Innovation Can Be Ally in Europe : We Can Find a Formula That Encourages Soviets to Keep Tanks at Home

The United States and the Soviet Union have taken a significant step toward reducing the importance of nuclear weapons in Europe. But while the treaty on intermediate-range nuclear forces may eliminate an entire class of nuclear delivery systems, it does not eliminate the national security problems that motivated the creation of the ultimate weapon in the first place.

In order to further reduce the risk of war, the two superpowers must do something about more traditional instruments of offensive war--in particular, the main battle tank. Today there are nearly 100,000 tanks of various types in Europe. Nearly 48,000 of them are Warsaw Pact tanks deployed in Eastern Europe. Tanks are essential for a ground assault on Western Europe, which is a problem that becomes more important as the North Atlantic alliance reduces its nuclear arsenal.

As the United States negotiates for conventional arms control in Europe, a primary goal should be the reduction of Soviet tank forces--not necessarily a reduction in the absolute number of Soviet tanks--deployed outside the Soviet Union.

The problem should be formulated as readiness at a greater distance from the probable front. By pushing U.S. and Soviet tank forces away from Central Europe. the risk of a “standing start” Soviet attack is diminished. The U.S. strategy should also focus on how to make European geography work in favor of NATO.

With fewer resources and decreasing defense budgets, the United States needs to innovate. Innovation, to paraphrase Clausewitz, will mean the continuation of deterrence by other means.

If the Soviets must continue to occupy Eastern Europe, their tank armies should not be large enough to pose a credible threat to West Germany, as they are now. But NATO need not match the Warsaw Pact tank-for-tank if Soviet armor can be pushed back into the homeland behind a series of natural barriers, such as the Vistula River in Poland. Such a move would help disengage U.S. military power from Central Europe as well.

Under such an agreement, NATO and the Warsaw Pact would set a ceiling on tank numbers. Each tank deployed outside a homeland would count as three, for example, while those deployed in the homeland would count as one. Thus if the Soviets wanted to maintain their forces in East Germany, they would be required to do so at lower levels--each tank brought across the Vistula would count as three, and the Soviets would soon be in excess of the ceiling.

Warsaw Pact countries then would have the incentive to create their own national tank forces, and NATO could in turn more readily make the distinction between Soviet occupation forces and war preparations.

Within this framework the United States could turn its tanks and the NATO tank mission in Europe over to the West Germans. This would solve a number of U.S. reinforcement problems. The United States could prepare to deploy what is more easily transportable, such as multiple rocket launch systems and the like.

The farther the Soviets move their tank armies east of the Vistula River, the more European geography begins to work in NATO’s favor. In order to mass their forces along the inter-German border, the Soviets would have to move along seven rail lines that cross the Vistula. Such a provocative movement would be an early warning to NATO, which could respond by dropping the bridges with deep-strike systems. These systems may include long-range cruise missiles with terminal guidance delivered by American B-52s.

By transferring U.S. armor units to the West Germans, Washington would also neutralize much of the Soviet propaganda about a potential NATO attack on the Warsaw Pact. Even the Soviets must have a hard time believing their claims that West Germany is a threat to Moscow today. The Soviets must decide whether to have a smaller force far from home or a larger force at home. For the United States and NATO, either development is preferable to the status quo.

How we measure our military power is important. Americans have come to rely far too much on static indexes that compare weapon to weapon. This approach is often called “bean counting.” Bean counting has become a substitute for strategy. Bean counting also limits the measurement of our security to terms that will almost always favor our militarized adversaries. The truth may be that U.S. policy-makers are more afraid of the bean counters than they are of Soviet forces.

Thinking in terms of geography, mobilization requirements and warning time can move conventional arms control beyond bean counting. We need choices other than asymmetrical cuts by the Soviet Union and greater spending by NATO members for conventional forces. We do not need a more precise bean count and NATO is not going to get more money for conventional forces. The United States needs a security policy that is smarter, not richer.