Germans Could Tilt Us Toward Asia : Anti-Americanism Threatens Continued Support for Europe

West Europeans have worried in recent years about a so-called “Pacific tilt” in the world economy and a prospective diminution of American interest in Europe. These fears were fed by recurring signs of U.S. restiveness over the burden of defending Europe, and by doubts within Europe itself that the Old World could compete economically with the United States and the technological over-achievers in Japan.

The Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the research and public-relations arm of West Germany’s ruling Christian Democrats, sponsored a conference in Los Angeles last week to explore whether a Pacific tilt really exists--and, if so, what it means for U.S.-German relations.

The meeting was attended by 17 West German politicians, diplomats, scholars, journalists and businessmen, along with a similar array of Americans.

The participants didn’t come up with any definitive answers on the existence or significance of a Pacific tilt--opinions were divided among both American and German participants. But the dialogue did strengthen the impression that the United States and West Germany are in danger of tilting away from each other.

There is no doubt about the Pacific tilt in purely economic terms. The Pacific Basin countries account for an increasingly large proportion of world production, and have long since passed Western Europe as America’s most important trading partner.

Japan has become the world’s most successful exporting nation, running up large trade surpluses not only with the United States but with the more protectionist Europeans as well. The “little dragons”--Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore--have also become world-class competitors.

If the flag follows commerce, as history teaches that it does, logic suggests that the focus of U.S. foreign policy and military planning will shift increasingly to the Pacific, with a corresponding de-emphasis on the Atlantic alliance.

This hasn’t really happened yet. But obviously it could, given the Soviet military buildup in the Pacific and the severe budgetary strain on a U.S. military establishment with worldwide commitments.

The tendency among a new generation of Germans to belittle the Soviet military threat to Europe doesn’t help much, since Americans are bound to ask why they should worry more about European security than Europeans do. Nor are Americans amused by the frequent lack of allied political, much less military, support for U.S. efforts to cope with Soviet troublemaking in areas outside Europe.

What came through loud and clear from German participants in last week’s conference was that, in West Germany at least, “Euro-pessimism” is out of style. Warnings of a Pacific tilt are no longer frightening.

The Christian Democrats have a special reason for confidence. They weathered the political storm over their courageous decision to support the deployment of U.S.-made missiles in West Germany. It now appears certain that Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the CDU will strengthen the party’s position in the January elections.

But the visiting CDU representatives radiated a more fundamental confidence that West Germany, in cooperation with France and other Common Market members, will hold its own against all comers in the new age of high technology.

The Germans also point out, with reason, that the Pacific tilt in U.S. trade has hardly been a boon to America; the Pacific Basin countries are the major cause of the huge U.S. trade deficit.

On the military side, the Germans observed that Europeans are, in fact, contributing far more to their own defense than are Japanese and East Asians in general.

As for reluctance to follow the U.S. lead in dealing with terrorism or anti-Western regimes in the Third World, most of the German participants said in effect that Americans would simply have to learn to live with such differences because Europeans have their own opinions.

The Europeans obviously are entitled to their own perceptions and policies--after all, they are allies, not vassals--as long as they are reasonably consistent with Western Europe’s continuing dependence on the U.S. nuclear umbrella. But that is an important condition.

The unhappy fact is that, as some of the German visitors conceded, political dialogue in Europe--and certainly in West Germany--is heavily laced with anti-Americanism these days. CDU politicians are not the big offenders, but it has become fashionable in West Germany to magnify the shortcomings of U.S. policy and leadership while making excuses for Soviet transgressions.

Some West Germans have now convinced themselves that the United States has no choice but to defend Western Europe against the Soviets and that sensitivity to American concerns is therefore not necessary.

As any member of Congress would verify, this is risky thinking. Rationally or not, when the day comes that the average American gets the impression that Germans really feel that way about the alliance, support for the U.S. troop presence in Europe--and the nuclear commitment that it symbolizes--will evaporate.

Fortunately, most Germans recognize this fact. Certainly the Christian Democratic government does.

At the Los Angeles meeting this point was made most strongly by Horst Teltschik, national-security adviser to the West German chancellor. He reminded his German colleagues that, despite laudatory efforts by West Germany and France to organize a European voice more independent of Washington, no European substitute for the nuclear deterrent provided by the United States is even remotely in the offing. Thus Germans as well as Americans must recognize that, while differences of policy and perception are inevitable, mutual tolerance is essential.

West Germany has a long postwar record as a good friend and ally, and the present Bonn government is clearly dedicated to a continuation of that. But when Americans hear the strident voices of opposition Social Democrats and some of the younger CDU spokesmen, as well as Britain’s Labor Party, they have to wonder about the future of the historic European tilt in U.S. policy.