Henry A. Kissinger

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# CHAPTER I
## THE STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS IN THE ATLANTIC ALLIANCE

### A. The Problem

The most constructive American foreign policy since the end of World War II has been the development of Atlantic relationships. Through a series of far-sighted and bold measures starting with the Greek-Turkish aid program and the Marshall Plan, the United States helped Europe recover from the shock of six years of war. Every administration since then has promoted European recovery and Atlantic cooperation. President Kennedy advanced the "Grand Design" which envisaged a partnership between an integrated Europe and the United States. Partly as a result of these imaginative policies, Europe today is more prosperous than ever. Significant steps toward European integration have been taken. The Common Market is a going concern. Until President de Gaulle's veto of Britain's entry into the Common Market on January 14, 1963, a form of European political union seemed the logical next step. According to the expectation of most American leaders, an ever more intimate Atlantic association would have followed.

In recent years this promise has been flawed by increasingly sharp disputes among the allies. The absence of agreement on major policies is striking. For a while, Great Britain and the United States favored a more "flexible" policy on Berlin than did France and Germany. More recently the United States has moved closer to the German position. On disarmament, the U.S.-British view is rejected by France and greeted with distrust and fear by the Federal Republic. The United States finds little support in Europe for its Asian or Latin American policies. The attempt to establish

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a common trade policy with the Communist world has been generally ineffective. For over a decade, the Western allies have been unable to agree on a common policy toward what has come to be called the Third World. European political unity has been slowed over a debate regarding the relative merits of such abstract constitutional concepts as federation and confederation. Basic issues of strategic doctrine have gone unresolved for years. The issue of nuclear control bids fair to divide the Alliance still further.

Of course, in an alliance of sovereign states, disagreement is inevitable. What makes current disputes so intractable is that they really involve basic assumptions about the nature of Atlantic relationships, the future of Europe and the relative influence of the various partners. For the first time since the war there exists an open challenge, not just to the technical implementation of American plans but to the validity of American conceptions. Our strategic conceptions no longer go unquestioned; our notions of the best organization for Europe and the most efficient Atlantic relationship are being contested.

Many blame this state of affairs on the somewhat out-of-scale figure of President de Gaulle who has articulated this challenge. And there is no question that the abrupt tactics of the French President have severely strained the pattern of allied relationships which emerged after the war. But no one man could have disrupted the Alliance by himself. Fundamental changes have been taking place in the relative weights of Europe and the United States, in the nature of alliances, and the character of strategy. A new conception of allied relationships would have been necessary no matter who governed in Paris--or in Washington for that matter.

In fact, the Atlantic Alliance has been brought face to face with two questions not unlike those with which each Western society has had to

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deal in its domestic affairs: How much unity do we want? How much
pluralism can we stand? Too formalistic a conception of unity risks
destroying the political will of the members of the Atlantic area. Too
absolute an insistence on national particularity must lead to a
fragmentation of any common effort.

The impact of particular statesmen aside, a far-sighted conception
of Atlantic relationships will recognize that there are two levels of
problems: those produced by structural conditions with which policymakers
must learn to live and those caused by acts of policy. This chapter will
deal with the structural problems of the Atlantic Alliance.

B. The Changed Nature of Atlantic Relationships

Perhaps the deepest danger we face is that, as with all great
achievements, nostalgia for the patterns of action which were appropriate
when America was predominant and Europe impotent may become an obstacle
to the creativity needed to deal with an entirely new situation. Those
Americans who deserve the greatest credit for forging existing Atlantic
ties are finding it most difficult to adjust to conditions in which
American leadership is no longer unquestioned. The fact of a challenge to
American pre-eminence is almost as irritating to them as its content. Many
eminent Americans who have played a distinguished role in promoting the
recovery of Europe suffer from the distortion of perspective produced when
the end of America's isolation coincided with the temporary loss of Europe's
ability to play an effective international role or to protect itself against
foreign danger. They remember a Europe torn by World War II. Every

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European country--with the exception of Great Britain--had known defeat at one time or another during the six years of war. Every country--again with the exception of Great Britain--had been, at some point, the victim of foreign occupation. Societies were shattered. Europe was dependent on the United States for its material well-being, domestic cohesion and safety from invasion.

United States-European relationships took on their present cast during this period. Faced with an impotent Europe, the United States has come to deal with its allies on a paternalistic basis. This has involved a certain self-righteousness, impatient of criticism, eager above all to remove the obstacles to the achievement of whatever plans we might have at the moment. American policymakers often act as if disagreement with their views is due to ignorance to be overcome by extensive briefings and insistent reiteration. They are less inclined to inquire whether there may be some merit in an opposing view than in overwhelming it with floods of emissaries, official and semi-official. As a result, the United States and Europe have too often conducted their dialogue over the technical implementation of a blueprint manufactured in America.

In part, this American attitude was both the cause and the product of some bad habits developed by Europe during the period of unchallengeable American hegemony. Throughout much of the post-war period, the policy of our European allies has consisted essentially in influencing American decisions rather than developing conceptions of their own. This, in turn, produced querulousness and insecurity. At times, our allies have seemed more eager to extract American reassurance than to encourage a consistent United States policy. Excessive suspicion has been coupled with formal pliancy.

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For a decade, European statesmen showed their disagreement by delaying the implementation of agreed measures rather than by developing alternative conceptions. This has led to a negativism characterized by a greater awareness of risks than of opportunities and by a general fear of any departure from the status quo.

The period of American hegemony came to an end in the late Fifties and early Sixties under the impact of four events in each of which United States policy had played a major role: European economic recovery; European integration; decolonization; and the Cuban missile crisis and its aftermath. Each of these events illustrates that even the most successful policies create their own dynamism. Results cannot always be judged by the intentions of those who start a historical process, even less by their public pronouncements.

European recovery was promoted by the United States in a constructive and far-sighted spirit. Europe was seen as a potential partner which could eventually share with us the burdens and responsibilities of world leadership. Most pronouncements of American purposes reflected our expectation that after its recovery Europe would no longer require American economic assistance but would continue to pursue parallel, if not identical, policies.

This was, however, always unlikely. With the growth of European economic vigor, Europe's traditional political dynamism was bound to return. The trend was given impetus by the existence of an intact younger generation --the first since the carnage of World War I--eager to assert its own view of the world.

The process of European economic integration magnified Europe's new-found assertiveness. The orthodox view of the European Economic

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Community was that it should be "outward looking" and that its economic
strength would buttress all free peoples on a non-discriminatory basis.
However, it is the essence of a common market that it will maintain some
tariff barriers against the outside world, and, as internal barriers are
lower than external ones, a measure of discrimination will be inevitable.
Moreover, these external barriers can be reduced only as the result of
governmental negotiations. And, obviously, the stronger the economic unit,
the more formidable its bargaining power in these negotiations.

The increasing economic strength of the European Common Market
was bound to complicate economic negotiations with Europe--a fact not to
be eliminated by epithets like "inward looking" which American policymakers
tend to use to oppose policies they consider unfavorable to American
interests. The internal logic of the Common Market produces its own
necessities. These make it inevitably "inward looking" to some extent.
It is no accident that in most economic negotiations--whether they concerned
Britain's entry into the Common Market or the so-called Kennedy Round of
negotiations designed to adjust tariffs between the Common Market and the
United States--the position of the Common Market Commission has been close
to that of France despite profound differences about the political organization
of Europe. The economic interests of the Common Market often coincide with the political goal of France to
vindicate a more independent role for Europe. Many American spokesmen
talk as if a politically unified Europe, making decisions by some sort of
majority voting of the European states, would end the current impasse in

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1. Atlantic relationships. The experience of the Common Market suggests that this conclusion is far from inevitable and that France might have little to fear from a system of weighted voting.

Another factor which contributed to the new assertion of European vigor has been the process of decolonization. Freed from overseas commitments, many European countries for the first time in a generation are able to develop a specifically European role for themselves.

Ironically, the end of Europe's colonial empire has led to a reversal of the traditional post-war roles of the United States and Europe toward many underdeveloped countries. Some European leaders are now repeating the American argument of the Fifties: that the larger interests of the free world are sometimes served by allowing for differing, occasionally even competing, Western approaches to the emerging nations.

This attitude, too, was inevitable, even though it bears the marks of De Gaulle's high-handed tactics. Having shed their colonial possessions, often under American pressure, our European allies have a psychological block against running major risks on behalf of areas from which they have been so recently ejected. As a result of the process of decolonization, our European allies have ceased to think of themselves as world powers. They possess neither the resources nor the domestic framework for distant enterprises. No European government, with the possible exception of the United Kingdom, is likely to be convinced that its security is jeopardized by events in another part of the globe.

1. See below, Chapter VII.

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United States spokesmen often exhort our European allies to play
a more active global role with the argument that their resources are now
adequate for such a task. 2
But the problem is more complicated. The
availability of resources does not guarantee an interest in assuming
world-wide responsibilities as is demonstrated by United States policy
prior to World War II. The same is true today for almost all of our
European allies.

To be sure, each European ally has global concerns in the sense
that it is interested in the maintenance of peace. But this general
concern will not produce meaningful support for such United States policies
as the war in Southeast Asia. To the extent that they give token
assistance, the motive of our European allies will be to obtain a veto
over United States actions. The thrust of their recommendations will be
to avoid a direct showdown and even the semblance of risk. In other words,
we are now the only member of NATO with world-wide interests, and this
produces inevitable differences in perspective.

Finally, relations with the Communist world have changed dramatically
since the Cuban missile crisis. Most of our European allies have reached
the conclusion that the two main nuclear powers will avoid a direct
military confrontation for an indefinite period. This conviction has been
strengthened by the hope of some, and the suspicion of others, that
bilateral United States-Soviet dealings are under way. Such an atmosphere

2
See, for example, George W. Ball, "NATO and World Responsibility,"
The Atlantic Community Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Summer 1964), p. 215.

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of detente removes the previous urgency for Allied cohesion. As the
Soviet threat appears to recede, the scope for largely national action
widens proportionately. As the impression grows that bilateral
Soviet-United States negotiations are proceeding, Third Force tendencies
in Europe are stimulated. The issue is not whether the United States
would make a "deal" contrary to the interests of its allies. It is
rather that in an alliance of sovereign states, each country will think
that it is a better judge of its own requirements than any partner,
however close. No ally will be prepared to let another negotiate about
what it considers its vital interests.

At the detente develops, the need to transform the Alliance from
its present defensive concept into a self-contained political arrangement
will grow ever more urgent. Defense against a military threat will in
the near future lose its power as a political bond. Negotiations with
the East will prove corrosive unless they go hand in hand with the creation
of common political purposes and the institutions to embody them. The
need, in short, is to go from Alliance to community.

Thus major changes have occurred in U.S.-European relations which
have not been caused by any individual, though they may have been exploited
by willful men. On both sides of the Atlantic the persistence of old
attitudes in new circumstances has contributed to an impasse. A country
which has enjoyed a hegemonial position inevitably has difficulty in
adjusting to a loss of pre-eminence. Grown accustomed to finding its
views unchallenged, it tends to identify its policies with the general
interest. This conviction is reinforced by a network of connections with

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individuals who have helped develop the existing pattern and who consider
it natural. The desire of the erstwhile protégé for autonomy appears as
distrust; the quest for independence seems indistinguishable from self-will.
Why should a country want freedom of action when, by definition, its
interests cannot diverge from those of the dominant partner?

By the same token, countries striving to alter a relationship of
tutelage will be tempted to emphasize the burdensome aspects of the
existing relationship and to neglect its benefits. They will not credit
the motives of the senior partner and look for hegemonial designs in sincere
efforts to achieve a consensus.

In the process, both sides emphasize form over substance. The
method of integration becomes a good in itself; a posture of autonomy is
sought for its own sake. Adjustments between partners are never easy;
wisdom and restraint would be severely tested in the best of circumstances.
But the circumstances have not been fortuitous. The change in relationships
within the Atlantic area has had to be carried out at a moment when the
whole concept of alliances is in a state of transition, and it has been
overshadowed by the dread specter of nuclear warfare.

C. The Change in the Nature of Alliances

During the last decade, an important change has taken place in
the nature of alliances. In the past, alliances have been created for
three basic reasons: (1) To provide an accretion of power. With
conventional weapons, overwhelming power could generally be assembled only
by way of coalition. The wider the alliance, the greater its power to
resist aggression. (2) To leave no doubt about the alignment of forces.

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It has often been argued that had Germany known at the beginning of both
World Wars that the United States--or even England--would join the war,
aggression would have been averted. (3) To express as a formal obligation
what may otherwise be an inchoate interest in mutual assistance.

To be sure, even before the advent of nuclear weapons, there was
some inconsistency among these requirements. The attempt to combine the
maximum number of states for joint action occasionally conflicted with
the desire to leave no doubt about the collective motivation. The wider
the system of collective security, the more various were the motives
animating it and the more difficult the task of obtaining common action.
The more embracing the alliance, the more intense and direct had to be
the threat which would produce a united response.

This traditional difficulty has been compounded in the nuclear
age. Nuclear war requires tight command and control of all weapons. This
is to some degree inconsistent with a coalition of sovereign states.
Moreover, the enormous risks of nuclear warfare affect the credibility of
traditional pledges of mutual assistance. Traditionally, alliances have
been operative because it was believed that the _immediate_ risk of conflict
was less than the _ultimate_ danger of facing a preponderant enemy alone.
But when nuclear war risks the lives of tens of millions, some allies may
consider the outbreak of a war the worst contingency and, in times of
crisis, act accordingly.

As a result, many of the theories of nuclear control now current
within the Western Alliance have a tendency either to turn NATO into a
unilateral U.S. guarantee or to call into question the utility of the

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Alliance altogether. American strategic thought verges on the first extreme; some French theorists have hinted at the second.

As for the United States, official spokesmen have consistently emphasized that the European contribution to the over-all nuclear strength of the Alliance is negligible. European nuclear forces have been described as "provocative," "prone to obsolescence" and "weak." For a considerable period after the advent of the Kennedy Administration, some high officials held the view that the allies might be induced to ask the President to serve as the Executive Agent of the Alliance on nuclear matters. Since then, the United States has made various proposals for nuclear sharing; the common feature of these has been the retention of the United States veto over the nuclear weapons of the Alliance.

However sensible such schemes may appear from the point of view of division of labor, they would perpetuate American hegemony in nuclear matters within the Alliance. Allies seem to be considered necessary not so much to add to over-all strength as to provide the ability for applying power discriminately. Allies are useful because they permit resistance to aggression by means less cataclysmic than all-out war. In such a structure, American decisions must continue to be paramount. The nuclear

3 For the classic indictment of Europe's national nuclear forces see Secretary McNamara's speech at Ann Arbor, Michigan, June 16, 1962, Department of State Bulletin (hereafter referred to as DOSB), Vol XLVII, No. 1202 (July 9, 1962), pp. 64-9.

4 See below, Chapter IV, p. .

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weapons of the Alliance have to remain under central control, which in effect means American control. The predominant United States view is a sophisticated elaboration of the situation of the late Forties and early Fifties. It is designed to make our hegemony more bearable, not to alter it.

According to the opposing view, alliances have lost their significance altogether. The French theorist, General Gallois, has argued, for example, that nuclear weapons have made alliances obsolete. Faced with the risk of total destruction, no nation will jeopardize its survival for another. Hence, he maintains, each country must have its own nuclear arsenal to defend itself against direct attack, while leaving all other countries to their fate.

This formula would mark the end of collective security and would be likely to lead to international chaos. In the face of the growing nuclear arsenals of the major protagonists, it would be idle to deny that the threat of nuclear retaliation has lost some of its credibility. The Gallois theory would, however, transform a degree of uncertainty into a guarantee that the United States would not come to the assistance of its allies, thus greatly simplifying an aggressor's calculation.

Moreover, in order to protect itself in this new situation, each country would need to develop not only a nuclear arsenal of its own but also foolproof procedures for assuring the Soviets that a given nuclear

5 Pierre M. Gallois, "U.S. Strategy and the Defense of Europe," *Orbis*, Vol. VII, No. 2 (Summer 1963), pp. 226-249.

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blow did not originate from its territory. If Gallois is right, and no country is willing to risk nuclear devastation for any ally, it will also want to prevent itself from being triggered into nuclear war by a neighbor. Thus each country will have a high incentive to devise methods to protect itself against attacks based on misinformation. The Gallois theory would lead to a multiplication of national nuclear forces side by side with the development of methods of surrender or guarantees of non-involvement.

When views such as these carry influence on both sides of the Atlantic, it is no accident that much of the debate on nuclear matters within NATO turns on the issue of confidence. The United States tends to ask those of its allies possessing nuclear arsenals: If you trust us, why do you need nuclear weapons of your own? The allies reply: If you trust us, why are you so concerned about our possession of nuclear weapons? Since the answer must inevitably emphasize contingencies in which either the goals of the allies or their strategy would be incompatible, the debate on nuclear control within NATO has been inherently divisive.

The preponderance of nuclear power in the hands of the United States poses one set of problems; the range of modern weapons raises another. In the past, a threatened country had the choice either of resisting or of surrendering. If it resisted, it had to be prepared to accept the consequences in terms of physical damage and loss of life. A distant ally could generally be helpful only if it was able to bring its strength to bear in the area of conflict.

Modern weapons have changed this. What each member country wants from the Alliance is the assurance that an attack on it will be considered

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a *casus belli*. It strives for deterrence by adding the strength of a distant ally to its power. But, equally, each state has an incentive to reduce damage to itself to a minimum should deterrence fail. For the first time the range of modern weapons provides the technical possibility of combining these objectives. In 1914 Belgium could not base its defense on a strategy which transferred to Britain the primary risks of devastation. In the age of intercontinental rockets this is technically feasible.

Part of the strategic dispute within the Alliance, therefore, involves jockeying to determine which geographic area will be the theater of war if deterrence fails (though this obviously cannot be made explicit). A conventional war confined to Europe must appear in a different light to Americans than to Europeans who remember the casualty lists of two world wars and on whose territory such a war would be fought. A nuclear exchange which spares their territory may seem to Europeans a more attractive strategy and the threat of nuclear retaliation a more effective deterrent. Although the interests of the Alliance may be indivisible in an ultimate sense, this does not guarantee that there will not be sharply clashing perceptions about methods to reach common objectives.

Thus the deepest problem before the Atlantic Alliance is that the pressures of the new technology run counter to traditional notions of national sovereignty. The risks of nuclear warfare may be too great to be combined reliably with what has heretofore been considered a key attribute of sovereignty: the unilateral right of a sovereign state to alter its strategic or political views. The destructiveness and range of modern weapons have a tendency to produce both extreme nationalism and neutralism.

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A wise alliance policy must take care that in dealing with one of these
dangers it does not produce the other.

The nature of alliances has changed in yet another way. In the
past, one of the reasons for joining an alliance was to impose an
additional obligation for assistance in time of need. Were each country's
national interests completely unambiguous, it would know precisely on
whose assistance it could count; a formal commitment would be unnecessary.
Both the aggressor and the defender would understand what they would
confront and could act accordingly. Wars could not be caused by a
misunderstanding of intentions. They would occur only if the protagonists
calculated the existing power relationships differently.

Traditionally, however, the national interest has not been
unambiguous. Often the aggressor did not know which countries would
ultimately be lined up against it; Germany in 1914 was genuinely surprised
by the British reaction to the invasion of Belgium. Occasionally the
defenders could not be certain of the extent of their potential support--as
was the case with the Allies in both wars regarding U.S. participation.
Historically, the existence of an understanding on this point, tacit or
explicit, has often been the determining factor in the decision to go to
war. In the decade prior to World War I, the staff talks between Britain
and France which led to the transfer of the French fleet to the
Mediterranean were one of the key factors in Britain's decision to enter
the conflict in August 1914. (Thus, the talks achieved one objective of
traditional alliances: to commit Britain to the defense of France. They
failed in another: to make the opposing alignment clear to the potential
aggressor.)

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One of the distinguishing features of the present period is that ideology and technology have combined to produce a global confrontation. This, in turn, has rendered the national interest of the major antagonists less ambiguous. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union can permit a major advance by its opponent regardless of whether the area in which it occurs is formally protected by an alliance or not. Neutral India was no less assured of American assistance when Communist China attacked than allied Pakistan would have been in similar circumstances. In these conditions, the distinction between allies and neutrals is likely to diminish. A country gains little from being allied and risks little by being neutral.

This inevitably results in the weakening of allied cohesion, producing what some have described as polycentrism. But polycentrism does not reflect so much the emergence of new centers of physical power as the attempt by allies to establish new centers of decision.

The gap in military strength between the United States and its European allies has in fact widened, not narrowed, in the past decade. What *has* changed is the use to which the power can be put. On the one hand, the enormous risks of nuclear warfare call into question traditional pledges of formal assistance. On the other hand, those issues with respect to which nuclear threats *are* credible are so clear-cut as not to seem to require reinforcement by formal undertakings. Polycentrism is on the rise not because the world has ceased to be bi-polar, but because with respect to nuclear weapons it essentially remains so. President de Gaulle is convinced that those circumstances in which the United States might be prepared to resort to its nuclear weapons cannot be fundamentally affected

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by his actions. In other words, the United States commitment need not
be purchased by being conciliatory and cannot be jeopardized by
intransigence--within very wide limits at least.

Thus, President de Gaulle sees little risk and considerable
potential gain in political independence. In a curious way, it is possible
for him to add American power to his own in pursuit of policies. Measures
contradictory to those of the United States are thus in a sense supported
by the American nuclear umbrella--a fact which adds to the irony of the
situation and to the annoyance of some American policymakers. Although
traditionally a state's diplomatic influence corresponded roughly to its
military strength, this is no longer inevitably the case. Influence can
now be achieved by using another country's protection even for policies
not in accord with the ally's preferences.

The frequent insistence of United States officials and commentators
that in the nuclear age an isolated strategy is no longer possible misses
the central point: Precisely because an isolated strategy is indeed
impossible allies have unprecedented scope for the pursuit of their own
objectives. And the more the detente--real or imaginary--proceeds, the
more momentum these tendencies will gather. We live in a curious world
where neutrals enjoy most of the protection of allies and allies aspire to
have the same freedom of action as do neutrals.

D. The Nature of the Strategic Debate

The nature of power has never been easy to assess. But in the nuclear
age this problem is complicated by the enormous destructiveness of
weapons and the rapid change of technology. A basic discontinuity has

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developed when a statesman is compelled to risk millions of lives instead of thousands, when his decision no longer involves the loss of a province but the survival of society itself. Even if the classic principles of strategy are not entirely outmoded, the statesman will inevitably be reluctant to put them to the test.

This situation reflects the basic paradox of the nuclear age: Power has never been greater; it has also never been less useful. In the past, the major problem for strategists was to assemble superior strength; in the contemporary period the problem more frequently is how to discipline the available power into some relationship to objectives likely to be in dispute. Yet, no matter what spectrum of power the major contenders may have at their disposal, the fear of escalation is inescapable. Though states have an unprecedented possibility to devastate their opponent, their threats to use this capability have only a limited credibility. This is because the ability to destroy is not related to the ability to disarm--so that using one's nuclear arsenal indiscriminately against a major opponent only guarantees self-destruction.

This dilemma creates potent pressures against the very concept of strategy. War, it is said, has become unthinkable and diplomacy is therefore asked to take over. But if nuclear war has become the last resort of desperate men, this has not made the conduct of diplomacy any easier. In the past, unsuccessful negotiations never returned matters to their starting point; they called other pressures into play. But many of these pressures are no longer available, and thus diplomacy, too, has become less flexible. Where no penalty for non-compliance exists--no ultima

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ratio--there is no incentive to reach agreement. As statesmen have become increasingly reluctant to resort to war, negotiations have become more and more ritualistic. Tension is thus likely to persist; yet the Alliance may well remain uncertain and divided about the conclusions to be drawn from this state of affairs. Though pacifism is not a novel attitude, the pressures within the Alliance against the need for any effective military policy are likely to increase.

This problem is made more acute because the primary purpose of modern weapons is deterrence. But deterrence is as much a psychological as a military problem. It depends on the aggressor's assessment of risks, not the defender's. A threat meant as a bluff but taken seriously is more useful for purposes of deterrence than a "genuine" threat interpreted as a bluff.

Moreover, if deterrence is successful, aggression does not take place. It is impossible, however, to demonstrate why something has not occurred. It can never be proved, for example, whether peace has been maintained because NATO pursues an optimum strategy or a marginally effective one. Finally, the more effective deterrence is, the more credible becomes the argument that perhaps the Communists never intended to attack in the first place. An effective NATO deterrent strategy may thus have built-in pressures to strengthen the arguments of the quasi-neutralists.

Even when the necessity for a military policy is not challenged, serious disputes are produced by the novelty of modern weapons. Never before in history has so much depended on weapons so new, so untested, so "abstract." Nuclear weapons have been used in wartime only against Japan,

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which did not possess means of retaliation. No one knows how governments or people will react to a nuclear explosion under conditions where both sides possess vast arsenals.

Then, too, modern weapons systems are relatively untested. During the debate over the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, a great deal of attention was focused on the adequacy of nuclear warheads. In fact, the other components of modern weapons systems contain many more factors of uncertainty. The estimated "hardness" of Minuteman silos depends entirely on theoretical studies. Of the thousands of missiles in our arsenal, relatively few of each category have been tested under operational conditions. There is little experience with salvo firing. Air-defense systems are designed without any definite knowledge of the nature of the offense. A high proportion of the phenomena discovered in nuclear testing have been unexpected.

The novelty of modern weapons is compounded by the difficulty of forming a plausible conception for their use. How does one threaten with solid-fuel missiles? As these are always in an extreme state of readiness, how does one demonstrate an increase in preparedness which has historically served as a warning? From a technical point of view, it is highly probable that missiles can perform most of the functions heretofore assigned to airplanes. The shift to missiles and the elimination of airplanes envisaged by the former Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric makes a great deal of sense technically. But has adequate attention been given to the

6

Roswell Gilpatric, "Our Defense Needs: The Long View," *Foreign Affairs*, Vol. 42, No. 3 (April 1964), p. 373.

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kind of diplomacy which results--particularly in crisis situations--when
the retaliatory threat depends entirely on solid-fuel missiles in
underground silos? During the Cuban missile crisis, dispersing SAC planes
to civilian airports proved an effective warning. What will be an
equivalent move when our strategic forces are composed entirely of missiles?

The intricacy of these problems has had a demoralizing effect on
allied relationships. An ever-widening gap has appeared between the
sophistication of United States technical studies and the capacity of allied
leaders to absorb them--a gap which makes meaningful consultation
increasingly difficult. It is unlikely that even the most conscientious
allied leader--or U.S. President, for that matter--can devote as many hours
to a given problem as the United States experts have had years to study it.
And few of our allies have the technical possibility to develop expertise
of their own.

Thus, side by side with the restoration of European economic and
political vigor, the military predominance of the United States continues.
Differences in perspective are unavoidable when one partner possesses not
only an effective monopoly of power but also a monopoly of expertise.

The United States is concerned primarily with the most efficient
organization of the common resources for defense against attack from the
East. For many Europeans, assembling an adequate defensive force is not
enough if, in the process, their historical image of themselves is destroyed.
American proposals tend toward a rationalization of efforts for an objective
so much taken for granted that it requires no debate. Those Europeans
opposing American conceptions are not content with simply acting as

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advisors in an American decision-making process; instead, they strive for a structure in which they have an autonomous responsibility. They want their agreement to represent an act of will, not an organizational necessity.

Since the two sides can rarely agree on what is really in dispute, the debate has some of the characteristics of what the French call a "dialogue among the deaf." The United States has been obtuse in recognizing that to turn political and psychological problems into technical ones may lead to the paralysis of those who will ultimately have to implement them. As leader of the Alliance, the United States cannot rest on the technical adequacy of its strategic views. It must also answer questions such as these: Do the allies understand the United States strategic doctrine? Do they believe it? In emergencies, will the doctrine instill a sense of mastery or will it provide an excuse for inaction? Is it accepted with the sense of commitment? In prescribed circumstances this is how we will act. Or is it likely to produce the *arrière pensée*: If this is all we can do, we will do nothing.

By the same token, our opponents in Europe have an obligation to relate their schemes to a responsible strategic posture. Autonomy may be the psychological prerequisite of responsibility. But if it is confined *x* simply to postulating the desirability of independence, it comes perilously close to striking a pose. America has often acted as if unity in the field of strategy is unreliable unless it deprives all allies (except the United States) of the capacity of independent action. Those of our critics who insist on their autonomy have not made matters easier by failing to show how autonomy could bring about common purpose.

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The strategic debate thus takes place on two levels, and it is intractable in part because both sides are right. From a technical point of view, there is undoubtedly great merit to the American insistence on central command and control of military operations. From a psychological point of view, unless this is coupled with an effective sharing of political decisions--far beyond anything so far envisaged--the practical consequence could be a growing sense of irresponsibility among our allies.

Acquiescence in American strategic hegemony can have two meanings: It can either represent a sincere commitment to Atlantic partnership or disguise a neutralist wish to abdicate responsibility. Many who applaud our views may do so for reasons which will not prove very comforting in the long run. The American nuclear umbrella, now sometimes exploited by President de Gaulle for his own purposes, can also be used--and more dangerously for the West--to support policies amounting to neutralism. In many countries it is the leaders and groups traditionally most committed to national defense who have developed views on strategy which challenge American concepts, while some of those most ready to accept U.S. strategic hegemony have in the past been the least interested in making a serious defense effort. The United States may, therefore, have to make a choice between the technical and the political side of Atlantic policy, between the requirements of conducting a nuclear war and the imperatives of a vital alliance diplomacy.

## E. Differences in Historical Perspective and Actual Strength

Some of the strains on Atlantic relationships have resulted from factors outside anybody's control. Many reflect the growth in Europe of

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the very strength and self-confidence which American policy has attempted
to promote since the end of World War II. Others have been caused by
the nature of modern weapons whose destructiveness is not really compatible
with insistence on undiluted sovereignty.

But perhaps the deepest cause of misunderstandings--and the reason
that structural problems have proved so intense --is a difference in
historical perspective. Americans live in an environment uniquely suited
to a technological approach to policy-making. As a result, our society has
been characterized by a conviction that any problem will yield if subjected
to a sufficient dose of expertise. With such an approach, problems tend
to appear as discrete issues without any inner relationship. It is thought
that they can be solved "on their merits" as they arise. It is rarely
understood that a "solution" to a problem may mortgage the future--especially
as there is sufficient optimism to assume that, even should this prove to
be the case, it will still be possible to overcome the new problem when
it materializes.

When applied to foreign policy, such an approach tends to treat
division of labor as its own justification. Allies are considered factors
in a security arrangement. Their utility is measured in terms of their
contribution to a common effort. Criteria are often determined abstractly
with each nation assigned a specific role with little regard to its history
or domestic structure. There is a great proclivity toward abstract
engineering models. Means sometimes become exalted as ends.

But, Europeans live on a continent covered with ruins testifying
to the fallibility of human foresight. In European history, the recognition

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of a problem has often defined a dilemma rather than pointed to a solution. The margin of survival of European countries has been more precarious than that of the United States. Each country—with the possible exception of Great Britain—has known national catastrophe as America has not. European reasoning is thus likely to be more complicated and less confident than ours. Our European allies think of themselves not simply as components of security schemes but as expressions of an historical experience. Policies that neglect their sense of identity may destroy the psychological basis of whatever common effort is attempted to be organized.

This explains some of the strains in Atlantic relationships. Americans tend to be impatient with what seems to them Europe's almost morbid obsession with the past, while Europeans sometimes complain about a lack of sensitivity and compassion on the part of Americans. In the fall of 1963, our newspapers were filled with derisory comments about French maneuvers then taking place. The scenario of these maneuvers supposed that an aggressor force was attacking France through Germany. France's allies had surrendered. As the aggressor's armies were approaching her borders, France resorted to her nuclear weapons.

It is, of course, easy to ridicule this scenario by contrasting the small size of the French bomber force with the magnitude of the disaster envisaged. But the crucial issue is not technical. It arises from the fact that France has undergone shattering historical experiences with which Americans find it difficult to identify. The scenario of the French maneuvers recalled importantly—though perhaps too rigidly—France's traumatic experience of 1940, when foreign armies attacked all along the

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Western front and France's allies collapsed. The British Fighter Command remained in England. The fact that this critical decision was wise does not affect the basic psychological point.

Moreover, the French disaster came at the end of two decades in which France almost single-handedly shouldered the responsibility for the defense of Europe while her erstwhile allies withdrew into isolation or offered strictures about France's obsession with security. The nightmare that some day France might again stand alone goes far deeper than the obstinate ill-will of a single individual.

A comparable problem exists in Germany. Washington has at times shown signs of impatience toward the German leaders and their constant need for reassurance. Secretary Rusk has been reported more than once to be restless with what he has called the "pledging sessions" which the Germans seem so often to demand. However, insecurity is endemic in the German situation. A divided country with frontiers that correspond to no historical experience, a society which has lived through two disastrous defeats and four domestic upheavals in forty years cannot know inward stability. The need to belong to something, to rescue some predictability out of chaos, is overwhelming. The memories of our allies should be factors as real in the discussions of our policymakers as the analysis of weapons systems.

The importance of this difference in historical perspective is compounded by the continuing disparity in strength between the two sides of the Atlantic. While Europe has recovered remarkably, it is important to see its new-found vigor in the proper perspective. Europe has gained in strength over the past decade and a half. It can and should play an

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increasingly responsible role. But for the foreseeable future we are
likely to be by far the stronger partner.

It is important to be clear about this because it requires that the United States show unusual tact and steadiness. Many of our allies have been guilty of unilateral actions far more flagrant than ours. But when we act unilaterally, disarray in the Alliance is almost inevitable. Sudden, drastic, and, above all, unilateral changes in U.S. strategic doctrine--whatever their merit--create a sense of impotence and are resisted as much for symbolic as for substantive reasons. Actions without adequate consultation, either in diplomacy or in troop deployment, increase the pressure for more autonomy. Bilateral dealings with the Soviets, from which our allies are excluded or about which they are informed only at the last moment, are bound to magnify Third Force tendencies. When our allies oppose such practices, it is not necessarily because they disagree with our view but because they are afraid of creating a precedent for unilateral changes in other policies. (Even statements of substantive disagreement may be a smoke screen for deeper concerns.)

Moreover, many allied leaders who have staked their prestige on U.S. policies can suffer serious domestic consequences if we change them drastically. This causes the voice of Europe to reach us in extremely distorted form. President de Gaulle sharpens all disputes and even creates them in pursuit of his policy of independence. But some other leaders do not give full expression to their disquiet because they do not want to undermine further the solidarity on which their security is thought to depend. Whereas France exaggerates her disagreements, some other countries

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obscure theirs. Thus the dialogue with Europe is often conducted on false issues, while real issues--such as the future of Germany, or arms control, or the role of tactical nuclear weapons--are swept under the rug in order not to magnify the existing discord.

American policy towards Europe must, therefore, take account of two contradictory trends: Europe's economic and psychological recovery and the tenuousness of this new-found assertiveness. Many U.S. policies are geared only to the first of these trends. The assumption seems to be that European vitality will be permanent and that the only obstacle to Atlantic cohesion is an excessive estimate by the Europeans of their new-found power.

However, De Gaulle's policy may have produced an illusion of European strength and self-confidence which is more a reflection of his personality than of underlying factors. If one moves from Europe in the abstract to an examination of the individual European countries, it becomes apparent how precarious Europe's stability really is. On the Iberian peninsula, stability may not survive two aged dictators. Italy's center-left coalition is tenuous; its capacity for major policy initiatives is limited. Its policy tends to confuse maneuvering with statesmanship and in times of crisis may verge on neutralism.

A post-De Gaulle France may be rent by internal schisms. Germany suffers from the absence of traditions and the pressures produced by a divided country. The vigor so noticeable in Europe today is very close in time to nihilism; European self-confidence is still precarious. Little would be gained by replacing a nationalism of insufficient strength by a

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neutralism which exalts impotence. To avoid both dangers and to create
a new and more vital structure is the challenge before the Atlantic
Alliance.

In the redefinition of Allied relationships a great deal depends
on America's sense of proportion. Any new act of construction involves
stress. The danger is that an attempt may be made to solve new problems
by applying outmoded concepts. There is a great deal of talk about "unity,"
"community," or "indivisible interests." But the issue before the West
is precisely to give these terms a new meaning. Invoking the need for
unity will not change the fact that American and European interests outside
of Europe are not identical. Disparagement of national sovereignty
emphasizes a contradiction of United States policy which exalts nationalism
as the most reliable bulwark against Communist domination everywhere except
in Western Europe where the concept originated. Proclaiming indivisible
interests does not explain how allied cohesion can be maintained in
negotiations with a suddenly multifaceted Communism. Slogans about
integration do not answer the question of how in the era of nuclear weapons
national sovereignty can be related to the need for community. In moving
from alliance to community the United States will not long be able to
evade the issue of how much of its own freedom of action it is prepared to
give up.

All the realities of human aspirations and of a technology of
global impact require a close association of the nations bordering the
North Atlantic. But Western history is full of tragedies where a basic
community of interests has been submerged by subsidiary rivalries or

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insufficient understanding. Ancient Greece foundered on this dilemma.
Western Europe nearly tore itself apart before it discovered its
underlying unity. And now the nations bordering the North Atlantic face
the perennial problem of the West: Whether they can generate sufficient
purpose to achieve community without first experiencing disaster.

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### A. The Problem

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