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The Nature of the Issues

Over a year has passed since President de Gaulle abruptly terminated the negotiations for Britain's entry into the Common Market. This dramatic action has had a traumatic impact on United States policy and Atlantic relationships. Through the ensuing acrimony there has enraged the mirage of a goal almost within reach but destroyed by the wilful act of a single individual. The grand design of the twin pillars of Atlantic organization is supposed to have been shattered by Britain's exclusion from the Common Market. Eminent Americans have spoken of Europe's

propensity for war-naturalism, as if World War II had been the result of a congenital defect of the European character and as if the responsibility for it could not be more clearly localized. IDENTIFIED

In the process it has not always been clear just how Britain's entry into Europe would have promoted Europe's political integration. Nor has it been obvious that Atlantic partnership is possible with only one particular form of European organization. Above all, the bitternews of

now began to turn into stagnation. Its effort had consumed so much
energy that Britain never seemed able to decide which of the choices
open to it to pursue: close relations with the United States, a new
concept of Commonwealth, or an unreserved entry into Europe.¹ By
trying to combine all three Britain runs the risk of losing each.

It has therefore never been correct to speak either of European
chaos or European revival as if every country were going through the
same process. Even among the nations of the Continent considerable
differences excited both with respect to their development and to the
vigor with which to assert their own role in international affairs. But
whatever the differences among European countries--some of which are
becoming significant now--Atlantic relationships developed on a basis
which was in the long-run psychologically unreal. In the face of
Europe's importance, the United States in the post-war period came to
deal with its allies on a paternalistic basis. On its part, Europe

I am indebted to Stephen Graubard for many useful insights on this point.

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became more conscious of its importance and its need to sway United States
decisions than of the importance of developing its own view of the world.

On the United States side, this bred a certain "father knows best" attitude,
impatient of criticism, eager above all to remove the obstacles to the
achievement of whatever plans we might have at the moment. The anger
at President de Gaulle's exclusion of Britain from the Common Market
overlooked that no one had bothered to check whether our conception of
Atlantic relationships coincided with his.

Though we were always ready for consultation, usually the United
States-European dialogue concerned the technical implementation of an
American blueprint--the proposal of the NATO Multilateral Force is a good
example.

At the same time, Europe, too, fell into bad habits during the
period of unchallengeable American hegemony. More concerned with affecting
American decisions than developing conceptions of their own, many Europeans
developed habits of querulousness and insecurity. They seemed at times

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At the same time, the European reaction to this dilemma did not help matters either. It is one thing to dispute our judgment about strategic matters; it is quite another to attack our motives in reaching it (even granting that we sometimes have a tendency to confuse the two). Where we tended towards self-righteous ness the Europeans reacted either with hand-swinging impotence or aloof disdain.

European ambivalence is shown by the reaction to both our request for a build-up of conventional forces and to the hints that we might withdraw some of our troops. Both proposals evoked an almost equally strong opposition. The Europeans resisted an attempt to give the military establishment on the Continent a larger military role because they did not want to diminish the efficacy of the nuclear deterrent. But they also do not want a reduction of our forces because these to the Europeans are the surest guarantee of the availability of our nuclear protection.

Few Europeans have faced the fact that these attitudes will in the long run prove inconsistent. The American forces in Europe can be kept at

II. The Change in the Nature of Alliances.

Since the end of World War II a basic change has occurred in
the nature of Alliances. In the past, Alliances have been concluded for
three basic reasons: 1. To provide an accretion of power. According
to the doctrine of collective security, the larger the alliance, the
greater the power available to resist aggression.

2. To leave no doubt about the alignment of forces. It has often
been argued that had Germany known at the beginning of both World Wars
that the United States would be engaged at their end, war would have
been averted.

3. To provide an additional incentive for assistance other than
that already supplied by an analysis of the requirements of the national
interest.

To be sure, there was some inconsistency between these various
requirements even in the past. The attempt to align the maximum number
of states occasionally conflicted with the desire to leave no doubt about
the alignment of forces. The wider the system of collective security,

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threatened country, in turn, would be forced to rely on a threat
which would guarantee its end as a functioning soviet. Thus every country
would have a ~~ methods high incentive to study either methods of surrender or
 guarantees of non-involvement. ~~

THE EXISTENTIAL VIEW

Whatever the merit of the dominant American or French views, both
in different ways run counter to traditional concepts of Alliances. The
American view transforms NATO into a unilateral guarantee as far as nuclear
matters are concerned. (The proposed multilateral force does not change
this fact.) Our allies neither add strength nor is their willingness to
resist decisive. Indeed we might defend them by the threat of nuclear
retaliation even if they chose to surrender. The Gallois theory, on the
other hand, explicitly does away with alliances. It rests defense entirely
on the national state. In his view alliances detract from the over-all
strength by calling into question the willingness to resist.

The concentration of nuclear power in the hands of one country poses
one set of problems; the range of nuclear weapons poses another one. In
the past a threatened country had the choice either of resisting or