NATO Has Nothing to Fear but Talking Itself

NATO -- the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--is not crumbling under the weight of divergent interests among member nations, economic problems, wily Soviet manipulations or any other objective pressures. But half-informed alarmist talk, resonating back and forth across the Atlantic, may yet crack it.

The alliance could talk itself into impotence, as some Americans exaggerate the fears of some Europeans who have overestimated the policy-making relevance of some other Americans, and as recent arms-control steps, whether good or bad, take on more symbolic than military importance.

At the beginning of a recent stay in Europe devoted to the examination of such NATO issues, I arrived with the belief that while the Alliance was, as always, changing, it remained fundamentally sound. The basic structure and the American commitment--both our contribution to the conventional shield and our umbrella of nuclear deterrence--seemed, from the U.S. side of the ocean, firmly in place.

My first 10 days in France, however, were traumatic. Most authoritative French experts, in and out of government, believed that the United States was well on its way to abandoning the European security structure, leaving Western Europe to face the hordes of the Warsaw Pact on its own. In part, as one European put it, “Some of the French are now catching up to De Gaulle’s rhetoric of 25 years ago”; in part, the upsets stemming from the clumsy American proposals and procedures at Reykjavik the previous November were still churning French stomachs.

All this had been exacerbated by an article from the publisher of the influential weekly L’Express, with the exotic name of Sir Jimmy Goldsmith (his father was an Englishman). Goldsmith had listened to the views of a small right-wing Washington/New York clique that thinks U.S. contributions to a rich and insufficiently anti-Soviet Europe are interfering with our worldwide anti-communist mission. He put these views together with some other Washington jottings and came up with an alarmist analysis of where the United States was going--out of the alliance. Europe had to prepare its own defenses on its own.

The American exit had not been visible to me at home but if representative Europeans believed we were leaving, then the Alliance could crumble as their nations acted on these beliefs. Fortunately for my own balance, after the 10th day I began to travel to other parts of Europe and discovered that the French were not particularly representative of NATO. Officials and analysts in Britain and in the smaller member nations were much more relaxed: Of course the alliance is changing, but it has been for 35 years; the European members will and should do more for themselves, but not because America is walking out. German views spread all across the range-- from French tension to British ease--but no Germans took very seriously French words, unbacked by actions, to tie the two nations’ military forces together.

The trouble is that some influential American writers and ex-officials have been hearing only the French and those Germans who share their fears. Fearing in turn that these partial European views would erode the alliance from the European side, these Americans have been sending their alarms back across the Atlantic for Europeans to take as new evidence of American defection. And the echoes go back and forth.

All of this had been made much worse by the memory of President Reagan’s radical Reykjavik proposals, arrived at minus consultation with our allies. Almost all Europeans considered that performance as one more piece of evidence of erratic U.S. decision-making--not unlike President Jimmy Carter’s indecision on the neutron bomb or Reagan’s sudden Strategic Defense Initiative proposal, his Libyan raid, his Iran-contra, confusions.

Then came the double-zero agreement on INF (Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces). One zero did away with long-range intermediate forces--missiles having a range of more than 600 miles--the other with short-range INF missiles between 300 and 600 miles. Double-zero, forced on reluctant conservative European governments, seemed to the European alarmists and their American counterparts on the other end of the echo chamber to confirm the worst--the U.S. nuclear umbrella was being folded up.

In fact, a good case can be made that double-zero does little to change the military balance in Europe. Britons of all political views found it easy to accept; German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, a liberal in German terms, endorsed it quickly; French Socialist President Francois Mitterand, in contrast to conservative Premiere Jacques Chirac, was unruffled. As one Frenchman, more relaxed than most of his countrymen, assessed the more controversial half, the zeroing out of the shorter-range nuclear force: “Can we really object to an agreement where the Soviets destroy hundreds of missiles and we give up nothing?”

In any case, for better or worse, zero-zero seems on the verge of acceptance. The next fear of the French and those who take a similar position is that the two zeros are the first steps down the “slippery slope” to complete denuclearization of Europe, leaving the West at the mercy of overwhelming Eastern conventional military power. Looked at now, from the standpoint of U.S. political reality, zero-zero, far from starting an accelerating downward slide, is likely to be temporarily terminal so far as arms control is concerned. Once Reagan has his arms agreement, his Washington summit to sign it--and his place in history--we will be in the election year of 1988. While arms-control negotiations will continue, nothing is likely to be agreed; 1989 will be the year for the new Administration to figure out where it stands, and by 1990, negotiations may get serious again.

Those two years should be used not to panic about a breaking up of the alliance, but for members to figure out, publicly and privately, what they really want next. In the United States, the portents look good. Most candidates from both parties have good enough political judgment (and good enough advisers) to make it likely that the next resident of the White House will reverse the erratic international image of U.S. decision-making. Congress, whatever else it has done, has reiterated its commitment to NATO. The House of Representatives has recently endorsed a resolution to maintain current troop levels. Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), the acknowledged leader of the Senate majority in this field, has made clear a continued belief in NATO notwithstanding his attempts to push the Europeans toward greater contributions.

What might change this picture of imminent short-run stability providing time to build a stronger long-run posture? Three things. The first is economics: Trade warfare between America and Western Europe or a general collapse--among developed as well as less-developed economies--could lead us into unpredictable chaos. This too can be avoided, but that’s another subject.

The second is the Soviets: If NATO remains sober, Gorbachev probably cannot manipulate the alliance into self-destruction, but, paradoxically, evidence of Gorbachev “sincerity” going beyond manipulation is something we are not well-prepared for. On the other hand, should the Soviets again turn patently hostile toward the West--as is certainly possible, with or without Gorbachev--we are used to handling it.

The third possibility is the most insidious. Since we are still a long way from re-creating East-West relations on the model of those between the U.S. and Canada, or even between France and Germany, the alliance is what has preserved the peace in Europe for an unprecedented four decades. It must remain cohesive. That is why the mutual exaggeration of transatlantic fears, the third challenge, is so dangerous.