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# CHAPTER IV - NATO'S Nuclear Dilemma

## I. Background

The Franco-German treaty of collaboration was interpreted in Washington as a means by which France might establish its hegemony in Europe and as a precursor of nuclear collaboration between France and Germany. After a brief period in which Washington's outrage seemed to be directed equally at Bonn and at Paris, an assiduous wooing of the Federal Republic began. American policymakers decided that in order to contain the French challenge it was necessary to isolate France within Europe. The Administration chose the problem of nuclear control for the main thrust of its effort partly because the French challenge had been presented most explicitly in the nuclear field, partly because this seemed to be the most effective way to dispose of the twin specters of a German national nuclear program and Franco-German collaboration in the nuclear field.

The nuclear issue had been before NATO almost since its beginning. It became particularly acute when the New Look defense policy of the Eisenshower Administration caused NATO to rely increasingly on nuclear

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weapons. A diversified nuclear arsenal grew up on the Continent; it included weapons assigned to front-line units with a range of less than 100 miles and yields below 100 tons as well as tactical aircraft of a range of close to 1000 miles and equipped with weapons many times as powerful as those which devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear weapons were deployed on the Continent on the theory that the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR) should have in his own control whatever was necessary to destroy or neutralize weapons aimed at Europe. Inevitably, as the range of weapons increased this produced an overlap between the mission of the Strategic Air Command and that of SACEUR. Weapons aimed at Europe could be neutralized only by the destruction of some targets deep within the U.S.S.R. Some of SACEUR's weapons were therefore tactical only in the technical sense that they were based in Europe and not under the command of SAC. Even in the Fifties, the nuclear deployment in Europe raised serious issues of how a nuclear war was to be coordinated between SACEUR and the Strategic Air Command.

Even more importantly, as nuclear weapons became an integral part of NATO strategy the issue of how to control them grew pressing. Who would

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give the order to fire and against what targets? In an alliance of sovereign states how was it possible to reassure allies that America's nuclear monopoly safeguarded two contradictory concerns: (a) that the United States might act precipitately and thus involve our allies in a nuclear war against their will; (b) that the United States might not take the interests of its allies as seriously as its own and not go to nuclear war when some of its partners thought their vital interests were at stake.

The control problem became acute when the Soviets deployed a massive force of Medium Range Ballistic missiles (MRBM's)--numbering about 700-- in Western Russia and aimed at Europe. The increasingly bold use of Soviet nuclear blackmail against Europe coincided in time with the development in the United States of the concept of "flexible response." The essence of this strategic concept was to reduce the automaticity of the American nuclear protection and to make the American reaction depend on a decision which was to be taken in the circumstances of the moment. Since the circumstances of the unprecedented stress of nuclear conflict could not possibly be foreseen, our European allies began to press for assurances that weapons to counteract the Soviet medium range missiles would be

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available when needed. What is more important--they began to demand specific guarantees specifying the circumstances in which NATO's nuclear arsenal would be used. In other words, our allies began to ask for a share in the political control of nuclear strategy.

When the issue of counteracting the Soviet MRBM's first came up in the last year of the Eisenhower Administration, the initial tendency in Washington was to go along with a proposal of SACEUR (the General Norstad) to replace his tactical aircraft with medium range missiles. The proposal envisaged the installation of a mobile land-based version of the Polaris missile in Europe under the double-veto system which required the approval of both the host country and the United States before it could be fired. Upon further consideration, the Eisenhower Administration concluded that such a deployment was unwise. It was argued that a large number of missiles constantly moving on European roads might disquiet the populations and thus encourage neutralism. The double-veto system was believed to provide inadequate safeguards against the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Germany.

Accordingly, a State Department study group headed by Professor Bowie proposed that NATO's MRBM requirement be met by Polaris missiles

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installed on ships (in the early version, submarines). These ships were
to be jointly owned, operated and financed by the participants and remain
under SACEUR's control at all times. To prevent the withdrawal of
national contingents, each ship was to be manned by crews of mixed
nationality. Each participant was to have a veto. The multilateral
scheme was submitted to the NATO Council by Secretary of State Herter
in December 1960 for study. A final decision was delayed until the new
Administration could assess the problem.

The Kennedy Administration turned with characteristic energy to
a reconsideration of NATO strategy. It concluded that NATO had placed too
much emphasis on nuclear weapons. It was much more sceptical than the
Eisenhower Administration had been about the significance of tactical
nuclear weapons. It stressed the role of conventional forces. As for
strategic nuclear weapons, the new Administration was committed, as
the Eisenhower Administration never had been, to a degree of unitary control
over all of the nuclear weapons of the Alliance which in practice meant
American control. Accordingly, the multilateral force was cold-shouldered
in the beginning of the Kennedy Administration, because it was believed

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that a separate NATO force would only complicate the unitary strategy which was the preferred solution. The preferred and hoped for solution was the designation of the President as the executive agent of the Alliance for nuclear weapons.

In pursuit of these objectives, the Kennedy Administration offered a number of schemes which sought to combine assurances about the availability of American weapons with undiluted American control. From the point-of-view of the conduct of military operations these proposals had great technical merit. However, the basic issue raised by the American insistence on unitary control of strategy was not technical but political: a centralized military strategy was possible only if the United States was prepared to yield at least some of the sovereignty that it was asking its allies to give up. Specifically, we could not reserve to ourselves a monopoly over the physical possession of nuclear weapons as well as the sole discretion about the decision to go to nuclear war and the method of conducting it.

The issue of nuclear control emphasized that NATO required a mechanism for managing political crises in addition to a military staff for planning a war.

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Failure to meet this issue head-on led to a highly theoretical, almost scholastic, dispute over such legal formulae as "earmarking" and "assignment"-- disputes which exacerbated the concerns which had given rise to the issue of nuclear control in the first place. Thus in May, 1961, President Kennedy formally offered to "commit to NATO ... five--and subsequently still more-- Polaris submarines ... subject to any agreed NATO guidelines on their control and use." This pledge was declared fulfilled by Secretary McNamara at the Athens ministerial meeting when he announced that five Polaris submarines had already been "committed" to NATO with more to come. In his report to the House Armed Services Committee of January, 1963, Secretary McNamara announced that the United States had "earmarked a fully operational "polaris force to the NATO command."

These measures did little to alleviate the situation; in some ways, they made it more acute. For what precisely was the significance of the

1 John F. Kennedy, Address to the Canadian Parliament, DOSB, Vol. XLIV, 1145 (June 5, 1961), p. 841.

2 *New York Times*, March 6, 1962.

3 Hearings on Military Posture, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, 88th Congress, 1st Session (Washington, D.C., 1963), p. 298.

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assignment of submarines? Did it mean that there was a stronger obligation to use submarines "assigned" to NATO than SAC in the defense of Europe?

What was one to make of the phrase in the communique after the NATO ministerial meeting in Athens in May 1962 to the effect that the United States and Great Britain had given "firm assurances that their strategic forces will continue to provide defense against threats to the Alliance beyond the capability of NATO committed forces to deal with."

1

Did this imply that there were two "thresholds" in NATO strategy: one between conventional and nuclear war and another between the strategic forces

assigned to NATO and the rest of SAC? If so, this would mean either that the counterforce strategy on which the Administration had staked so much would have to be abandoned or that the strategic forces under the control of SACEUR would have to be vastly increased--at least to match the Soviet MRBM's stationed in Eastern Europe. In practice these questions were moot

because assignment is largely symbolic. NATO headquarters--as has been noted--

1 Text of communique, *New York Times*, May 7, 1962.

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are planning outfits which have operational control of the forces
"assigned" to them only if their government releases them. Except in war,
the line of command of United States forces runs from Washington
through the appropriate United States headquarters; that of Britain from
London to the appropriate British headquarters. With respect to United
States 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. The United States veto remains absolute.

It was argued by some that even if assignment was largely symbolic,
the strategic forces earmarked for NATO could be subject to joint Allied
guidelines. Thus our Allies would be brought into the planning process.
But what--in terms of the Pentagon's concept of general nuclear war--was the
significance of guidelines for a fraction of the strategic force? If the
target system is indivisible--as Administration spokesmen have never tired

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asserting--the only guidelines which would make sense would involve the total
nuclear strength of the Alliance, including SAC. But then we are back to
where we started. Is the United States prepared to make this drastic a
debelopment of its sovereignty? And would it be wise to do so?

Moreover, it is important to be clear about what agreement to joint
guidelines actually means. 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 as 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 a useful exercise of allied
consultation. But in that case it is not clear why a formal assignment to
NATO is necessary or how the NATO-committed Polaris forces are to be
distinguished from other strategic forces in the Alliance.

1
See below, Chapter V, p.

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If, on the other hand, the guidelines are to be a form of delegation of authority, serious problems would arise. During the American presidential campaign it was suggested that the NATO nuclear problem could be solved by delegating authority to use battlefield weapons to SACEUR. Aside from the difficulty of making such a distinction this would represent an unprecedented abdication of Constitutional responsibilities.

It is difficult to imagine any President agreeing to this step. And if it were taken, it would probably compound the problem. The predelegation of authority would be confined to the most obvious and unambiguous cases.

A guideline so conceived will omit more cases than it specifies and thus raise uncertainties precisely about the ambiguous cases that have caused the greatest worries.

In short contingency planning for nuclear war is only one horn of the dilemma and in some ways the easier problem. The more fundamental problem is political: how allies can affect the decision to enter nuclear war and perhaps even more fundamentally how they can influence the diplomacy preceding a conflict. In so far as the dispute over nuclear control concerned not the military but the political use of nuclear weapons, the schemes of

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the years 1961-62 proved largely irrelevant. And the refusal--largely on
theoretical grounds--to make a distinction between tactical and strategic
weapons caused most United States proposals to deal with the SACEUR forces
suitable for deep penetration while little effort was made to develop a mission
for the large and growing arsenal of shorter-range "battlefield" weapons;
this laid the ground-work for further controversy.

Thus even before de Gaulle's press conference of January 14, 1963,
a stalemate in the debate about strategy had occurred. Europeans had been
reluctant to respond to American pressures for an increase in conventional
forces. The United States proposals for sharing nuclear control had not
met the real concerns of those Europeans asking either for a greater
share in nuclear decisions or for greater autonomy with respect to them.
In order to escape this impasse, the United States--starting early in 1963--
began ever more urgently to press a scheme for a NATO nuclear force, the
so-called Multilateral Force (MLF).

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## II. The Multilateral Force (MLF)

Few major decisions of American foreign policy have been the result of so much ambivalence as the multilateral force; fewer still could have been pushed so far by so small a group of energetic and dedicated men. The plan, which emerged in February 1963 as America's principal policy to restore NATO to its original purpose, had previously been dealt with at arms length by the Kennedy Administration. After de Gaulle's challenge, it was resurrected and defended with increasing passion--at least in part because it existed.

After the multilateral force had been presented to the NATO Council for study in 1960, there occurred a hiatus of several months while the new Administration reassessed its policy. Finally on May 17, 1961, President Kennedy gave a highly qualified endorsement of the scheme in a speech at Ottawa: "...We look to the possibility of eventually establishing a NATO sea-borne force, which would be truly multilateral in ownership and control if this should be desired and found feasible by our allies once NATO's non-nuclear goals have been achieved." In the course of the next year,

¹ John F. Kennedy, "The Common Aims of Canada and the United States," speech at Ottawa on May 17, 1961, DOSB, June 5, 1961, XLIV, 1145, p. 841

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Administration spokesmen invited United States allies to analyze the problem
and to come up with a satisfactory control plan.

The two conditions put by the United States--a prior non-nuclear
build-up and European agreement about a control plan--suggested that the
proposal could not have a very high priority. Most of America's allies doubted
the need for a conventional build-up. None could afford both to strengthen
their ground forces and to contribute to a NATO nuclear force. Moreover, none
of our allies possessed a sea-borne nuclear system. Since a command and con-
trol system for even a national nuclear force is far from a simple matter, the
probability that our allies would come up with a meaningful control system was
not great. Indeed there were many in the Administration who held the view that
the problem would be found insoluble. It was then expected that the allies
would ask the President to act as Executive Agent for the Alliance on
nuclear matters.

When this did not happen, the United States in 1962 continued its
gingerily approach to the multilateral force. In September 1962, the President's
Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, McGeorge Bundy, spoke hedgingly

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of a multilateral <u>European</u> force.

It would also be wrong to suppose that the reluctance which we feel with respect to individual, ineffective, and unintegrated forces would be extended automatically to a European force, genuinely unified and multilateral, and effectively integrated with our own necessarily predominant strength in the whole nuclear defense of the alliance. Any possible arrangements for assistance and cooperation would, of course, require full consultation and approval by all appropriate agencies of our Government.¹

The speech said nothing about what the United States understood by "multilateral,"
"unified" or "integrated."

A month later Under Secretary of State Ball returned to the theme of
a NATO nuclear force. He insisted that it was militarily unnecessary and he
continued to stress the priority placed by the Kennedy Administration on the
build-up of conventional forces. But he added:

From a strictly military standpoint, we do not feel that the alliance has an urgent need for a European nuclear contribution. But, should other NATO nations so desire, we are ready to give serious consideration to the creation of a genuinely multilateral medium-range ballistic missile force fully coordinated with the other deterrent forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.²

¹ McGeorge Bundy, "Building the Atlantic Partnership: Some Lessons from the Past," speech on September 1, 1962, <u>DOSB</u>, October 22, 1962, LXVII, 1217, p. 604-5.

2 George W. Ball, "NATO and the Cuban Crisis," speech on November 16, 1962, <u>DOSB</u>, December 3, 1962, XLVII, 1223, p. 835.

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In the following weeks an American briefing team toured Europe explaining the American concept of a multilateral force, including the provision for crews of mixed nationality. They did not elicit a significant European response.

In December, Secretary Rusk spoke vaguely of a force "not . . . so heavily dependent upon the United States alone." But he stressed that it was up to the Europeans to formulate a concrete proposal:

> We also have expressed our willingness, if our allies wish to do so, to consider a multilateral nuclear force which would not be so heavily dependent upon the United States alone. Now, we have not ourselves put forward a precise plan in this regard. This is something that our friends across the Atlantic would presumably wish to do if they conclude what it is they would like to propose in this field.¹

At the regular NATO ministerial conference in December 1962, the United States took no initiative with respect to the NATO multilateral force. A week later at Nassau the United States and Great Britain made two decisions: to subscribe part of their national nuclear forces to NATO and to create a NATO multilateral force:

> Returning to Polaris the President and the Prime Minister agreed that the purpose of their two governments with respect to the provision of Polaris missiles must be the development of a multilateral NATO nuclear force in the closest consultation with other NATO allies. They will use their best endeavors to this end.²

¹ Dean Rusk, News Conference on December 10, 1962, DOSB, December 31, 1962, XLVII, 1227, p. 995.

² Text of the Communique, DOSB, January 14, 1963, XLVIII, 1229, p. 44.

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One of the many confusions in the Nassau Agreement concerned the meaning of this clause: Did multilateral mean the assignment of national contingents to a NATO force as the British argued? Or did it involve a commitment to the creation of a mixed-manned force as the United States urged? For a few weeks after the Nassau Agreement the term multilateral was in fact used interchangeably for either arrangement. An effort was made to create what was finally called an Inter-Allied Force drawn from national contingents. It foundered in the face of French hostility and the increasing American commitments to the MLF.

This sequence of events suggest that until de Gaulle's press conference on January 14, 1963, the multilateral force was far from a high priority goal of American foreign policy. In the face of indifference at the highest level, it had in fact been kept alive in the government only by a very small group of enthusiasts who, in the words of one acute observer, engaged in "a public relations campaign to gain official, political and academic support of an energy and ruthlessness unknown since Harriet Beecher Stowe . . ."

1

Alastair Buchan, "Is this NATO Crisis Necessary?" *The New Republic*, August 8, 1964.

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Whatever the hesitations of the Kennedy Administration, they were re-
solved after de Gaulle's press conference of January 14, 1963. On January 21, 1963,
Secretary Rusk said in a television interview that the United States would proceed
with the NATO multilateral force even without France (though he did not make
clear whether he was using multilateral in the American or the British sense). ¹
On February 9, the Legal Counsellor of the State Department, Abraham Chayes,
explicitly advanced the multilateral force as an alternative route to the "grand
design" which de Gaulle had sought to block with his veto of Britain's entry
into the Common Market. ²

By March 1963, the United States had dropped the conditions of a non-
nuclear build-up and of a prior European agreement to a control plan. Indeed,
it was now argued that a final decision on the control problem should await
the actual creation of the multilateral force. Ambassador Livingston Merchant
was assigned to carry out the negotiations to bring the multilateral force

1 Dean Rusk, "Today Show," January 21, 1963, DOSB, February 1963, XLVIII, 1223, p.

2 Abraham Chayes, "European Integration and American Foreign Policy," February 9, 1963, DOSB, March 4, 1963, XLVIII, 1236, p. 321.

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into being. On April 27, Under Secretary Ball laid down four criteria for the multilateral force: (a) there must be many participants; (b) the force must not be based predominately in one country; (c) the components must be unavailable for withdrawal because of mixed manning; (d) and the decision-making must be collective. He went on to describe the MLF in glowing terms:

> The kind of multilateral force I have described has much to commend it. Not only is it the best means of dealing with the nuclear problem in the present political framework; it is also a means of promoting gradual and constructive evolution within that framework. The multilateral force would offer the great advantage of a further opportunity to work toward greater unity in Europe and closer partnership between Europe and the United States.¹

During 1963, the multilateral force became the main focus of American NATO policy. The original posture of responding to European wishes was abandoned. American spokesmen ever more insistently urged the MLF as a major contribution to restoring Allied cohesion--indeed as the principal available step.

Thus, on October 27, Secretary Rusk speaking in Frankfurt said:

> Such a multilateral missile fleet would be militarily effective. Its accurate and well-protected missiles would be counted toward the total needs of Western deterrence.

¹ George W. Ball, "The Nuclear Deterrent and the Atlantic Alliance," speech April 27, 1963, DOSB, May 13, 1963, XLVIII, 1246, p. 739.

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It would strengthen Atlantic partnership by binding the United
States and Europe in an inextricable nuclear tie. The missiles
and warheads would be jointly owned and controlled; they could
not be unilaterally withdrawn.

And it would strengthen European cohesion by providing the
presently non-nuclear powers an opportunity to share in owner-
ship, manning, and control of a powerful nuclear force on the
same basis as other members of that force.¹

This was supplemented by a flood of emissaries--official, semi-official and
unofficial--pressing the MLF on our European allies with whatever argument
seemed best suited to the particular circumstances.

In the face of this onslaught the initial reserve of at least some of
our allies melted. After a brief period of hesitation, the government of the
Federal Republic agreed to the scheme. While its original motive may well have
been to prove its continued loyalty to the American alliance after the shock
of the Franco-German Treaty, the Federal Republic has in the interval become
nearly as enthusiastic an advocate of the MLF as the United States. Greece,
Turkey and Italy have agreed in principle to participate. Britain and the
Netherlands are joining the other countries in a demonstration of mixed manning.
France has refused any degree of participation.

¹ Dean Rusk, "Toward a New Dimension in Atlantic Partnership," speech at Frankfurt on October 27, 1963, DOSB, November 11, 1963, XLIX, 1272, p. 730.

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However, the large number of participants is deceptive. United States insistence has made it difficult for Allied governments to face the issue of the MLF on its merits. In the capitals of all actual or potential participants the Defense Ministry--which might be thought to have a vested interest in the MLF--is opposed or lukewarm while the Foreign Offices fearful of the political consequences of a refusal have been pressing it. The scepticism or indifference of the military has been overcome by the concern that to refuse an American overture which is being urged so insistently might jeopardize the American commitment to the defense of Europe.

The MLF--ridiculed by many when it first appeared, doubtfully received even under American pressure, perhaps accepted, except in Bonn, with the *arrière pensée* that it would never come to pass--has taken increasingly precise form. It is to be composed of twenty-five surface ships each carrying eight Polaris missiles of the type A-3. Each ship is to be manned by crews drawn from at least three nationalities. No participating nation is to contribute more than forty per cent of the total. Command of the ships is to be in proportion to the financial contribution. (In practice this will mean that

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the Federal Republic and the United States will each contribute forty per cent
leaving twenty per cent to be divided among the five or six other participants.)
The control system has not yet been decided, but it seems certain that an exe-
cutive body comprising the total membership will make decisions--at least
initially on the basis of unanimity. The present time-table calls for signing
a treaty on the MLF by the end of 1964, with ratification taking place sometime
during 1965,

So much United States prestige has been invested in the MLF by now that
a judgement of its merits becomes extremely difficult. Any responsible assess-
ment must take into account that a collapse of the project at this stage will
almost surely impair the leadership position of the United States within NATO.
Nevertheless a judgment of the merits of the MLF is essential. For the MLF
will not be the end but the beginning of a process which we should enter with
our eyes open. This is all the more necessary because the MLF has been ad-
vocated by its enthusiasts with arguments so extravagant and sometimes so con-
tradictory that American policy may suffer from the unfulfillable expectations
of its allies for years to come. It would be unfortunate if a scheme made so

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significant by American pressure were to be discredited because the requirements
of salesmanship have superceded sober analysis.

The arguments on behalf of the MLF can be summed up as follows:¹

(a) the MLF can be militarily effective; (b) the MLF meets a NATO need, specifically it can counteract the Soviet MRBM's in Western Russia; (c) the MLF will provide an organic link between the United States and Europe; (d) the MLF can counteract the bad example set by the French and to a lesser extent, the British national nuclear program. It will eliminate, or at least reduce, any sense of discrimination Germany might feel in the nuclear field; (e) the MLF will provide a forum for consultation on nuclear matters; (f) the MLF leaves open the evolution into a European force linked to the United States; (g) these benefits are achieved while avoiding the risks of nuclear proliferation. The MLF does not pose an additional military threat to the Societ Union.

1
For a good statement of the case for the MLF see Robert R. Bowie, "Strategy and Atlantic Alliance," International Organization, special issue on the Atlantic Community, Vol 17 (No. 3) Summer, 1963, pp. 722-726.

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In assessing these arguments, it is important to stress that, as in all difficult policy choices, the issue turns on how various considerations--some of them intangible--are balanced and what weight is given particular expectations. If no case whatever could be made for the MLF, it would never have gotten as far as it did.

Taking the positive aspects first, it is highly likely that the MLF can be made into an effective military force. When the American government first began to put its prestige behind the MLF, it simultaneously changed the original proposal from submarines to warfare ships. This created some concern that the United States was offering a second-best weapons system to its allies. It also presented a particular problem for Great Britain which had just committed itself to installing its Polaris missiles on submarines. The British Government faced the dilemma of having to admit either that it was committing itself to an unnecessarily expensive program or that the NATO force was not the best available system.

However, there is no reason to doubt the often repeated assurances of America's military leaders that the MLF can be made sufficiently invulnerable

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to perform the function assigned to it. Some of the United States arguments of the ease with which these ships can hide in the stream of commercial traffic are no doubt excessive. Tracking surface ships within the radius of the range of their missiles should not prove altogether impossible. Also in times of crisis the Soviets may be able to reduce the stream of commercial traffic by appropriate warnings. There is also the problem that surface ships can be sunk by conventional torpedoes. Thus the Soviets might be able to attack the MLF without using nuclear weapons. But the cost would be heavy and the risks great. President Kennedy was surely right when he said at a press conference:

> Can you imagine a situation where the Soviets could discover every one of these ships and mark them and then attack them, destroying the American flag and the Americans on board and not expect that that would not (sic) launch a general conflagration which would include Polaris, Minuteman and every other weapon which might be involved?¹

The notion of mixed manning for the MLF has come in for much ridicule, and the advocates of the MLF have not helped their case by constantly citing the crews of mixed nationality which operate merchant ships. After all, the

1
*New York Times*, March 7, 1963, p. 4

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requirements for discipline, coordination and responsibility are incomparably greater in a military force designed for nuclear operations. Nevertheless, it seems likely that the participating nations will furnish elite forces for the MLF. It is another question whether the MLF will require so much highly specialized manpower that the participating nations will be able to staff it only at the expense of some of the existing missions of their national services.

Another probable benefit of the MLF will be a more intimate process of consultation. Advocates of the MLF are correct in pointing out that membership in the MLF would improve the participants' knowledge about nuclear matters; this is particularly true of the presently non-nuclear countries. Structurally, of course, this consultation would have to be done within an American framework since the MLF is not designed for an independent mission and because of the special custodial arrangements for nuclear weapons required by the United States Atomic Energy Act.

But granting all these advantages, the question remains whether the force as now conceived is militarily necessary (rather than effective). What changed American judgments on this point between November 1962 when Secretary

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spoke to the NATO parliamentarians and February 1963, when the United
States began pressing for the MLF? The usual answer is that the MLF
fulfills SACEUR's proposal to replace his tactical aircraft with medium-
range missiles. The primary purpose of the MLF would be to neutralize the
hundreds of Soviet missiles deployed in Western Russia.

But should this be a top priority mission for SACEUR? It is in-
conceivable that SACEUR could conduct a neutralization campaign against the
entire Soviet medium range ballistic force without having assured himself
of the simultaneous support of SAC. This, more than any other task,
requires the most intimate and immediate coordination with American strategic
forces, all the more so as the MLF as now conceived is less than a third of
the total Soviet medium range ballistic missile force (MRBM's). Thus if the
Soviet MRBM's are to be destroyed either everything depends on the partici-
pation of SAC (in which case there is a question why the mission should be
split up) or the MLF will have to be very considerably increased. If, on
the other hand, SACEUR is given the mission of destroying all Soviet MRBM's,
pressures for more European-based MRBM's are inevitable. In other words a
case can be made for assigning the entire mission of counteracting

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Soviet MRBM's to SAC. Another case can be made for giving the mission to SACEUR. But to give the mission to SACEUR with insufficient means is to invite controversy. Moreover, if the MLF is to counteract the Soviet MRBM's, pressures for loosening the control mechanism are certain. The present control arrangements for the MLF envisage the unanimous concurrence of all participants, including the United States which has the capability to conduct this kind of war by itself; this cannot prove acceptable in the long run.

But the military argument is not decisive; if it were, the opposition of the various Defense ministries would surely have killed the MLF project. Most of the proponents of the MLF emphasize the political benefits it is supposed to bring--specifically its role in counteracting actual or potential German desires for a national nuclear program. Unless these desires are met in some form, so the argument runs, the resulting sense of discrimination might make Germany less eager to maintain its NATO ties.

Also, the argument continues, the MLF could provide a "safety net" into which France and Great Britain might jump were they to decide to give up their nuclear forces. Finally, the MLF is supposed to foster Atlantic

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cohesion and leave open the possibility of evolution towards a European
nuclear force.

It will never be known whether a subconscious desire for nuclear
participation did exist in Germany or what practical form it could have
taken. The alleged German demand for national nuclear forces may be a
classic case of a self-fulfilling prophecy. At first, State Department
enthusiasts for the MLF developed a theory of what _might_ happen if French
and British arguments on behalf of national nuclear forces were pressed
to their logical extreme--ignoring the political and historical inhibitions
on Germany. This caused them to interpret many German actions as masking
a wish for national nuclear weapons--even though their explicit intention
was quite otherwise. Thus Chancellor Adenauer's statement that if Britain
and France acquired a special position within the Alliance as a result of
their nuclear programs, some way had to be found to give the Federal
Republic equivalent status was taken as a veiled demand for the possession
of nuclear weapons. In fact it was a plea not for nuclear weapons but for
political equality. A similar interpretation was put on the strategic views
of former Defense Minister Strauss. He argued for more information about the

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nuclear stockpiles in Germany, for a guarantee that these would not be withdrawn without the consent of NATO and for a degree of unspecified joint control over weapons fired from German soil.¹ But Strauss' concern was primarily with control of tactical nuclear weapons already in the NATO stockpiles and of a range not suitable for a retaliatory strategy.

Some advocates of the MLF argue that even if German desires did not exist, they would surely have developed. According to this school of thought, it was against all reason to expect Germany to be forever content with second-class status in the nuclear field. But is this really true?

Was Germany really likely to develop its own nuclear program simply because France had done so? Was the French effort--begun by de Gaulle's predecessors--in fact inspired by the example of Great Britain? Or is it not more likely that the experience of Suez was a more powerful catalyst for the French nuclear program than speeches in the House of Commons?

What gave France a greater incentive to enter the nuclear field, the

¹ See, for example, *The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung*, April 21, 1962.

IV - II - 19

military analyses of British Ministers of Defense or the tendency of Washington to give Great Britain a privileged position in the conduct of East-West negotiations? In short, whether Germany felt that it suffered from second-class status depended less on its armaments than on its political role. Clearly, de Gaulle's 1958 proposal for a Directorate which excluded the Federal Republic and where membership depended on the possession of nuclear weapons was discriminatory and a spur to nuclear proliferation.

By the same token, a fastidious concern for the political role of the Federal Republic in the Alliance and an intimate system of political consultation might well have met the demands likely to be articulated by any foreseeable German government in the Sixties.

Above all, it was unwise to act as if possible German acquisition of nuclear weapons depended on its own unilateral decision. No country faced greater obstacles in developing a nuclear program. There was the formal inhibition of the treaty establishing the West European Union which prohibited the Federal Republic from producing or testing nuclear weapons on its soil. There were serious domestic obstacles. All over Europe, the memory of World War II was still powerful. Any German government would have

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known that a unilateral decision to enter the nuclear field involved risks
out of proportion to any possible gains. Some allies might have left NATO.
If the Soviet Union had made a German nuclear program a casus belli, it is
highly doubtful that any European country would have risked devastation so
that Germany might have nuclear weapons under its own control. Whatever
Germany's desires with respect to nuclear weapons, it would have been
extremely difficult to put them into effect. It would have been wiser to
face explicitly that a measure of discrimination against Germany with respect
to nuclear weapons was unavoidable.

Historians will find it difficult to determine whether the MLF
met a German desire or whether it stimulated it, whether it kept Germany
from entering the nuclear field or whether the American advocacy of the
MLF represented the sole practical means by which Germany could become a
nuclear power. Was there a "German" problem or did the United States, in
the words of the Defense Correspondent of The Times, London, create the
problem through the passionate advocacy of its solution? It is more than
likely that a vicious circle was created: the United States put forth a
proposal based on a theoretical model of conceivable German desires which

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the Germans felt obliged to accept because they did not want to thwart
<u>American</u> desires.

But whatever one's conjecture about German attitudes, there is no
question that the negotiations about the MLF have established a German claim
to nuclear participation. Henceforth, the issue is no longer a German share
of ownership of nuclear weapons--this has been conceded--but the control of
a force in which Germany contributes two-thirds of the European share. A
great deal depends therefore on the solution of the complex problem of the
control of the MLF. And here it is essential to recognize that the interests
of Germany are not identical with those of most of the other participants
in the MLF.

If American arguments are valid, the motive of Germany in entering
the MLF must be to <u>increase</u> its share of nuclear control. The motive of
almost every other participant is to obtain a veto to <u>prevent</u> an increase
of German control. Not to recognize these facts is simply to store up
trouble for the future.

This, however, is precisely what has been happening. It is a
curious feature of the MLF that in a scheme which has been advertised

IV - II - 22

primarily in terms of its political benefit so little content has been
given to the central problem of political control. The United States
attitude has been expressed in two propositions: (a) Since the multilateral
force does not yet exist, the issue of control need not be faced until the
fleet has come into being. By then, experience in the operation of the MLF
should permit a better judgment to be made; (b) the United States is
willing to consider modification of the initial control arrangements,
including giving up the veto.

Both of these arguments raise serious questions. Physical operation
of the MLF will offer next to no insight into the problem of control, which
is not a technical but a political issue. It is not necessary to know how
to operate a missile-carrying ship to make a judgment about how a coalition
of sovereign states decides to enter a nuclear war. To transform this
complex issue into a technical one is an evasion which may cost us dearly
as time goes on. For the United States bargaining position will never be
stronger than at the beginning of the MLF when the technology, the warheads
and the missiles will all have to be supplied from America. Once the MLF
exists, the contributions made by America's allies...especially by the

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Federal Republic--will constitute a powerful claim in the debate about
control which is inevitable.

In the inter-allied debate which the MLF is certain to start, the
United States may be haunted for years to come by the inconsistencies with
which it has presented the case for the MLF. To the Federal Republic, the
MLF has been represented as a device to give non-nuclear countries an
increased participation in nuclear matters. But in answering European and
Soviet arguments that the MLF is a guise for nuclear proliferation, United
States spokesmen have been at pains to point out that the MLF, if anything,
decreases the role of its members in the decision to go to nuclear war.

Thus Gerard C. Smith, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for the
MLF, said on April 22, 1964:

> Any time decision to fire the missiles would be by multi-lateral agreement rather than by bilateral agreement as in the case of these earlier strategic missiles. The MLF will thus increase the number of states with fingers on the safety catch, rather than on the nuclear trigger. (Emphasis added.) There would be no risk of compromise of weapons design data under MLF. Multilateral custodial procedures would assure that individual countries had no greater access to information about how to design and manufacture weapons than at present under the NATO Atomic Stockpile.¹

¹ Gerard C. Smith, "The Nuclear Defense of Europe," speech on April 22, 1964, DOSB, May 18, 1964, L, 1299, p. 785.

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Can it be seriously supposed that our allies will make a major
financial contribution to the MLF for a period of ten years simply to
perpetuate the present state of affairs? If there is a German demand for
nuclear weapons is it likely to be satisfied by multiplying safety catches?
Is it not simply storing up trouble for the future to advertise the MLF as a
major departure in nuclear sharing while announcing at the same time that the
United States would retain present custodial procedures in undiluted form?

The facts about control of the MLF seem to be as follows: No country
which is presently unable to go to nuclear war will be able to do so as a
result of the MLF. No country able to go to nuclear war can be prevented
from going to nuclear war as a result of the MLF. No country can be made to
enter nuclear war as a result of the MLF.

The nature of this problem becomes clearer if we examine the nuclear
forces which will exist in NATO after the MLF comes into being. Three
different kinds of nuclear forces will exist: (a) National nuclear forces--
like SAC, the British Bomber Command and the French force de frappe when
it come into being. These would remain under exclusive national control.

IV - II - 25

(b) An Inter-Allied Force composed of national contingents from the United States and Britain. Though under NATO for planning purposes, these forces remain subject to national decisions. (c) The Multilateral Force whose employment as now conceived would require United States consent, together with that of all other participants. From the military point of view the crucial forces are the national forces and the Inter-Allied force since the MLF is too small to perform a counterforce strategy by itself. With respect to these forces the non-nuclear allies are in the same position as before: they can neither compel nor prevent their use. With respect to the MLF, the European participants could prevent its use but they could not compel it.

In case of disagreement with our European allies, one of two things would happen. If we decided to go to nuclear war against the wishes of our allies, the MLF would be inactive; but, we could use SAC and Polaris submarines assigned to NATO. If the situation were reversed--that is, if our allies wished to use nuclear weapons and we disagreed--neither the NATO force nor SAC could operate. Indeed, participants in the MLF will have to be concerned not only about the United States veto--which is, after all, familiar, but also about that of all other

[Y]

IV - II → 26

participants. A force which multiplies safety catches and is too small for its mission is certain to produce two sets of pressures: (a) to turn it into a militarily more significant instrument: by increasing its size at least to the level of the Soviet MRBM's in Western Russia; and (b) to dilute the unanimity principle to avoid paralysis in times of crises. These pressures are likely even where there was initial indifference or hostility to the MLF. Defense ministers will be forced to justify the continuing expenditures for the NATO nuclear forces.

The MLF should, therefore, be entered without any illusions. It is the beginning, not the end, of a controversy. Perhaps this is not the time to start an inter-allied debate about nuclear control. But it is high time for American policy to clarify for itself where it is heading. To leave the decisive issue of nuclear control to the future is to make ourselves the prisoner of unpredictable forces.

There have already been hints of things to come. The German Defense Minister von Hassel has stated that a veto of all the participants in the MLF, while acceptable initially, will have to be reconsidered once the MLF has come into being. More recently, there have been broad

IV - II - 27

indications from German sources that while a United States veto might prove acceptable, that of the lesser European participants would not. In the United States two sets of ideas have been advanced: an eventual surrender of the United States veto and a less radical solution according to which the United States veto is retained but that of the smaller contributors is eliminated.

Can the United States consider giving up the veto as United States spokesmen have occasionally hinted? It is not easy to see how so fateful a decision as the use of nuclear weapons can be abdicated to a majority vote of allies however close. The Constitutional provision that a declaration of war requires the consent of two-thirds of the Senate may well prove insurmountable. The Congressional debate on such a proposition could not avoid going into the circumstances in which a nuclear war might break out. The acrimony generated by such a discussion may do more damage than any benefit that it could possibly bring.

For precisely what commitment would giving up the veto imply? Does it mean that when requested by a majority of our allies we would agree to go to war with the small part of the total nuclear arsenal of the Alliance

IV - II - 28

represented by the MLF while SAC remains inactive? Or does it mean that we would be prepared to go to war with our entire nuclear arsenal? The former interpretation is utterly inconsistent with United States strategic doctrine. It would be utterly contrary to the strategic doctrine elaborated so persistently by Secretary McNamara and his associates to go to nuclear war with only the MLF which is a small part of the total nuclear force of the Alliance and one not exceptionally well-suited to discriminating targeting. It would make impossible the strategy of flexible response to which the United States is committed. And Soviet retaliation against a blow from a force in which we participate could hardly take into account our negative vote on the control body.

But if the second interpretation is correct--that we would be committed to go to war with our _entire_ strategic force--it is not clear why a special multilateral force must be set up. Then it would be 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.

What about the schemes that eliminate not the American veto, but that of the minor participants (for example, those contributing less than

IV - II - 29

ten per cent). This, in effect, would transform the MLF into a German-
American nuclear partnership. Even should Great Britain ultimately join
the MLF, its share could not be very large. The Polaris program agreed to
at Nassau will absorb most of Britain's resources in the nuclear field. At
the same time, Britain will surely refuse to be considered a "minor" European
power on nuclear matters. Similar considerations may well apply to Italy and
perhaps even to the smaller countries. No country can have a high incentive
to share in the costs of a force when it can neither influence the decision
to use it nor prevent its use.

Others have argued that the MLF should ultimately be transformed
into the atomic force of an integrated Europe. American statements have
been equivocal on this prospect. Some leading Americans have implied that
the United States would not object to a strong integrated European force.
In 1963, Secretary Rusk praised the MLF because it contributed to European
cohesion.¹ Deputy Assistant Secretary J. Robert Schaetzel has argued that:

¹ Dean Rusk, "Toward a New Dimension in the Atlantic Partnership," _DOSR_ November 11, 1963, XLIX, 1272, p. 730.

IV - II - 30

The multilateral force would also inevitably make easier the eventual development of a European nuclear force, should this be the desire and within the grasp of the Europeans. For a European nuclear force presupposes the application of the same principles of integration and of organization and communal structure as those which would govern the MLF.¹

The then Vice President Johnson said much the same thing more concisely:

> The movement to Atlantic partnership makes this MLF possible. The movement to European unity makes this desirable--as a first step toward a greater European voice in nuclear matters. Evolution of this missile fleet toward European control, as Europe marches toward unity, is by no means excluded.²

The influential Action Committee for Europe headed by Jean Monnet has endorsed the MLF as the precursor of a European atomic force.

But if a European Atomic Force is the goal or even a significant option, it is important to be clear about it early in the development of the MLF or bitter acrimony will be unavoidable. Many of the participants of the MLF have joined precisely to avoid a European force. In many European countries the MLF is urged as a device to tie the United States more closely to Europe. Most European participants have an overriding

¹ J. Robert Schaetzel, " *Atlantic Community Quarterly*, Vol. 1, No. 4, Winter 63-64, p.

² Lyndon B. Johnson, Address at Brussels on November 8, 1963, *DOSB*, December 2, 1963, XLIX, 1275, pp. 853-4.

IV - II - 31

concern with preventing German dominance of the nuclear field. Anything
that diluted American participation would raise the problem of Germany in
its most acute form. A European force growing out of a structure in which
the Federal Republic controls close to seventy per cent of the European
share will be intolerable to all other European countries.

The MLF is a poor chrysalis for a European force. A European force
could grow out of the MLF in only one of two ways: (a) by an American
decision to withdraw from the MLF, or (b) through a European request that
we leave it. Either course will be divisive in the extreme. It is one
thing for a European force to grow out of present national programs which
have been in existence for many years. It is quite another for a European
force to come about through a United States withdrawal, voluntary or forced,
from a joint Atlantic enterprise.

The MLF is the most disruptive road to a European force. It is also
likely to prove the most circuitous. Cooperation in the MLF is not likely
to strengthen a European sense of identity. None of the presently non-
nuclear European members of the MLF, with the possible exception of the
Federal Republic, had any desire to enter the nuclear field. Their competence

IV - II - 32

is minimal and their share small. Lines of communication will run from Washington. The framework of the discussion will inevitably have to be American. The weapons are American and the strategic concept must perforce originate in Washington. Since the MLF can deal with only a small fraction of the targets assigned to it, its utility will depend largely on how well it fits into American plans. For a European sense of identity to emerge, some country would have to act as the catalyst. As the MLF is presently conceived, that country would have to be the Federal Republic, which is the largest European shareholder in the MLF.

Such a prospect is not in the interest of NATO, of European cohesion, of the Federal Republic, or of international stability. It would push the most exposed ally into the forefront of every dispute. It would again raise fears in Europe that a decade and a half of farsighted German policy have begun to submerge. It might dangerously fuse anti-German, anti-American and anti-nuclear feelings into a new wave of neutralism.

Many of these difficulties will arise whether or not the MLF evolves towards a European force. Participants have been promised command of a number of ships and influence in the control body proportionate to their

IV - II - 33

financial contribution. Thus the spokesman for the European point of view within the MLF will inevitably be the Federal Republic. It will have the chief voice in urging a modification of the veto. It will probably urge an expansion of the MLF to include land-based missiles. This is not because the leaders of the Federal Republic are "trouble-makers" but because the logic of the MLF will drive them in the direction of making it a significant institution. All of this suggests the wisdom of a reduction in the German share of the MLF--even if this means that initially the MLF will be smaller than now envisaged.

Some of the advocates of the MLF argue that the prospect of German domination of the MLF will make Britain and France more eager to join it. This may be the case. But it is also possible that Britain and France will move closer to each other and away from a United States that threatens to turn NATO into a special German-American arrangement. Even if the assumption proves correct, however, such a process for solving NATO's nuclear problem would be extremely worrisome. It would be better for the long-term stability and cohesiveness of Europe for the Federal Republic to join a program in which France and Britain are the senior partners, than for Britain

IV - II - 34

and France to be obliged to seek membership in a grouping to which Germany
is the largest European contributor and in which ultimately it may play the
same role as France in the Common Market. History has been altered by
smaller nuances.

In short, to leave open the two most important and interrelated
problems of the MLF--that of control and that of evolution of the force--
is to mortgage the future. Failure to face these problems will magnify
tensions later. The MLF cannot be both a step towards European unity and
a device to vindicate the indivisibility of NATO strategy. Soon after it
is established, a choice of priorities will have to be made. Nor can the
MLF both satisfy the desires for increased European participation in the
nuclear field and merely multiply safety catches. There, too, a choice
is imperative; if the decision is begged indefinitely, even the minimum
objective of isolating France by wooing Germany will backfire. Then we
may yet see the Federal Republic participate in two MLF's: one sponsored
by the United States and the other by France.

The years ahead promise complex debates in which a clear American
view is essential. The nuclear debate will shift from a dispute over

IV - II - 35

possession of nuclear weapons to the issue of the control of an existing
force. It remains to be seen whether it will prove easier to resist the
claim that influence is out of proportion to contribution than it would have
been to face the issue of nuclear participation head-on. Too, by elevating
the MLF into the keystone of United States Policy, other, perhaps equally
pressing, problems may be swept under the rug in order to maintain the will-
ingness of our allies to participate in the NATO force.

It was probably a mistake for the United States to stake its
prestige so heavily on a device of such marginal strategic effectiveness
and which will raise so many difficult problems. When the immediate heat
of debate over the MLF has abated, it would be advisable for the President
to order a study of the process by which this result was achieved within
our government and of the arguments enthusiasts--official and semi-official--
have advanced on behalf of the MLF in their sales campaign abroad. It
would be ironic if the end result of our policy were to substitute the
Federal Republic for France as our opposite number in the nuclear debate.
But this may well happen before the decade is out.

[Y]

IV - II - 36

Nor is the agreement of the governments concerned going to be the end of the story of the MLF. Italy, for example, is always cited as a supported of the MLF because its government has agreed to it. But it is possible that the Italian coalition will collapse over the issue. In other countries, similar acrimonious domestic disputes are inevitable sooner or later. When passions have cooled, it may be possible to consider whether the results were worth the price.

Whatever the wisdom of the original decision, American prestige has now been so heavily engaged that it is impossible for the United States to pull back from it. Were the MLF to collapse--particularly as a result of an American initiative--our capacity for leadership in the Alliance would be cast into fundamental question. We have spoken too passionately of the contribution of the MLF to Atlantic solidarity for its failure not to impair any future American initiatives. Whatever its merit, the MLF has become--through our insistence--a test of Atlantic partnership. The real problem, then, is whether the MLF can be put into a context which minimizes its dangers.

This requires above all a clarification of our purposes. The key

IV - II - 37

issues cannot simply be left to the future. For the future does not bring about results automatically; it must be shaped by some concept. Not to reveal what we intend is a question of tactics; not to know is to abdicate responsibility.

Thus since the United States can no longer abandon the MLF, the occasion should be seized for a full-scale debate of the issues which it raises--at the latest when the treaty is placed before the Congress. The vagueness of the current MLF charter makes it possible to shape the future if the United States displays the same energy that it did in selling the concept. Having brought a force into being, it behooves all its members to clarify its purpose and its relationship to NATO strategy and to the over-all policy of the West.

[Y]

### III. Outline for NATO's Nuclear Arrangements

Perhaps the best way to approach a discussion of a possible direction for NATO nuclear planning is to compare the available nuclear forces with the tasks that may have to be performed. By 1965--assuming the MLF is accepted in some form--there will be four different kinds of strategic force within the Alliance: an independent United States Strategic force; an independent French strategic force; United States and British strategic forces assigned to NATO in the Inter-Allied Force; and, finally, the MLF. In addition, there exists a large and growing arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons on the Continent.

These forces will be available for the following tasks:

#### a. Strategic Nuclear War

The debate about the MLF has made clear that each major member of the Alliance has two somewhat contradictory aims in its NATO nuclear policy: it wants to prevent being forced into nuclear war against its will, and it wants to be sure of the nuclear support of its allies when its vital interests are at stake. These two goals highlight the dilemma of a coalition of sovereign states. If no conflict of interests were

IV - III - 2

conceivable, the concern with either veto or reassurance would be
less pressing. But as a sovereign state is the final judge of its
interests, absolute reassurance is unobtainable. The jealousy with
which the United States has heretofore guarded its sovereignty is as
significant a symptom of this problem as the excessive claims to
independence of some Europeans.

American proposals--including the MLF--have simply avoided this
problem. The United States has taken the position that the indivisibility
of nuclear strategy could be vindicated only by a structure which made
it physically impossible for other nations to act independently. The
United States has been less ready for the inevitable corollary: those
nations which are being asked to entrust their nuclear defense to the
United States will insist, in return, on an equivalent surrender of
United States sovereignty amounting to a veto over the entire strategic
forces of the United States and common world-wide diplomacy. This has

IV - III - 3

been the thrust of the proposals of some of the British Labor Party.¹

As long as we are not prepared for this surrender of sovereignty, we should at least show some understanding for the problems of allies being asked to entrust their fate entirely to an ally three thousand miles away and with a recent history of isolation. The insistence on invisible strategy coupled with undiluted sovereignty produces contradictions which we seem to understand very well when arguing against the nuclear forces of Britain and France. Then we use these concerns to cast doubts on their attitude towards their non-nuclear partners in Europe. Thus J. Robert Schaetzel, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, explained why even a joint British and French force which shared command and control responsibilities with other European partners would still not meet the need:

¹See Patrick Gordon-Walker, "The Labor Party's Defense and Foreign Policy," *Foreign Affairs*, April 1964, pp. 391-398.

[Y]

IV - III - 4

An agreed European control mechanism would still not answer the basic question of these non-nuclear countries: In the moment of crisis would the nuclear powers of the arrangement--the powers which owned and operated the nuclear forces--in fact consult and collaborate on an equal basis with their associate members?¹

If this is a real worry for countries whose next-door neighbors would presumably be under attack and with whom formal arrangements for joint control of nuclear weapons would presumably have been made, why should the concern not be equally valid for a much more distant ally which has heretofore jealously guarded the planning of its own strategic forces?

But the real issue goes even deeper. 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 circumstances in which they might have to rely on their nuclear forces in

¹ J. Robert Schaetzel, *op. cit.*, p. 567.

IV - III - 5

order to wish to reserve some degree of control over their destiny.

It is asking a great deal of countries with the history of Great Britain
and France to resign forever from a realm of technology which will shape
the next centuries.

The problem is all the more real because the issue of peace
and war does not arise in terms of either or. There are many inter-
mediate stages where a country's bargaining position depends on the
risks to which it can expose an aggressor. To some of our European
allies, it appears that even a small nuclear force can contribute to
this bargaining process.

The fear of the United States that the British and French nuclear
forces may take us into a nuclear war against our will seems as theoretical
as the European concern about possible American unreliability in a show-
down. The frequent insinuations from Washington that those of our allies
developing nuclear programs *prefer* to do without the Alliance are the
result of a grave misunderstanding when they are not simply debating points.

IV - III - 6

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.

France and Great Britain must know at least as well as we--though we can hardly expect them to advertise this fact--that using their nuclear forces independently would be a desperate last resort. 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 have built military forces to give them the possibility of posing risks that an aggressor may consider out of proportion to the objectives to be achieved.

For this limited task, the British and French nuclear forces are not so ineffective as we sometimes insist. For one thing, Europeans living on a crowded continent are not so impressed by the benefits of discriminating targeting as United States strategists able to deploy

IV - III - 7

their forces on a continent. To most Europeans, victory in a general war
has little meaning. To them it seems impossible to establish in de
Gaulle's words a relationship between "one kind of death and another."
Rightly or wrongly, the capability for nuclear war is judged not in
terms of victory but of deterrence. And in this respect neither the
British nor ultimately the French nuclear force is entirely negligible.

The ratio of the combined British and French forces to those of
the Soviet Union is more favorable than was that of the Soviet Union
vis-à-vis the United States in the Fifties. Despite the overwhelming
strategic superiority of the United States, no one would maintain that
the Soviet strategic force had no deterrent value.

Of course, the Soviets could launch a pre-emptive blow at the
bases of European nuclear forces. However, such a course would be
extraordinarily risky. As long as the NATO treaty retains any
validity, it would be extremely foolhardy for the Soviets to make a
full-scale nuclear attack on Europe without taking into account the
high probability of American involvement.

IV - III - 8

When the inter-allied debate ceases to emphasize the theoretical question of who has a right to possess nuclear weapons, one of two things is likely to happen with respect to the nuclear forces of Britain and France: either our allies will realize the indivisibility of NATO strategy and the importance of coordinating their forces with ours. Or they will conclude that we are not a reliable partner and assume the major burden of their own defense. What conclusion they will reach depends less on technical arguments of strategy than on the ability to develop a joint foreign policy. Assuming a wise United States diplomacy, all consideration of technology, strategy and policy indicate that the former is by far the more likely outcome. Our allies-- if they understand their own interests--should always prefer the assistance of our enormous nuclear arsenal. But should Europe conclude--for whatever reasons-- that its interests and those of the United States diverge, it will not be possible to keep it tied to us by purely technical devices. Atlantic unity is a challenge to policy and only secondarily to strategy.

To be sure, many of the formulations on behalf of European nuclear forces have been extreme and one-sided--especially in France. A rudimentary

[Y]

IV - III - 9

technology has produced an often crude strategic doctrine. The attempt to restore France's sense of purpose has led to an exaggerated insistence on autonomy. American pressure has evoked theories which emphasize divergent interests. But these theories are subject to the same evolutionary process as they have been in the United States. A mature European program should not be judged by its beginning or its ultimate doctrine by theories developed in part as a reaction to the pressures of a senior partner.

This is not to say that the United States needs to accept every strategic theory advanced by Great Britain and France--even less that it should urge them to stay in the nuclear field, if they should decide to leave it. It _would_ involve an end to the pressure--official and semi-official--against their nuclear programs and a willingness to treat them not as unavoidable nuisances but as legitimate parts of a common NATO strategy.

Obviously we do have interests with respect to the nuclear programs of Britain and France which it is in our interest to promote. The following United States interests seem important: (a) European forces should be well protected so that they do not invite pre-emptive attack or have to be used

IV - III - 10

precipitately because of their vulnerability. (b) These forces should possess an effective command and control system so that they are at all times responsive to political direction. (c) They should be a part of a strategy that includes the possibility of flexible response. (d) They should be co-ordinated with our forces.

Thus a strong case can be made for some assistance to Great Britain and France in enhancing the invulnerability of their forces and improving their command and control procedures--providing they agree to a common NATO strategy. It will be argued that if this course were followed, every European country would acquire nuclear weapons of its own--especially Germany. Any survey of the European scene--outside of Germany--is likely to show the opposite.

Italy has neither the resources nor the domestic structure for a national nuclear program. The smaller European countries have shown great hesititation even about participating in the MLF. None of them would consider undertaking a national nuclear program.

This leaves the problem of Germany. Under the impact of the pressure for the MLF, and the statements of some American spokesmen, some Germans have lately begun to speak of the "discrimination" inherent in British and

IV - III - 11

and French nuclear programs. The implication has been that the MLF would have to absorb these forces if the Federal Republic were to be satisfied in the long run. But it is not clear in what way Germany's interests suffer from the British and French nuclear programs. These programs are either irrelevant or they add somewhat to deterrence by confronting an aggressor with the problem of two or three separate centers of decision. In either case, the interests of Germany would be adversely affected only if these programs were to lead to a lessening of the American commitment to the defense of Europe-- a threat which has sometimes been made by American spokesmen but never should have been. We cannot have it both ways: to insist that the defense of Europe and North America is indivisible and that we can withdraw from Europe if our strategic preferences are not followed. The immediate benefits of such threats will always be outweighed by the demonstration they supply of the possibility of an ultimate American withdrawal.

The first instinct of Chancellor Adenauer in 1962 was undoubtedly correct: the Federal Republic has a right to insist that its nuclear allies not acquire a special status within the Alliance. It must not demand that it

IV - III - 12

have its own nuclear force or that Britain and the Federal Republic should not be encouraged to believe that whether it acquires nuclear weapons of its own depends on its unilateral decision. NATO could scarcely survive a national German nuclear program--a fact which it is essential that all parties recognize. Moreover, the MLF opens up the prospect of some form of German participation in the nuclear field. Indeed this is now its chief of utility.

If the MLF becomes primarily a device to enable Germany to participate in the nuclear field, its emphasis would have to be modified. It would no longer be the centerpiece of United States NATO policy. It should not be advertised as the chief means of restoring Atlantic solidarity, regaining the impetus towards European integration or opening the way into Europe for Great Britain. Its goals would be more modest: to give those allies wishing to participate in the planning and conduct of strategic nuclear operations an opportunity to do so within a multilateral framework. As a result, there would be no need for American (or German) pressure on reluctant allies to join. The decision would not be a test of friendship for the United States but an individual judgment of the various governments.

IV - III - 13

If this view prevails, it is essential to recognize that for the long-term evolution of European policy, other criteria except over-all efficiency are relevant. To American military planners, the chief concern is to assemble sufficient over-all strength to carry out a given mission. To our European allies over-all strength is only one factor. They are also concerned about their relative standing towards each other. Since the MLF is likely to appear to them as the German nuclear contribution to NATO it is vital that it be brought into some proportion to the nuclear programs of Britain and France.

The current American view of making the MLF so large that it will make the British and French programs seem irrelevant is likely to prove short-sighted in the extreme. The MLF would produce many fewer strains were it to find its place in a concept which emphasizes its positive contributions rather than its utility to abort major programs of close allies.

In such a concept, the most useful strategic mission of the various strategic forces within NATO appears to be deep interdiction--particularly against the Soviet medium-range ballistic missiles. A NATO strategic force with this mission could be composed of major units of the British retaliatory

IV - III - 14

force, of the French force de frappe, the MLF and sufficient American units
to enable it to perform this specific mission by itself.

Such a separate strategic force could be placed under SACEUR. However,
it seems wiser to have SACEUR concentrate on the land battle and to create
a distinct NATO strategic command for deep interdiction and counterforce
operations. This would provide at least a "firebreak" in the command structure
and closer political control of the decision to engage in deep penetration of
Soviet territory.

In 1963, an attempt was made to bring about an Inter-Allied Force
which was to have some of these functions. However, the effort foundered
because it was presented as a subterfuge to force France into "integration"
and because of the opposition of some Americans who thought that the "right
of withdrawal" inherent in such a force was inconsistent with their preference
for a completely integrated strategy.

But too much has been made of this theoretical "right of withdrawal."
To debate it as a right leads to deadlock; to face it within the framework of
agreed joint planning may permit a reasonable discussion of probable

IV - III - 15

contingencies. A legalistic approach would argue that, in such a force, no ally could be sure that the forces would in fact be available when most needed. But if the strategic forces of the Alliance were entirely multilateralized, the same would be true. For then it would still be possible for each ally--or at least each major ally--to veto the use of the entire force.

Indeed the right of withdrawal has the advantage of an insurance policy. In the incontestable case that an ally would feel its vital interests so threatened that it would be prepared to go to nuclear war alone it could do so. The knowledge of this possibility would enable it to envisage less drastic alternatives just as American strategic thought moved from massive retaliation to flexible response.

Such a force would avoid some of the strains on Anglo-American relations which exclusive reliance on the MLF is bound to produce. It would enable other European allies to face the issue of their participation in the nuclear field on its merits and with less strain on their domestic structure. It would create a much healthier long-range frame-work for the United States-European dialogue than the present course--if only by providing for a more equal sharing of responsibility.

IV - III - 16

Would France agree to such a scheme? It is hazardous to try to predict the attitude of the French President. But a great deal would depend on how the issue was presented. If the scheme were urged in terms of the largely scholastic argument of the advantage of integration over coordination, a continuation of controversy is likely. If the discussion were cast in terms of cooperative efforts for common ends, at least some hope for progress exists. This would be particularly true if the strategic force were set up as a separate command. But whatever the immediate French decision, the scheme outlined here would create a framework which has better prospects for French adherence less troublesome than the exclusive reliance on the MLF.

If the United States withdrew its pressure against the existing national nuclear forces and reduced the scope of the MLF, the debate in NATO could continue in a new framework. Our allies could finally address themselves to the missions they want to perform, rather than spend energy on scholastic debates on who has a right to do what in contingencies that no one can describe. With some insurance available for the unlikely contingency that the United States might interpret its interests differently from those of Europe, our allies

IV - III - 17

would have less incentive to lock us into a system whose chief virtue
is to guarantee the automaticity of our response. They are then likely to come
to conclusions very similar to ours about the desirability of a strategy of
multiple options. We in turn should stop the threat that unless our
preferred arrangement of nuclear forces is accepted, we might withdraw from
Europe. This threat is counterproductive because it indicates that our
commitment is conditional. And it is incorrect because we can no more
withdraw from Europe than from Alaska; it is high time that we admit to ourselves
that this is one of the reasons why the management of the Alliance is so difficult.

Such a system would be much more flexible than the exclusive reliance
on the MLF. It would give the strategic forces of the Alliance a clearly
defined mission. It would keep open the option of a European force growing
out of the merger of the British and French nuclear programs--particularly if
the MLF is so designed that it does not overshadow the European programs. It
would keep open the integral Allied connection through the joint targeting of
the NATO strategic force and through the MLF. It offers some prospect of ending
the rift between the United States and France. This would end the process

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whereby every country seeks to woo the Federal Republic threatening to upset
the balance in Europe, as well as the internal equilibrium of Germany.

b. Tactical Nuclear War.

It is a curious aspect of discussion within NATO that so much
attention has been paid to multilateralizing strategic forces where SACEUR's
role is peripheral while much less has been done about either doctrine or
control of the tactical weapons in Europe. Part of the reason is the vagueness
of the term tactical. It is clearly impossible to establish a sharp
dividing line between the various types of nuclear conflict. On the other
hand, it is a basic weakness of current NATO planning that the Pentagon has
repeatedly announced as much as a sixty per cent increase in the number of
tactical nuclear weapons in Europe while elaborating a strategic doctrine according
to which such weapons are at least irrelevant and perhaps useless. Thus
the nuclear debate within NATO has concerned itself almost entirely with
weapons most suitable for strategic war. However, an attempt to destroy the
hundreds of medium-range missiles located in Western Russia can hardly be
considered a limited operation. To build up a tactical nuclear establishment

IV - III - 19

without clarifying the doctrine for its use would seem to combine the
worst aspects of all possible options.

If then a role for these weapons were to be defined, two major
missions which can reasonably be called tactical may be distinguished: (a) the
use of small yield nuclear weapons in the immediate battle zone, the purpose
being to prevent the concentration of troops for a massed attack and to
limit their mobility, and (b) short-range interdiction to isolate the battle
area and to prevent the bringing up of reinforcements. Most of the weapons
on the Continent are suitable primarily for these roles.

Consideration of a tactical mission has heretofore been inhibited
by a variety of groups: by disciples of traditional air theory who are convinced
that any limited employment of nuclear weapons is certain to produce an
inconclusive outcome; by pacifists eager to polarize our options between
the most extreme alternatives; by advocates of more limited disarmament schemes
who want to leave the door open for such measures as a nuclear free zone in
Europe.

But the most serious obstacle has been the reluctance of the civilian
echelon of the Pentagon to admit any distinction between the tactical and

[N]

IV - III - 20

strategic use of nuclear weapons. Early in the Kennedy Administration, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gilpatric rejected the notion of tactical nuclear war with the argument that it was impossible to build any limit into a nuclear war.¹ Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Alain Enthoven rejected the notion that even the smallest nuclear weapon was in a distinguishable category. He insisted that once the dividing line between conventional and nuclear weapons is crossed, no obvious "firebreak" exists short of large-scale thermo-nuclear war.² Secretary McNamara has spoken deprecatingly of some "ill-defined threshhold of strategic exchange."³ He has also insisted that the United States strategic forces are alone sufficient to perform any nuclear mission.

There is no question but today our strategic retaliatory forces of bombers, missiles and Polaris are fully capable of destroying Soviet targets, even after absorbing an initial nuclear surprise attack. Allowing for losses from an initial enemy attack we calculate that our forces would destroy virtually all Soviet targets without any help from deployed tactical air units or carrier task forces which, of course, have the capability of attacking these targets with nuclear weapons.⁴

¹ Press Conference, June 6, 1964, *New York Times*, June 7, 1961

² Alain Enthoven, "American Deterrent Policy," *Survival*, V, 3, May-June 1963, p. 96

³ Robert S. McNamara, "XLIX, 127, p. 917." DOSB, December 16, 1963,

⁴ ________, Speech on Feb. 17, 1962, to the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, Chicago, *New York Times*, Feb. 18, 1962.

IV - III - 21

Of course, it is a grave decision whether to cross the threshhold
to nuclear war. It is absurd to contend--as was the case in the recent
Presidential campaign--that nuclear weapons represent simply a more efficient
packaging of conventional explosives. Any use of nuclear weapons involves
dangers of escalation; very prolonged tactical exchanges are therefore
highly unlikely. The issue is not whether it is desirable in the abstract
to use nuclear weapons, but what kind of use is least risky and most effective
once nuclear war has become unavoidable.

This is why there is reason for concern over the contradiction
which has grown up between the build-up of tactical nuclear weapons on the
Continent and American strategic doctrine. The implication of the highest
officials of the Defense Department seems to be that the nuclear establish-
ment on the Continent is both dangerous and useless. It is dangerous because
it may make inevitable the limited war that high Pentagon officials indicate
is almost certain to escalate. And it is useless because it will merely
duplicate attacks on targets already covered by United States strategic
forces.

One result of the inconsistency between United States actions and

IV - III - 22

declarations is to give unnecessary support to imputations of American
motives. A more serious consequence is that the debate about nuclear
control concentrates on weapons based three thousand miles away or at sea,
while the thousands of nuclear weapons on the Continent exist in a kind of
limbo between the fact that they have become a touchstone of the American
commitment to our allies while American planners regard them with extra-
ordinary ambivalence.

The question whether so much reliance should have been placed on
these weapons in the first place must not prevent efforts to deal with a
situation dominated by three basic facts: (1) there exists a large and
growing nuclear establishment on the Continent in a shadow land between its
undoubted power and official scepticism about its role. The United States
is committed to maintain this arsenal in Europe. (2) The Soviet army is
equipped with tactical nuclear weapons so that the decision whether or not
nuclear weapons are used is no longer entirely up to the West. (3) NATO
ground forces are inadequate to withstand a full-scale Soviet onslaught.
History is replete with examples where numerically inferior forces defeated
larger ones--especially if the larger force grows out of a coalition. And

IV - III - 23

the thirty division level would leave the West still numerically inferior
to a fully mobilized U.S.S.R. If NAIO doctrine leaves a gap between
strategic and conventional war, European uneasiness is likely to grow and
the issue of nuclear control will become insoluble.

Moreover, there is reason to question the view that all tactical
missions can be performed by strategic forces on at least three grounds:
the suitability of strategic forces for tactical operations; the probability
of escalation if battlefield nuclear weapons are used; and the feasibility
of conducting nuclear operations confined to a battlefield.

With respect to the suitability of strategic forces for limited
operations, a great deal depends on how this kind of use of nuclear weapons
is visualized. Some argue that nuclear war, even if limited, would bring
about conditions so confused and fraught with peril that the local situation
would be relatively unimportant. This school of thought, therefore, advo-
cates that when the conventional battle seems to be getting out of hand
strategic nuclear weapons be used "demonstratively," as a "shot across
the bow."

But what does one hope to demonstrate? Two methods of employing

IV - III - 24

the strategic forces are available: a limited attack on the opposing strategic forces or a "punitive" attack on the aggressor's non-military targets. The usefullness of either method is open to serious doubt.

If the opposing strategic force is vulnerable and if the limited attack is effective, the Soviets may respond with a counterblow directed against our cities for the purpose of shocking us into stopping the war while the U.S.S.R. still has some strategic weapons left. If the opposing retaliatory force is relatively invulnerable, the result may be a tit-for-tat.

In that case, the issue may well depend on the outcome of the ground battle.

In almost any foreseeable situation, an all-out counterforce blow seems less risky than a limited one.

If strategic nuclear weapons are used "punitively," the outcome is again likely to depend on the local situation. After Soviet forces have reached Rhine, for example, Kiev might be destroyed followed by the destruction of a similar city in the West; this could submerge all other considerations in the desire to end the spiral toward ever greater devastation. The ensuing confusion and panic may well enable the Soviets to consoliate their gains.

[N]

IV - III - 25

The probability of escalation depends on the vulnerability of the opposing retaliatory forces. If the opposing strategic forces are extremely vulnerable, any use of nuclear weapons is likely to escalate very rapidly.

In that case, however, any large-scale military operation--even a conventional one--in an area as vital to both sides as Europe would involve risks out of proportion to any conceivable gain; in short, the original basis for the doctrine of massive retaliation will exist. However, under the conditions of increasing invulnerability of retaliatory forces, which Secretary McNamara has postulated, the pressures against escalation would seem considerable. There may be no logical stopping place once nuclear weapons are being used. There is, however, a very crucial psychological obstacle to a rapid escalation under conditions of mutual invulnerability. Neither side can be very eager to attack civilian populations when such a cause guarantees the destruction of its own population and offers no prospect of military advantage.

Of course, in the best of circumstances, the confusion attendant on
any use of nuclear weapons will be enormous. It will be compounded by the lack
of experience of every country with the use of nuclear weapons. But the issue

IV - III - 26

is not whether it is desirable to use nuclear weapons but whether there is a
greater risk in a limited strategic attack or in one confined to the immediate
battle zone. Considering the Pentagon's scepticism about the battlefield use of
nuclear weapons, it is not easy to understand confidence in its ability to con-
duct a discriminating strategic war which in the best of circumstances must
affect large areas of Soviet territory. After all, the worst that could happen
if nuclear weapons are used tactically is what is certain to happen in case a
general nuclear war--however limited--is begun.

While any use of nuclear weapons involves major risks, their utilization
to prevent a significant territorial advance by the attacker would have the
virtue of observing well-defined geographic limitations. Of all conceivable
limitations, this is the easiest to understand and to concert. If a standstill
in military operations can be forced, the major objective of the defense will
be achieved. Aggression would have no object if it were certain to result in
a stalemate.

A new approach to the nuclear establishment on the Continent should
address itself systematically to the role of nuclear weapons in stabilizing

IV - III - 27

a battle front. This is especially required if NATO cannot raise sufficient conventional forces to resist a massive attack; but it is needed, in any case, so that we may know how to deal with nuclear weapons if they are introduced by an aggressor. Such a re-examination might be based on the following guidelines.

a. NATO should not seek simply to replace existing weapons with more modern versions designed for similar missions--such as replacing aircraft with missiles. Rather an effort should be made to reassess the missions first and develop weapons appropriate to the new concept afterwards.

b. The term "tactical use" should be much more rigorously defined than it has been in the past. It should be applied primarily to the mission of preventing concentration of troops in the battle area and of interdicting their supply system for a limited distance behind the front.

c. The mission of dealing with Soviet MRBM's should be assigned to a separate command. In current thinking, a tactical weapon is distinguished from a strategic one primarily by its geographic location--a consideration which can be of no interest to the potential victim.

d. Any tactical employment of nuclear weapons requires discriminating

[Y]

IV - III - 28

control and careful advance planning. This is unlikely to occur as long as nuclear weapons are such an integral part of every major military unit. In order both to make the conventional build-up effective and to permit a flexible use of nuclear weapons, the atomic arsenal on the Continent should be grouped into a separate command. This command should be charged with planning and conducting tactical nuclear operations.

e. It would seem much more sensible to create a multilateral force out of the nuclear forces now on the Continent than to follow the current MLF concept. Great Britain has proposed such a grouping. It should not be brushed aside as a delaying tactic even if it has been submitted late in the MLF negotiations. It cannot be healthy for NATO to have the United States government adopt the position that negotiations on an issue as vital as that of nuclear control must be confined to the technical elaboration of its own schemes.

A MLF composed of the tactical weapons on the Continent would have the great advantage that all weapons relevant to the tactical mission could be assigned to it. The problem of control might prove somewhat simpler because the interdiction weapons would be most likely employed in case of a general

[N]

IV - III - 29

attack which would affect most allies and thereby create its own necessities.

It would be a natural evolution of the existing system rather than a new and artificial graft. Above all, it would permit a more flexible arrangement of strategic forces than is currently being envisaged.

Such a "tactical" MLF need not replace the projected, essentially strategic one. But it would enable us to reduce our extravagant claims and relieve the excessive pressures which have characterized our approach to the "strategic" MLF.

### c. Conclusion

The NATO nuclear strategy would then appear as follows: There would be a NATO strategic force composed of British, French and American contingents and the MLF. Its mission would be the destruction of Soviet weapons directly threatening Europe and deep interdiction. It might well be set up as a separate command. Its managing body would contain all participants of the NATO force--either national or multilateral. It would have to be closely coordinated with SAC. Then there would be a tactical nuclear force (perhaps multilateral) under SACEUR with the mission of control of the battle-zone and short-range interdiction.

Finally, of course, there would be the essential conventional forces of the Alliance.

IV - III - 30

However, the structure to be effective requires a political apparatus
for the management of crisis. No purely military arrangement can satisfy the
requirements of Atlantic cohesion. Ultimately the future of the Alliance
depends on the vision and energy with which it can address itself to the
problem of political construction.