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Ever since its formation NATO has suffered from the anomaly
that Europe which originated the concept of nationalism and
spawned the two wars of this century has been the ward of the
United States in defending itself against the Soviet Union.

Several hundred thousand American troops have been stationed in
Western Europe for a generation. The nuclear defense of Europe
has been almost exclusively an American responsibility. It has
never been natural that the defense of countries with such a rich
tradition and with combined resources superior to those of the
Soviet Union should be so largely in the hands of a country
thousands of miles away and with a national tradition of isolationism
alternating with missionary fervor. And this has been compounded
by the apocalyptic nature of nuclear weapons which raised the
question whether any nation -- no matter how closely allied --
would be prepared to risk national suicide for a remote ally.

This concern has dominated especially the last decade when the
growth of the Soviet nuclear arsenal guaranteed that any general
war would risk mass civilian extermination.

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The Atlantic Alliance has dealt with these issues by a
series of half-measures. Unwilling to devote enough resources
to a full conventional defense of Europe, the Alliance --
including the United States -- has relied on the presence of
nuclear forces to establish a threshold beyond which recourse
must be had to nuclear retaliation. But insecure about relying
entirely on the discretion of the United States about whether or
where to employ nuclear weapons in the defense of Europe, our
allies have sought a voice in American decisionmaking reinforced
by the placing into Europe of American nuclear weapons capable of
reaching Soviet-controlled territory. For Europeans committed to
American nuclear deployment on the Continent the issue was never
whether the United States had the technical ability to reach
Soviet territory from America and the sea. It was rather whether
it would use that capability and in a manner responsive to their
concerns.

Nuclear weapons in Europe under an American commander stationed

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in Europe seemed an additional reassurance for America's legal commitments. Atlanticized Europeans reasoned that these weapons would have to be geared more precisely to their concerns and that the American NATO commander would be more sensitive to their way of looking at defense than his superiors across the ocean.

The point of view was never unanimous. A significant portion of European opinion always argued that Europe should rely less on the United States and rather play a mediating role between East and West. Others, while agreeing to the concept of joint defense, were reluctant to base nuclear weapons -- especially long-range nuclear weapons -- on their soil. In the middle of the Fifties the idea of a nuclear-free zone in Central Europe -- identified with the then Polish foreign minister RAPASZEK -- gained a fleeting popularity. It was overcome because of the determined objections of the United States but nostalgia for it has never completely abated. It is certain to be resurrected in the wake of the pending agreement.

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The deployment of the medium-range American missiles in Europe in the early Eighties unleashed once again the long dormant debate between European nuclear pacifists and Atlanticists. These missiles in the end could be deployed only in the face of riots that shook the domestic tranquility of many countries. They are, of course, now about to be removed less than five years after their installation on the basis of arguments from America not radically different from those used by the opponents of nuclear deployment in the first place.

The American role in all these debates has been complex. It was the United States which originated the concept of massive nuclear retaliation which threatened all-out attack on the Soviet in case of war in Europe in the Fifties. It was abandoned in the Sixties in favor of the doctrine of flexible response which sought to take account of the inhibitions caused by the growth of the Soviet nuclear stockpile and to gear the nuclear response to the level needed to stop the provocation. It took a long time to convince Europeans of the wisdom of this change, but the

6

defense-oriented Europeans interpreted it to require a substantial
American nuclear establishment on the Continent.

That point has always been hotly contested by some influential
circles within the United States. Nuclear pacifists have never
been comfortable with nuclear deployment in Europe. They were --
at least theoretically -- prepared in extremis to threaten a policy
of "assured destruction" devastating major parts of the Soviet
civilian population; but they strenuously rejected the notion
that this required any nuclear deployment in Europe; indeed they
thought very small U.S. nuclear forces based in America or at sea
were enough for that purpose. Ironically they were joined in their
view on European deployments by many domestic opponents -- including
many Reagan supporters -- who favored a more discriminating nuclear
strategy and hence much larger American strategic nuclear forces.
But a substantial part of the defense minded Americans were in
fact nuclear hegemonists. They wanted the nuclear defense of
America entirely in American hands based in America or at sea.

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They denied that there could be any difference in perception
between Europeans and Americans. They were deeply suspicious
of a NATO commander perhaps too sensitive to what they consider
uninformed or escapist European concerns. They agreed to a nuclear
deployment on the Continent only with the greatest reluctance.

[They have been quite willing to abandon and not accepting Europe's
fears] It explains as well the phenomena that so many American
conservative journals usually opposed to arms control have been
curiously silent on the forthcoming agreement.

The American domestic debate is thus not without irony. The
forthcoming agreement is not only justified on the ground that
the United States can cover all targets relevant to the defense
of Europe from its own territory and from the oceans but above all
because for the first time it eliminates two categories of
nuclear weapons altogether. But this makes sense only as a first
step towards the elimination of all nuclear weapons which indeed is
also frequently avowed. It is in fact the most persistently
promoted defense program of the Reagan Administration. The

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Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) is urged not only on military
grounds but as a means to eliminate nuclear war altogether.

When the most conservative postwar U.S. Administration
adopts the arguments of the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament,
the essence of the political debate within the Atlantic Alliance
is altered, probably irrevocably. In Europe the Atlanticists who
have supported American proposals for over a generation are at
best confused. They have accepted as an article of faith that
American nuclear weapons were needed to counterbalance Soviet
conventional superiority and that an American deployment on the
Continent was an essential component of that strategy. They
now find themselves accused of footdragging because they do not
adopt readily enough the arguments of their opponents that this
deployment was unnecessary in the first place -- an argument
supported by much of the rhetoric of a conservative American
administration. They experienced the shock of the near agreement
at Reykjavik where the superpowers were on the verge of agreeing
to scrap all missiles (including those of our allies) on the road

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to banning nuclear weapons altogether. They have witnessed
enormous pressure put on the Federal Republic of Germany to
give up not only the American weapons placed on its soil at
American urging but also German missiles located there for the
better part of a decade. In each country American briefers
enamored with their systems analysis use arguments that have been
stockphrases of the opposition to Atlantic cooperation for the
whole postwar period. Depending on the country, the historic
Atlanticists are confused, contemptuous or demoralized. And the
fact that the last three NATO commanders going back to 1974 share
these concerns reinforces it. The future political debate within
the Alliance will be importantly affected by this trauma.

This is a particular problem in the Federal Republic of Germany.

No other country is in so precarious a geographic political and
psychological situation. Across minefields and barbed wire that
divide the nation, it faces at least twenty Soviet divisions in
a high state of preparedness. It is a new state with an artificial
capital arising out of the shock of a morally and materially

10

disastrous war. Its history as well as its origins create the imperative of steadiness and sensitivity among Germany's allies to enable it to find new . Germany was the last major European state to be unified late in the 19th Century and it was done not by tapping the wide popular enthusiasm for it but as a decision of the 39 princes of the various German states and under the dominant influence of Prussia. Precisely because liberal German nationalism did not grow out of political responsibility it has always had an abstract romantic quality which compounded the strategic problems produced by Germany's central location.

Before unification Germany had, for centuries, been the battleground over which its neighbors fought to maintain the European balance of power. After unification Germany sought -- perhaps understandably -- to achieve security against all its neighbors simultaneously.

But since Germany is located in the center of the continent and has more neighbors than any other, this effort was bound to produce a general sense of insecurity. For if Germany was strong enough to defeat all its neighbors simultaneously, it was also clearly

11

strong enough to overwhelm them individually. Thus Germany was importantly responsible for bringing on the hostile coalitions that were its nightmare and which made the first World War inevitable. For centuries Germany has been either too weak or too strong for the peace of Europe.

It was the West's good fortune that in the immediate postwar period Germany was led by a truly great man, Chancellor Adenauer. He understood that Germany could transcend its historic legacy and find firm emotional moorings only by resisting the temptations of its central location and enclosing itself firmly in the Western alliance. He sought to give his country a reputation for reliability and an experience of steadiness it had not known since the resignation of its founding statesman, Bismarck, in 1890. Adenauer did so courageously and painfully, while the Soviet Union was turning the Eastern third of the country into a Communist outpost and while he was being accused of giving up the option for unification. He was passionately resisted by Kurt Schumacher, the leader of the Social Democratic party. That party had heroically resisted the Nazis

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and contained some of the most admirable men in German politics.

But precisely because it represented one of the few elements of historic continuity it advocated nationalist policies that amounted to neutralism: refusal to join NATO, priority to unification, in short, policies that stressed Germany's special place in the center of Europe.

The opponents of NATO came to terms only gradually with the fait accompli of German integration into the West. But Adenauer's legacy was so strong that in the late Sixties and the early Seventies the Social Democrats made major contributions to Western policy. It is not to take away from the historic achievements of Chancellors Brandt and Schmidt to emphasize that Brandt's opening to the East and Schmidt's commitment to the West were both made possible because a staunch pro-Western center originally by the Christian Democratic party provided steadiness, predictability and a hedge against adventurism. Throughout, the heirs of Schumacher remained influential. Their doubts about the NATO policies of Chancellor Schmidt helped bring him down; since then

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his party has pursued policies much closer to the spirit of its
first leader than of its last Chancellor. In other words, it
stresses national issues, anti-nuclear policies and German
autonomy. And since the third German party -- the FDP -- can
survive only by maneuvering between the Christian Democrats and the
Social Democrats, a weakening of the Christian Democratic
magnifies the threat to the steadiness of German policies.

This I fear is exactly what is happening in the Federal
Republic to day. I know no leader of the Christian Democratic
party concerned with foreign policy and defense -- and I have
known them for decades -- who is not deeply disquieted by recent
events. After a lifetime of unquestioning support of American
policies, they find themselves adrift in an unfamiliar world.
And their unease is magnified by the political impossibility of
answering it. For how can the traditional advocates of close ties
to America admit their fears without being accused of botching the
relationship by the very people who attacked them initially for
permitting it? On their soil, only missiles of a range that can

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kill only Germans will soon be left -- a situation they may not
find sustainable so that the West is likely to confront increasing
pressures from Germany to demilitarize the rest of the country.

America's traditional friends in Germany are divided over whether
they pursued the right tactics in the face of American pressures,
but not over whether these pressures were unwise. They have seen so
many upheavals in American politics that they are beginning to
doubt the steadiness of their traditional ally. They resent the
pressures that caused them to give up their own 500 mile range
missiles. (To be sure the Administration kept denying the slightest
pressure to give up the Pershing I; but it always did so while
affirming that it was on the verge of a historic agreement thus
placing on the Germans the entire onus for failure for insisting
on retaining weapons America had declared obsolescent for that
situation). The danger is great that the pre-Atlanticists will
become rootless and seek their emotional outlet in promoting the
so-called German question where they will join the traditional
disguised neutralists. To be sure the Soviet Union and its East

15

European allies are likely to move heaven and earth to prevent actual unification. But the slogan that the fate of the Germans under Communist rule should be eased is gaining momentum. This, in turn, could give the Communists a growing veto over further pro-Western moves by the Federal Republic paying any political price on unification.

Many Europeans recognize this danger. An eminent European leader said to me shortly after Reykjavik had inaugurated the current phase of American policy: "The [medium range] missiles were a corset that tied Germany to the West. You are now destroying that corset and we will have to pay the price for it."

Why then were the Europeans not more vocal about their concerns? It is my impression that the leaders of the nations in Europe possessing nuclear weapons were shocked by Reykjavik into the belief that President Reagan would not leave office without giving up some nuclear weapons. And they preferred him to give up American weapons stationed in Germany than French and British

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national nuclear forces. And the others were restrained by
domestic critics and the fear of antagonizing the Soviet Union.

In addition to the dangers of an uncertain Germany, American
policy will face three major problems in the wake of the forth-
coming agreement:

-- The apparent change in military doctrine put forward by
five Administrations places the entire burden of nuclear defense
on weapons based in the United States under exclusive American
control at a time when Congressional budgetary pressures run
counter to the development of weapons like the MX and SDI suitable
for a discriminating strategy.

-- This, it is feared, opens up the possibility of threatening
Europe while sparing the United States in technical terms "decoupling"
the defenses of the two sides of the Atlantic.

-- This becomes a particular problem because the Soviet con-
ventional superiority has not been reduced magnifying the European
sense of insecurity. And administration invocations of its horror

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of nuclear war send a shudder through Europe lest America in the end
recoil before its commitments.

All this creates the near certainty that Europe will seek new
directions in the years ahead. Some will be tempted by maneuvering
between East and West depending on the particular circumstances
of their country. Even pro-Atlanticists will seek to achieve a
greater control over their destiny. Thoughtful Europeans recognize
the need to find a new emotional home for the Federal Republic of
Germany.

In other words, the old pattern of American tutelage is
irrevocably over and whether the pending agreement is ratified or
not is irrelevant to that prospect. Indeed, non-ratification would
make certain problems worse by restarting the domestic turmoil of
the early part of the decade.

But the cohesion of the Atlantic Alliance on a new basis remains
crucial for the security of the democracies and indeed for the
moral vitality of our own country. There is a great deal of

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justified impatience with European failure to support America in
regional conflicts and in taking what looks to many like a free
ride in American defense efforts. Too many European leaders have
sought to gain public favor by striking a pose of mediating between
a belligerent America and an obtuse Soviet Union. But American
unilateralism and psychological insensitivity tends to penalize
our friends and liberate the most dangerous tendencies of their
critics which are generally also those of America. And in any
event, statesmanship must shape the material at hand. Atlantic
unity is no less essential because some of its practitioners are
opportunists or take the line of least resistance.

There is already talk that all that is needed is a dose of
reassurance perhaps at a NATO summit before the Reagan-Gorbachev
meeting. Such a soporific could only confuse the issue. The
Alliance needs a sober reappraisal of where to go from here in
strategy, arms control, internal organization and East-West
relations. A summit can in due course ratify it; it cannot
generate the program because the heads of state would not devote

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enough time to it at a summit.

The need for assurance falls sheaviest on the strongest nation of the Alliance and still its principal leader. Those Europeans most prepared to rely on America have been the principal victims of the increasingly frequent changes in American foreign and military policy. In every decade since the Fifties major programs to which European leaders have committed themselves at American urging have been unilaterally abandoned. In the Sixties, the missiles painfully installed in Turkey and Italy were withdrawn and it has recently become apparent that the United States was prepared to do so formally to settle the Cuban missile crisis. (This is, anyway, how it appeared to many Europeans). In the Seventies, we dropped the neutron bomb; in the Eighties, the medium range missiles that were in fact a reaction to the neutron bomb fiasco. Another more ambiguous example of American tendency to change its views was the abandonment of the Skybolt airlaunched missile on which the British air force had relied. Each of these reversals -- whatever

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its theoretical and technical merit -- caused military damage among
European leaders who had staked the ir own position on it.

In this sense the anti-nuclear detour of the Administration
will, over time, gravely weaken all of America's traditional supporters
in Europe. They may or may not agree with particular American
analysis. But I know no European statesman in office who does not
believe that in the end the defense of Europe depends on nuclear
weapons.

If policy is not to degenerate into public relations, a
principal duty of statesmanship is to define attainable
objectives. And the elimination of nuclear weapons is not
one of these. So many nuclear weapons have been produced and
the territory of the superpowers (especially of the Soviet Union)
is so vast that it would be impossible to account for all of them.
No arms agreement would eliminate the knowledge in the minds of
men. Any superpower agreement would have to take into account
open as well as secret programs in Third countries. Even the
most sweeping agreement could only reduce to a number that would

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offset what experts believe the Soviets -- and rogue countries
-- could hide in vast territories. This would return the dis-
cussion more or less to where it is today: what is the minimum
number of nuclear weapons compatible with security? In short, it
cannot be in the American interest to stigmatize the weapons on
which the defense of the West has been and for the foreseeable
future is being based.

This makes it all the more essential for the Atlantic Alliance
to develop a strategic doctrine that has a chance of being carried
out. Systems analysts speak blithely of a purely conventional
defense of Europe. The practical impact can only be to demoralize
NATO. I have argued for thirty years that the threshold at which
nuclear weapons have to be used should be raised as high as possible.
But bilateral talks with the Soviets which in the mind of Europeans
affect the nuclear balance is the worst way to bring this about. A
few realities must be faced: Will the United States restore the draft?
Will any Western nation increase its defense budget? Is not the

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opposite happening everywhere? And will these trends not be accelerated by the euphoria with which the pending agreement is being greeted? In fact, it is probable that the Atlantic Alliance will sooner or later be faced with a Soviet proposal on the Reykjavik model: a seemingly advantageous numerical scheme -- say the withdrawal of two Soviet divisions for an American one -- which has the practical consequence of putting a ceiling on the remaining forces and thus freezing the Soviet advantage in conventional strength at an even more dangerous level.

The relationship between nuclear and conventional forces will soon be placed on the diplomatic agenda either by the Soviets or by some Europeans -- especially the Federal Republic of Germany -- in the wake of the pending INF agreement. It is not probable that some of the leaders of the Federal Republic will not seek to escape the dilemma that the nuclear missiles remaining on German soil have a range that can kill only Germans East but in the majority West Germans. A harbinger is German reluctance to proceed with the modernization of the short-range missile which has never been

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controversial before. If the Germans do not propose the elimination
of this category of weapons, the Soviets almost surely will.

This would then create the demilitarized zone in the center of
the Continent that the Alliance has resisted for over a generation.
And the arguments against it have not improved with age. If an
ally -- especially a major one -- seeks to escape the nuclear danger
by denuclearization, it thereby seeks to shift the entire nuclear
risk to the most distant ally, the United States. But why should
America run the risk of nuclear devastation if the most immediately
threatened countries refuse to do so. Moreover, the denuclearization
of Central Europe would surely be coupled with some declaration
that the West not use nuclear weapons just as many eminent Americans
have already urged. But the no first use of nuclear weapons means
in practice an announcement that the West would rather be defeated
with conventional weapons than use nuclear weapons. And once the
readiness to accept defeat is acknowledged, how is it possible to
make credible the use of any nuclear weapons even after the Soviets
employ them. To do so would imply that NATO resists the method of

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defeat, not the fact of it. Denuclearization of central Europe
would be the beginning of the neutralization of Europe. This fear is
surely behind Prime Minister Thatcher's warning that the process of
removing nuclear weapons must stop until chemical weapons and
conventional forces are dealt with.

The Atlantic Alliance thus urgently needs reconsideration of
military strategy as well as of foreseeable arms control challenges.
The process of negotiating major agreements and then selling the
result -- almost obsessively -- must enhance the European sense of
impotence.

Now that the major nuclear response to Soviet aggression
against NATO has been moved to the seas or to America, a method
must be found to meet European unease about our long-term commitment
by placing some of the weapons for that purpose more immediately under
NATO control than is the case today. The American strategic weapons
"assigned" to NATO are now assigned in name only. They can be used
by NATO only if the President releases them in an emergency; no
specific submarines are assigned to that purpose; they will be

25

designated as the occasion arises. But as the former NATO commander Bernard Rogers has pointed out, this means that the release of these weapons is then tantamount to general nuclear war. There will be no way for the Soviets to distinguish NATO assigned forces from the overall force. Nor would a President release these weapons on the basis that such a distinction could be maintained. Some concrete measures that give the NATO commander a greater and continuing role in the weapons earmarked for European defense is essential.

But the most serious challenge ahead to American policy is the wisdom with which it will deal with foreseeable trends in Europe. Efforts of greater European self-reliance are now inevitable. Europeans -- depending on whether they are neutralists or Atlanticists -- see either an opportunity or a necessity to reduce American tutelage. This is not in itself a bad thing unless Europeans veer towards abdication or Americans towards isolationism. A greater assumption by Europe of responsibility for its own defense can in the long run strengthen Atlantic ties. America in

26

the long run has nothing to fear from an emergence of a
European sense of identity. There is no foreseeable situation
in which Europe will not be better off with American support than
without it.

After Reykjavik and INF it is foreseeable that both Britain
and France will spur their nuclear build-up and surely give it
priority over conventional forces. American resistance to these
trends can only weaken the Alliance. Moreover the United States
should not stand in the way of coordinating the British and French
nuclear forces. I consider that in fact an important first step
towards a greater European role in the common defense.

It is also likely that in the wake of the INF agreement Europe
will make efforts to increase a specifically European conception of
security and a European identity in this field. That too will be
in the long run Western interest. Dependence breeds irresponsibility;
France has pursued a highly responsible foreign policy not despite
but because it has taken seriously the problem of national defense.
If America can live with the German market which involves no penalty

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for competing with America, it should be able to welcome a
European identity in defense where all incentives make for
cooperation.

I do not deny that I would have preferred a different
approach to nuclear arms control in Europe than the one taken in
the pending INF agreement. But it cannot now be undone. And if
America faces its new realities, it may yet usher in a long overdue
revitalization of Atlantic relationships.