For a ‘Common European Home,’ Arms Control Is Not Enough

Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s planned stopover in England on his way to Washington nicely illustrates the balance of his foreign-policy priorities between Europe and the United States.

Despite insistence that Moscow does not view Western Europe through the prism of its relations with Washington, Gorbachev has so far pursued an arms-control policy that has been aimed first and foremost at the United States. He has doggedly pursued a deal on intermediate-range nuclear forces primarily because it was the most negotiable agreement involving resources of secondary importance to both superpowers.

In responding to Soviet proposals on Europe, President Reagan has also put superpower relations first. He has of course consulted with European leaders, but has paid scant attention to their views when negotiating with Moscow. Understandably irritated by West European anxieties, the United States should hardly find these surprising. Many West European governments remain uneasy about the declining American commitment and worried about the general uncertainty inherent in the revolutionary changes in East-West relations.

All welcome the prospect of a 50% cut in superpower strategic arsenals, but Britain and France view further reductions with some trepidation, since these are likely to put pressure on their own deterrents. If British and French forces are modernized in tandem with U.S.-Soviet strategic reductions, they could amount to as much as a fifth of total warheads by the mid-1990s. Well before then it is predictable that Moscow, which set aside the British and French nuclear forces to clear the way for an INF agreement, will press for their inclusion in the negotiations--earlier than Paris or London want to enter. One can scarcely envisage pressure denting French nuclear chauvinism. Britain, however, would find it difficult to resist pressure from an American Administration arguing that undertakings to cut modernization plans would greatly facilitate progress toward 50% cuts and beyond.

If concerns over strategic cuts trouble mainly Britain, all West European governments are anxious about how best to proceed on arms reductions in the wake of INF. Bonn is keen to eliminate short-range (under 300 miles) nuclear weapons, since these could devastate German territory. Paris, on the other hand, remains chary of giving up short-range weapons that it considers a vital counter to Soviet conventional superiority.

All agree that it is the conventional capacity of the Warsaw Pact that represents the most immediate sort of military tension on the Continent, yet West European governments are generally wary of Soviet initiatives in this area. They fear that Gorbachev is merely using more sophisticated means to split the Atlantic alliance.

Like other Soviet leaders, Gorbachev wants to lessen West European dependency on the United States. But Moscow is not intent on breaking Atlantic links, since sudden rupture would bring instability that could spill over into Eastern Europe. Rather, the Soviets are out to loosen Atlantic ties and foster a stronger sense of Europeanness, which would put Eurodetente on a firmer footing.

Gorbachev has learned from Leonid I. Brezhnev’s mistakes: Economic and political Eurodetente remains susceptible to the ups and downs of global East-West relations as long as Europe is an armed camp. Hence the present dual-track strategy of building closer political and economic ties and lowering the level of military tensions. The Soviets want to move quickly to serious conventional disarmament talks in an effort to reduce West European anxiety about denuclearization. They also want to use conventional cuts to slow any moves toward West European defense cooperation that might create a formidable regional force centered on West Germany.

In an effort to get some momentum into conventional arms talks, Moscow has for the first time accepted a principle that each side should make deeper cuts where it has superiority. The Warsaw Pact has suggested discussions of military doctrine to try to define what constitutes “defensive” defense. Recent reports suggest that Gorbachev might use the summit meeting to announce substantial unilateral cuts in Soviet forces in East Germany and Czechoslovakia--both to ease ratification of the INF treaty and to get conventional talks moving.

So far the general Western response to the various initiatives has been skeptical--hardly surprising, given the 14 fruitless years of mutual and balanced force reduction talks. Moreover, some Western military specialists caution that the Warsaw Pact might actually benefit from reductions by weeding out some of its outdated equipment.

All this is good reason for prudence rather than inaction. Rather than sitting back and responding slowly to Gorbachev’s moves, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should become more pro-active and hammer out a clear set of priorities for European security--by no means an easy task, but an essential one if we want to relieve current European anxiety. These priorities might include stronger West European defense cooperation, within and complementary to NATO, as well as mixed nuclear- and conventional-arms reductions to a level of sufficient defense on both sides.

Military matters, however, should not crowd out larger issues of economic and political security. Precisely because Gorbachev places such emphasis on these wider issues in building what he calls a “common European home,” we should make sure that political detente between Western and Eastern Europe, symbolized by relations between the two Germanys, advances in line with arms reductions. Only through such a parallel process of political as well as military detente can West Europeans hope to reduce their own anxieties and build a system of regional security less susceptible to the vagaries of superpower relations.