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the issue is Asia or Latin America, Europeans favor an even more flexible
response than the United States. With respect to the defense of Europe,
their attitude is more rigid. Europeans are likely to agree with the premise
about Soviet intentions which was offered by Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze
(then Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs):

> Communists demonstrate both a proclivity for bold political actions against a background of impressive military force and also careful calculation of risks and a staunch desire to keep events under their own control. Because they can be expected sensibly to avoid high risks of nuclear war or events leading to it, their military actions against the West at any one moment are likely to be controlled in size and aimed at limited objectives. *Emphasis added.* In such circumstances, NATO will surely wish to have the choice of avoiding immediate use of nuclear weapons; it would be neither wise nor credible for us to build our doctrine and our forces on the premise that every pinprick must be met by nuclear war.¹

The problem is that most Europeans refuse to consider an attack in Europe as
confined to limited objectives. If Secretary Nitze is correct in his view that
the Soviets recoil before a high risk of nuclear war, then a limited attack
in Europe is likely only if the American nuclear guarantee has lost some of
its credibility. The European reaction to this state of affairs is more likely

1. Paul H. Nitze, *Address before the Cleveland Council on World Affairs*, Cleveland, Ohio, March 2, 1963, Department of State Bulletin

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to be to provide themselves with nuclear forces of their own than to build
up conventional strength.

The American response has been to argue that a build-up of conventional
forces, far from weakening the resolve to use nuclear weapons, in fact demon-
strated an increased readiness to resort to nuclear weapons. Said Secretary
McNamara:

> If we have shown ourselves able and ready to engage in
> large-scale non-nuclear warfare in response to a Communist
> provocation, the Soviets can hardly misconstrue two
> things: first, that we regard this provocation as a chal-
> lenge to our vital interests; and second, that we will
> use nuclear weapons to prevail if this becomes necessary.¹

This estimate has left many Europeans unconvinced. There is no
question that increasing the reserve of conventional divisions in the United
States by three or four divisions does enhance the credibility of nuclear
threats for the defense of, say, South East Asia because it gives us the
means to commit our prestige. In Europe, however, where the United States is
already physically committed, a few additional divisions may appear as too

1

Robert A. McNamara, Address before the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, Chicago, Illinois, February 17, 1962.

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little to affect the conventional balance and increase the concern about
possible American reluctance to face nuclear war in the defense of Europe.

But while European concerns were understandable and inherent in the
relationship which had grown up between Europe and the United States in the
strategic field, some reassessment of NATO doctrine had become inevitable by
1961. It was not in our power to avoid it. It would have been inexcusable not
to draw conclusions from the increasing nuclear forces on both sides. The
American failure was psychological obtuseness and the inability to realize that
this reassessment was bound to raise explicitly the issue of sovereignty which
had been muted as long as the United States possessed an effective monopoly over
the weapons considered relevant to the defense of Europe. The European
mistake was to attempt to ensure our constancy by freezing us into a posture
superceded by a new technology. The growth of Soviet retaliatory power and
improvements in its invulnerability made a reconsideration of NATO strategy
inevitable. The original NATO strategy was based on United States strategic
preponderance. Throughout the Fifties, the United States was in a position to
win a general war whether it struck first or second. It could destroy the

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Soviet means of retaliation at first at minimum, later at acceptable cost.

This superiority enabled us not only to prevent an attack on the United States but also to protect our allies by what amounted to a unilateral American guarantee. The Soviet Union did possess superior conventional strength.

But it could not use its ground forces because such an action might have triggered the Strategic Air Command. It could not attack the United States at the same time as Europe--even after it became technically feasible--because, while this would have increased American losses, a Soviet defeat would nevertheless have been inevitable. Throughout its history, the security of NATO thus depended essentially on the ability of the United States to destroy the Soviet retaliatory power--technically speaking, on the American capacity to conduct a counterforce strategy.

Any prudent planning for NATO in the 1960's was bound to start from the assumption that the utility of a counterforce strategy for the defense of Europe was bound to decline. Indeed, Secretary McNamara's statements in 1962 about the efficacy of a counterforce strategy, while technically correct, was misleading about the real state of affairs. It is possible to accept the

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statements of American defense leaders that the United States is superior in strategic striking power and intends to remain so. But the strategic and political significance of this superiority is certain to diminish. For the immediate future--as long as the Soviet missile force remains relatively small--a counterforce strategy may remain technically feasible. This situation should be treated, however, as a temporary respite permitting an adjustment to inevitable realities, not as an excuse for continuing to depend on traditional policies.

For one thing, if a counterforce strategy is to retain any chance of success, the location of the targets must be known in advance. This is particularly true of missiles, which cannot search for their objectives. Given the nature of Soviet society and the vastness of Soviet territory, our knowledge of Soviet launching sites is likely to be incomplete. Moreover, the more sophisticated missile systems now in operation are dispersed, thus preventing one attacking missile from destroying more than one on the ground. Also, many missiles are protected in hardened underground sites, thus requiring more than one attacking missile to destroy a defending one. Other missiles

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will be mobile or based at sea, creating the need for coordinating many dif-
ferent forms of attack. These factors will greatly magnify the force required
for a successful counterforce strike.

The constantly growing complexity of staging a missile attack is bound
to reduce the political utility of a counterforce strategy--perhaps even faster
than is warranted by purely military considerations. In the face of risks which
are certain to mount dramatically, it will grow ever more difficult to con-
vince political leaders that they should rely on a strategy based on intel-
ligence which is fragmentary and using large numbers of weapons for which there
is no operational experience in wartime. Even if the percentage of the opposing
strategic force, which we are able to destroy, remains constant throughout
the 1960's--an unwarrantedly optimistic assumption--the absolute number which
is left will rise. Thus, the Soviet capability to devastate NATO countries
in a counterblow will inevitably increase.

To pretend that these factors will not reduce any President's readiness
to initiate general war would be sheer irresponsibility on our part and a
convenient delusion for some of our allies. Even our best efforts will not

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prevent the credibility of a counterforce strategy from declining in the years
ahead. It will grow ever more difficult to convince the Soviets that such a
capability exists or that we are prepared to run the risks it involves. This
problem has been described by Secretary McNamara as follows:

> Fully hard ICBM sites can be destroyed but only at great
cost in terms of the numbers of offensive weapons required
to dig them out. Furthermore, in a second strike situation
we would be attacking, for the most part, empty sites from
which the missiles had already been fired.

> The value of trying to provide a capability to destroy a
very high proportion of Soviet hard ICBM sites becomes
even more questionable in view of the expected increase
in the Soviet missile launching submarine force. . . ¹

> But if the United States was correct in insisting on the implications
of its new vulnerability, it was less sensitive to the political and
psychological implications of its new insight. When both sides possess
reasonably well-protected inter-continental missiles, the structure of NATO
as it has developed in the Fifties must alter. The traditional impetus to
alliance policy that the *immediate* risk of conflict was less than the ultimate
danger of facing a preponderant enemy alone is bound to erode to some extent.

1 Senate Armed Services Committee, *Hearings, Military Procurement Authorization Fiscal Year 1964*, 88th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 40-41.

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When nuclear war risks the lives of tens of millions, it is at least conceivable that the outbreak of a conflict will be considered the worst contingency by some allies. It is not necessary to agree with General Gallois that this condition ends <u>all</u> possibility of the Alliance to recognize that it brings about a drastically changed situation. Ultimately, it should lead to a merging of sovereignty within the Atlantic area. But until this comes to pass, the age of mutual invulnerability of retaliatory forces and of mutual vulnerability of civilian populations is bound to require a serious readjustment of traditional Alliance patterns.

A gap has grown up between the technical requirements of the new strategy and the political realities of an alliance of sovereign states. The trend of the new United States military policy made the United States nuclear commitment depend less and less on the automaticity of military operations and more and more on a decision to be taken in the circumstances of the moment.

The United States tendency has been to try to escape this issue by maintaining that no difference of views between us and our European allies could possibly arise. But since the decision would have to be made under the unprecedented

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stress of nuclear war, the reassurance lacks persuasiveness. Instead, the
dilemma of sovereignty--of the unilateral right to change one's views--has
inevitably been emphasized.

The central command and control system which is the key feature of the
doctrine of flexible response is American. The United States would deter
mine--to the extent that the enemy cooperates--how and with what weapons the
war is to be fought and on what terms it will be concluded. The "hot line" is
in operation only between Washington and Moscow. To entrust the most fateful
decision any nation may have to make to another sovereign state creates
enormous insecurities side by side with pressures to change what must be
considered as an unnatural relationship according to traditional notions of
sovereignty.

The notion that this particular difficulty can be avoided by the build-
up of conventional forces has proved to be mistaken. This is well illustrated
by the concepts which have been used to justify the strengthening of NATO's
conventional forces each of which finally raised the nuclear issue simply in
another form. The purpose of the conventional forces was claimed to be to

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enforce a "pause" in military operations in order to permit the Soviets to "appreciate the wider risks involved." The ground forces, in other words, are supposed to define a "threshold" below which nuclear weapons would not have to be used.

These arguments inevitably raised questions about the continued validity of the American nuclear guarantee. If American nuclear superiority was unimpaired, a conventional build-up was unnecessary. If a conventional build-up did prove necessary, it must be because the nuclear balance had shifted against the United States at least relatively. The tendency by American spokesmen to try to carry water on both shoulders--to insist on the preponderant power of the American strategic arsenal and also on the need for a conventional build-up--added fuel to suspicions.

Moreover, it was at least questionable that at the end of a given period of conventional operations the Soviets would confront more clearly the wider risks of nuclear war--as official American spokesmen mentioned. If a full-scale conventional attack were to occur, the Soviets presumably would have discounted the threat of nuclear retaliation. A full-scale Soviet

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attack in Central Europe is hardly likely to occur inadvertently. But if the
attack did take place, why should our bargaining position be better at the
end of the period of 30 days (the usualtraget date for the build-up)--when
our forces would have presumably been decimated--than at the beginning? What
if at that point the Soviets offered to negotiate after having gained possession
of their prize? If nuclear war was too risky at the start of the conflict,
why should it not be even more risky when the local issue has in effect al-
ready been decided and when the devastation caused by a nuclear exchange may
make the local situation seem irrelevant?

If, on the other hand, it was argued that the Soviets would never dare
to defeat NATO's ground forces lest this trigger a nuclear exchange, what was
gained by increasing the number of NATO divisions? In other words, strength-
ening conventional forces does not avoid--and it may even sharpen--the political
aspect of nuclear control.

The same difficulty applies to the concept of a "threshold." This
was defined by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Roswell Gilpatric, as follows:
"The current doctrine is that if NATO forces were about to be overwhelmed by
non-nuclear attacks from the bloc countries, NATO would make use of nuclear

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arms. This raised two questions: (a) Who determines whether the NATO conventional forces are being overwhelmed? (b) Assuming this determination is made, how are nuclear weapons then to be used?

With respect to the first of these issues, the question arose about situations in which NATO forces were simply pushed back without being overwhelmed. Was this then the threshold for nuclear war? What if the Soviets massed clearly overwhelming power in Eastern Europe but had not yet launched an attack? If nuclear weapons were useful to prevent this contingency why not others? Or it could be that in an otherwise successful defense, individual units of, say, division size would suffer setbacks. Given the dispersal of nuclear weapons in Europe to divisional levels and below, it was likely that the location of nuclear stockpiles and delivery vehicles would decide the question of using nuclear weapons. In short, the deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe has been inconsistent with the announced United States strategic preference. This raised doubts about what was a better key to United States

1
*New York Times*, June 7, 1961.

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intentions: the pronouncements of our highest defense officials or the
disposition of our forces?

Assuming, however, that it is possible to make a clear determination
that NATO's conventional forces are being overwhelmed, this only shifted
the concern back to the issue of nuclear control. If nuclear weapons were to
be used only when NATO forces were at the point of being defeated, what was
the sense in the nuclear establishment in Europe? If we assume that both sides
have tactical nuclear weapons in adequate numbers and sizes, it is far from
clear that the employment of these weapons would favor the defense at that
stage of a battle. After a breakthrough has been achieved, battlefield
employment of nuclear weapons may well favor the offense, whose units can by
then be dispersed while the defense has to move its units into predictable
areas. In short, if nuclear weapons are to be used tactically at all, it is
likely that the optimum, perhaps the only appropriate, moment is early in
military operations, or at least while the ground forces are reasonably intact
and Soviet reserve forces have not yet appeared on the battlefield. If
nuclear weapons are not to be used tactically, what is the sense of increasing

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their number in Europe? Failure to answer these questions--or to treat tactical nuclear weapons as merely a form of psychological reassurance for Europeans--guarantees a perpetuation of all insecurities.

Finally, in the debate over the level of conventional forces, Europeans were bound to be less restrained than they had been in discussions about nuclear strategy. With respect to nuclear weapons, the United States was recognized to possess superior technical knowledge and the advantage of more intensive studies. No such advantage is thought to exist with respect to conventional war. Rightly or wrongly, many Europeans have been convinced that American claims about the feasibility of conventional defense are exaggerated or at least too mechanical. For example, some United States analysts have argued that a sustained conventional defense is within reach, assuming that the offensive requires a superiority of about 3 : 1. This assumption, strangely reminiscent of certain French theories prior to World War II, cannot, even if valid, be applied so literally. The attacker does not require a three to one supriority all along the front. He can win by massing troops suddenly at a decisive point and overwhelming it. In conventional war, victories have very

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often been won when forces were roughly equal. (Germany, after all, achieved
its victories in World Wars I and II with numerically inferior forces.)

The stress on conventional defense also emphasized crucial political
factors. European history is replete with examples of the brittleness of
alliances. In too many wars—including World War II—the collapse of one
national contingent led to the defeat of all others. Europeans cannot forget
that an alliance can be no stronger than its weakest link. Whatever effort
individual countries may make in the conventional field, they will—if they
are serious about national defense—consider the consequences of the collapse
of one or more of their allies. This will turn their thoughts to obtaining
reinsurance, and, among the available means, some form of nuclear autonomy is
likely to suggest themselves.

This will be magnified by the fact that the choice between nuclear
and conventional war is no longer entirely up to the West. Whatever its
preference, NATO has to prepare for the introduction of nuclear weapons by

1. For a splendid analysis of this problem of the conventional defense of Europe see Bernard Brodie

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the opponent. Any war will be nuclear, whether or not nuclear weapons are used, in the sense that deployment--even of conventional forces--will have to take place in a nuclear environment. The risk of escalation can never be eliminated, and this, too, leads to pressures for independent nuclear forces.

The issue of conventional forces has been muted since 1964 because revised United States intelligence estimates indicated that Soviet ground forces had been vastly overestimated and that a conventional build-up was not necessary after all. (The fluctuations of U.S. intelligence estimates raised the question, however, whether they guided or followed American policy.) But it lasted long enough to make the issue of nuclear control one of the central unresolved problems of the Alliance.

In that debate, the United States made the error of treating the sovereignty of its partners as an unfortunate historical relic of no real significance for strategic planning. As long as the United States insists on central control over the nuclear weapons of the Alliance, as well as undiluted sovereignty, the European incentive is bound to be exactly the opposite of ours. Rather than permit a "pause" for "appreciating the wider risks

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involved," Europeans prefer to force us to make our response as automatic as
possible.

This problem has little to do with whether the United States could
afford to give up Europe. It is rooted in the nature of sovereignty and made
more acute by the destructiveness of nuclear weapons. Robert Bowie, one of
the most eloquent spokesmen of the dominant school of U.S. thought, criticized
British nuclear policy before the Assembly of the Western European Union as
follows: "Britain has retained its national command structure and the right
to withdraw them at its option. This means that they certainly could not be
counted on by any of the others to be available in case of need." (Emphasis
added.) If this concern is real regarding British nuclear forces, which are,
after all, assigned to NATO, it must be even stronger regarding U.S. strategic
forces which remain under exclusive American control.

At the same time, the rigid adherence to past doctrine on the part of
some European critics and the deliberate tendency of others--especially the

1
Proceedings of Western European Union Assembly, Ninth Ordinary Session,
December 3, 1963.

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French--to score debating points has not helped matters. The growing strength of Soviet retaliatory power was bound to affect a strategic doctrine based on the concept of Western nuclear hegemony. Whatever the validity of American strategic views, the tendency to treat established NATO doctrine as sacroscant is dangerous. European ambivalence is reflected in the demands for increased responsibility which are not coupled with an equivalent readiness to assume commensurate burdens. United States proposals for a strengthening of conventional forces have been treated with the same panic as later hints that some American troops might be withdrawn. Most Europeans do not want to give conventional force a larger role because they fear it will diminish the effectiveness of the nuclear deterrent. But they also have resisted a reduction of United States forces because to many Europeans these represent the surest guarantee of American nuclear protection. It is just as difficult for Europeans to face the fact that, in the long run, these attitudes are incompatible as it has been for Americans to admit that increased emphasis on local defense is inconsistent either with United States hegemony on nuclear matters or with undiluted American sovereignty.

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The problem can then be summed up as follows: Exclusive U.S. control of nuclear strategy is politically and psychologically incompatible with a strategy of multiple choices or flexible response. The European refusal to assign a meaningful military mission to conventional forces in Europe is incompatible with the indefinite retention of large U.S. forces there. If the United States prizes a conventional response sufficiently, it will have to concede Europe autonomy in nuclear control. Or else it will have to move to an effective sharing of sovereignty. If the Europeans want to insist on an automatic nuclear response, a reconsideration of our conventional deployment on the Continent will become inevitable. Refusal to face these facts will guarantee a perpetuation of present disputes and increasing disarray within NATO.

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### III. National Nuclear Forces.

The already difficult issue of adapting NATO strategy has been further complicated by the United States onslaught on the national nuclear forces of its close allies, Great Britain and France. Great Britain, since 1951, and France since 1958 have been engaged in a program to develop nuclear capabilities under their own control. In 1954, an amendment to the McMahon Act made possible United States nuclear assistance to Great Britain. This corrected an inequity in the original law which, despite close war-time collaboration in nuclear research between Britain and the United States, prohibited cooperation with foreign countries. The provisions of the amended McMahon Act have never been extended to France. This discrimination has been a constant source of irritation in Franco-American relations--and would have been regardless of which government was in power in France.

¹ Of course, the U.S. position was far from capricious. It was brought to a head by the proposal of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) to replace his tactical aircraft with medium-range missiles. This seemed to many American officials to open the door another crack to nuclear proliferation. This problem will be discussed below. See Chapter IV, p.

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Starting in 1961 United States policy, which had been tolerant of the nuclear programs of its allies, grew increasingly hostile. The French nuclear program was described as irrelevant and harmful to the Alliance. The same criticisms, if more muted, were applied to the British nuclear program. The tension inherent in an attack on major defense programs of two close allies exacerbated the debate about other aspects of NATO strategic doctrine --particularly the role of conventional weapons.

United States opposition to the British and French nuclear programs took the form of the following major arguments: There was no strategic need for national nuclear forces other than those of the United States within NATO, since all significant targets were already covered by United States strategic forces. National nuclear forces were divisive because only distrust of United States intentions could induce a country to develop a nuclear arsenal of its own. They were wasteful and would divert resources from the conventional build-up which should be the primary NATO effort. They would promote nuclear proliferation. Just as France imitated the example of Britain, the argument ran, so Germany would follow the lead of France. Italy and other

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European countries would then not be far behind. Finally, it was argued that national nuclear forces would make impossible the flexible response which was the key to United States strategy for general war. National nuclear forces were too small and too vulnerable to concentrate on military targets. But if they struck population centers, the enemy in rage and frustration would retaliate against the civilian population of the United States.

Regardless of the merits of these arguments, they made a bitter, divisive debate inevitable. A full-scale theoretical onslaught on major programs of close allies impelled their governments to elaborate a doctrine to justify them, and this was bound to stress differences in perspective with the United States. The impact of United States views thus went far beyond the technical arguments in which they were couched. To ask a government to confess the bankruptcy of a policy which has been pursued for over a decade at heavy expense is to undermine its domestic position and to produce reactions of hostility. We might ask ourselves how we would react if an allied government publicly and repeatedly insisted that a major U.S. program is "divisive," "dangerous" and "useless."

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Thus United States strategic doctrine became involved in the domestic disputes of close allies. This led to a curious reversal of electoral positions within these countries. Groups, heretofore not noted for their interest in defense programs, began to use American arguments against governments which had until then been most responsible for close NATO ties. Those comfortable with United States views were often those who had in the past had neutralist leanings. They did not find it difficult to reconcile themselves to an American assumption of almost exclusive responsibility for their defense. Those taking the defense problem seriously were driven to one of two conclusions: Either the United States had to be prepared for a surrender of sovereignty similar to that it was urging on its allies. Failing this they were driven increasingly to demand some degree of autonomy in the nuclear field

Moreover, United States arguments, while presented against the background of great technical competence, suffered from a difference in perspective between us and some of our European allies. A capacity to conduct counterforce nuclear operations is likely to appear attractive to a country of

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continental extent like the United States. In densely populated Europe, the distinction between military and civilian targets grows more ephemeral. While not objecting to such a strategy as _one_ possible option, our European nuclear allies see no compelling reasons to subordinate _all_ considerations to what may well be a very remote contingency.

This is all the more true because United States pronouncements are postulating a scenario for general nuclear war that hardly appears as the most probable danger. In his presentation to the Armed Services Committee in 1963, as well as in 1964, Secretary McNamara described only _one_ contingency for general nuclear war: a full-scale Soviet nuclear attack on the United States and (perhaps) Europe concentrating on military targets. The United States would then respond in kind.

But it is not clear what could possibly tempt even a rash Soviet planner into such a course or why the Soviets would pursue a counterforce strategy if they did. As long as the present disparity in numbers between Soviet and American strategic forces remains, there is no conceivable gain for the Soviets in launching a blow against the United States strategic

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forces. Even if every Soviet missile destroyed an American one, the Soviets
would have disarmed themselves while attacking and find themselves con-
fronted with a large residual American force.

If it is argued, however, that the United States would resort to a
counterforce strategy first in response to a major provocation, such as a
full-scale conventional attack on Europe, then it is far from evident that
the Soviets would have the incentive to spare United States cities on which

1
American doctrine seems to count. For the strategy outlined by Secretary
McNamara cannot be an optimum strategy for both sides. Soviet military

1
In fact, in his testimony before the Armed Services Committees in January
1964, Secretary McNamara has usually associated the defense of Europe
with tactical, not strategic, nuclear weapons should the conventional
forces prove inadequate. Thus, in his report to the Armed Services Com-
mittees in January 1964, Secretary McNamara said:

"A large-scale Soviet attack on Western Europe . . . would be extremely dangerous to our own security and would compel us to respond immediately with whatever force was needed to halt the onslaught, even with tactical nuclear weapons, if necessary."

And a little further on, when discussing General Purpose Forces,
Secretary McNamara said:

"(1) The forces envisioned in NATO plans for the end of
1966 . . . could hold an initial Soviet attack on the central front
using non-nuclear means alone. (2) Until these requirements are met,
the defense of Europe against an all-out Soviet attack, even if such
an attack were limited to non-nuclear means, would require the use of
tactical weapons on our part."

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theorists have consistently denied the possibility of the kind of war described by Pentagon officials. 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 the United States reduced the Soviet retaliatory force, the sensible strategy for the Soviets would be to begin attacking American 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 reached relatively rapidly when civilian populations become the objective.

This is why the allies of the United States have been so unenthusiastic about the argument that national nuclear forces are dangerous because they are unsuitable for discriminating targeting. As has been frequently pointed out by Pentagon spokesmen, the Soviet delivery vehicles aimed at Europe far exceed in number those deployed against the United States. It has also been emphasized that even a "controlled" nuclear war would produce far greater

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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.

This is not to say that all United States arguments have been mistaken
and the attitudes of the defenders of European national forces have been
correct. The danger of nuclear proliferation is real though it may be doubted
that nuclear weapons would have spread to Germany simply by a kind of
logical extension of French arguments. Also, the French have not helped
matters by pressing their case with a 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 responsi-
bilities 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.

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The strategic debate between Europe and the United States on nuclear matters has thus had some of the attributes of what the French call "a dialogue of the deaf." Misunderstanding has been persistent because the two sides have spoken of different things. Frustration has mounted because within its framework both partners have been right. The United States has by far the better of the technical arguments. Efficiency is indeed promoted by a division of labor. On strictly strategic grounds, the United States doctrine is probably more nearly correct than the alternative of its European critics.

What the United States has overlooked is that NATO is not a single political unit, nor is it likely to be one in any foreseeable future.

The blind spot of the United States has been its unwillingness to face the political implications of its strategic views: an Atlantic area strategically integrated, as we propose, requires a merging of sovereignty far beyond anything proposed so far. It is impossible for the United States to demand that its allies give up what has, heretofore, been considered a chief attribute of sovereignty--the possibility of an autonomous defense--while the United States jealously guards its complete freedom of decision. The

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blind spot of America's European critics has been their reluctance to confront
the strategic consequences of their political views: that the present scale
of their national effort is inadequate for the role envisaged by them.

In this manner, the strategic debate is a symbol of a more central
problem: whether the United States is willing to move towards a real
merging of sovereignty. Or, failing that, whether the United States is
prepared to face an autonomous European center of decision in strategy and
policy and to rely on a political process to relate European purposes to our
own. If the United States is ready for either of these steps, much of the
frame-work of the current debate will be drastically altered. If not, the
dilemma outlined in this chapter is likely to continue. The United States
will be forced to suggest remedies which may temporarily obscure the issue,
only to have it reappear in more acute form later.

Of course, we may have no choice and Europe may become autonomous what-
ever our policy. Insofar as European developments depend on American
actions, however, it is important to realize that each choice has its problems
An autonomous Europe--whatever its internal structure--may become increasingly

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ready to differ with our views perhaps on a global scale. A Europe which
continues in the state of dependence of the Fifties may develop another form
of Third Force policy: based on the resentments of the impotent and the
manipulations of the irresponsible. The challenge to Atlantic policy then
is whether a responsible mode of cooperation, consistent with the self-respect
of all partners, can be devised. This is not primarily a problem of strategy;
it is, above all, a challenge to the political conceptions of the West.