do all of its thinking in public.

To be sure, we are still able to obtain support, partly because we remain the strongest ally and our good will continues vital; partly because many of the smaller European countries have developed a habit of dependence. Our influence is still sufficient to generate domestic pressures in many European countries. But all this is to no avail if the basic direction is mistaken. Then, the domestic forces we encourage may well produce long-term instabilities.

One of the major achievements of American postwar policy has been the growth of a moderate, self-confident Europe that is willing to assume a degree of responsibility for its destiny. We take this so much for granted that we tend to forget how difficult the process has been and how precarious the balance still is in many European countries. In our eagerness to advance our new strategic theories, we have failed to perceive that ultimately success or failure depends on the political forces associated with us.

In this respect, there is reason for serious concern. In too many countries, governments that painfully obtained a commitment to the existing defense programs and to the very concept of NATO find themselves charged with undermining U.S. relationships by those who opposed every step along that road. In several countries, our policies are supported by groups who see in the slogan of Atlantic solidarity a convenient tool to discredit the existing European structure. The Nenni Socialists in Italy have not become converts to our concept of nuclear defense; they halfheartedly support us because they want to retain an option for their favorite schemes of nuclear disengagement. Britain, if it abandons its nuclear program, will not introduce conscription. Conventional defense may be invoked to wreck the nuclear program; the result is much more likely to be a form of neutralism than a conventional build-up. Undermining the major program of an ally must produce upheavals that cannot be measured by purely technical standards.

Our present course may thus encourage simultaneously neutral-

March 28, 1963

33

ism and rabid nationalism, a sense of impotence and frustration. In an-
otler five years we may be con-
fronted by a Europe that can truly be described by many of the epithets presently applied to President de Gaulle. The fact that many of our actions are taken with the seeming agreement of much of our press and some of our allies is no consolation. The test of leadership is not tomorrow's editorial but what history will say of us five years from now.

V. Where Do We Go
From Here?

It is always difficult to reverse course. The longer a given policy is maintained, the more vested interests—in dedication, in conception, and in bureaucratic persistence—it is bound to create. Yet sometimes the wisest policy is to resist the temptation to rely on momentum, and to step back and take stock.

Perhaps the best way to begin a reappraisal would be to ask ourselves what our real interests in Europe are. We should examine what kind of structure we desire in the long term rather than seek for devices to head off immediate pressures.

The goal of a strong, unified, and self-sufficient Europe, which American policy has consistently pursued for a decade and a half, is as valid today as it was when first developed in 1947. We may not have fully understood then that an economically powerful Europe would be more self-assertive in the political and military field as well. We may have believed subconsciously that our policy would relieve us of economic burdens without requiring a redefinition of Atlantic relationships. But whether or not we fully realized the implications of what we were doing, the Europe of today stands as a testimony to our foresight and our ability to subordinate short-term advantage to long-term benefits.

However, in the past few years there has been a tendency to recoil before the inevitable implications of our policy. It was always in the cards —indeed, it was our stated purpose— that as Europe regained its economic health it would also seek to develop

This great conception can be reversed today only by undermining the structures that have been laboriously developed over the past fifteen years. Fifteen years ago it might have been possible to try to construct an Atlantic Community on the most favored nation principle; that is, that no nation have closer relations to any other than to the United States. Today this attempt jeopardizes all that has been achieved.

Yet stripped to its essentials, this is the course we have been pursuing with Europe in the nuclear field. Our definition of interdependence has the practical consequence of discouraging the emergence of any European identity in nuclear matters. We are fostering a concept of multilateralism that will add new divisions to the existing rifts in Europe. A multilateral force in which France does not participate and to which Britain makes only a token contribution will lead to a structure in the nuclear field inconsistent with all our postwar policies. The result is likely to be either competing European groupings or the ultimate emergence of a European unit in which the leadership roles have been drastically altered with our assistance.

It is still possible—though it is getting late—to prevent these developments by fostering a European nuclear identity growing out of the British and French programs. It is often said that such a course would divide the Alliance. But surely we are not going to maintain that partnership is possible only with nations incapable of independent action. Moreover, if we cut through the phrases to the facts, a separate European entity need be no more divisive in the military than in the economic field. In both instances it

calls attention to the need for a political effort to devise common objectives.

It would be idle to claim that conceding European nuclear autonomy would by itself solve NATO's nuclear dilemma. The problem of relationships in the nuclear field is sufficiently complex to resist simple remedies. But encouraging a separate European center of decision-making is a vital first step.

We have had two choices with respect to Europe's nuclear future. We could accept the British and French national efforts and encourage first a common Franco-British and ultimately a European program. Or else we could group the non-nuclear countries into a multilateral force more responsive to our notions of a single chain of command and an indivisible target system.

We have chosen the second course. The first is preferable by far. It is hard to conceive a stable Europe that does not include France as well as Britain. Any genuine nuclear policy must grow out of existing programs that will continue whatever the fate of the multilateral force. A policy that cannot relate us to the existing nuclear powers—our traditional allies—is not likely to be more effective when the present non-nuclear powers have become members of the nuclear club with our help.

Thus, instead of being hostile to the French nuclear program and, at best, indifferent to the British effort, we should use our influence to place them in the service of a European conception. This would also be the most reliable road to Atlantic partnership. The emerging European force could then be related to ours through political co-ordination and joint strategic planning. Such a policy would require a change of attitude on our part; at the very least the technical pressures from the Defense Department would have to be subordinated to an overriding political direction.

This is not to say that the United States should support every strategic theory developed in Britain or France. It is plain that we have certain interests in any European nuclear development which we are bound to foster:

(a) The European forces should be well protected so that they do not

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THE REPORTER