Soothing Our Allies

Ever since President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev seriously discussed at Reykjavik the ultimate elimination of both strategic and medium-range nuclear forces, this country’s European allies have quietly but firmly voiced alarm at the consequences of such a deal.

This concern has been expressed by West Germany, France and Italy. It was reiterated last weekend by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Reagan’s best friend in Europe, during her visit to Washington. Their talks may not have put the issue to rest, but she succeeded in getting some fairly strong public commitments from the Administration to heed European concerns in the follow-up negotiations at Geneva.

At Reykjavik, Reagan and Gorbachev agreed in principle to reduce strategic nuclear forces by 50% in the next five years, to eliminate all Soviet and U.S. medium-range missiles from Europe while allowing both sides to maintain 100 warheads aboard such missiles outside Europe--in Asia, in the Soviet case. Most dramatic of all, they agreed to work for the total elimination of all ballistic nuclear missiles--or all nuclear weapons, depending on which version you accept--by 1996. But the deal collapsed when Reagan refused to accept Soviet insistence that ballistic-missile defense work be confined to the laboratory.

Allied governments have never been enthusiastic about the U.S. President’s dedication to the development of a strategic missile defense system. But they heaved a collective sigh of relief that the prospective agreement on elimination of ballistic missiles had collapsed as a result of the hang-up on “Star Wars.”

For one thing, the Europeans were upset that they had not been told in advance that an agreement of such far-reaching consequences for European security might be seriously negotiated at Reykjavik. More important, despite political oratory that sometimes suggests otherwise, European governments are jittery over the implications of a nuclear-free world anyway.

The Western democracies have never been willing to spend the money necessary to maintain conventional, non-nuclear forces of the size that would be required to deter an attack by numerically superior Soviet forces. So Moscow has been kept on notice that any invasion of Western Europe might meet with a nuclear response.

The Europeans didn’t really quarrel with the prospective agreement at Reykjavik to halve U.S. and Soviet strategic forces within five years. But they were alarmed by the prospect of a deal under which U.S. medium-range missiles would be removed from Europe while the Soviets would be allowed to keep SS-20s with 100 warheads in Asia, from which they could still be used to intimidate Western Europe. The Europeans’ alarm was magnified by talk at Reykjavik of eliminating all strategic nuclear weapons within 10 years--a move that would remove the nuclear deterrent on which European security has rested for almost 40 years, leaving the Soviets with an advantage in ground forces and chemical arms.

In theory the North Atlantic Treaty Organization could redress the imbalance in conventional and chemical arms by building up NATO’s non-nuclear forces. But political realities in Western democracies make that unlikely; the Europeans rightly prefer that a balance be struck by reductions on the Soviet side.

Reagan apparently has still not abandoned his vision of a nuclear-free world, nor should he. But Thatcher’s visit did inject a note of realism. The statement issued before her departure calls for reductions in both medium-range and strategic missiles. But it reaffirmed that movement toward total elimination of ballistic weapons must depend on a balancing of conventional, non-nuclear weapons and a treaty effectively outlawing chemical and biological arms.

The frequent gaps between the Reagan Administration’s declared policies and its subsequent actions have taught sensible people both here and in allied countries that they can never be sure what will happen next. Certainly Thatcher’s visit has not cleared up all the ambiguities that were left in the wake of the Reykjavik summit meeting. At the least, however, Reagan has been forcefully reminded that a nuclear-free world cannot simply be declared but must be patiently negotiated step by step in full consultation with allies whose security is also at stake.