Honeymoon in the Atlantic Alliance : After November, Battles Loom on Trade and Defense

For the first time in ages, there is no absorbing crisis in U.S.-European relations, no brooding anxiety on the Continent about the national-security policies and purposes of the United States. This halcyon time is unlikely to last long, but for now it is being enjoyed.

The remarkable hiatus became clear during a three-day conclave last weekend in this English seaside resort. The annual conference of the International Institute for Strategic Studies brought together strategists from throughout the Western world. It was most unusual that this annual gathering was not dominated by taking the temperature of the Western alliance and (what’s even more striking) by European hand-wringing over the latest American escapade.

Credit for this happy development can most obviously be given to the unlikely team of Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan. While the point may still be debated in the United States, in Europe the Cold War is seen to be well and truly over. For the casual European observer, this means that the tensions of past years have largely dissipated and the prospects for productive East-West relations have risen dramatically. For professional strategists, concerned about their craft, there is even some wistfulness for the passing of U.S.-Soviet confrontation, in face of a need to look for new challenges in other regions and in nonmilitary concerns such as economics and the environment.

At the same time, the cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq war has ended questioning in Europe about the wisdom of the U.S. policy of sending an armada to the Persian Gulf and confronting Iran. The continued oil glut has weakened West European criticism about laggard U.S. efforts to broker peace between Israel and its neighbors. The collapse of the Contras in Nicaragua has, at least temporarily, removed Central America from the headlines and hence as an irritant in U.S.-European relations. Even the Strategic Defense Initiative no longer seems to be an imminent threat to strategic stability between the United States and the Soviet Union; as U.S. funding is constrained, so are European fears that the pursuit of the “Star Wars” fantasy will lead to renewed East-West tensions.

At least among professional European strategists, there is also less concern than is usual at this point in a U.S. presidential election campaign about the qualities and commitments of the two contenders. This is less because of clear insights into the character and abilities of George Bush and Michael Dukakis; Bush has had a vice president’s traditional handicaps in projecting an independent image, while Dukakis has never even visited here. Rather, the absence of concern is due to lowered expectations for U.S. policy and leadership. Both candidates are seen as bland, but that is widely viewed as not necessarily a bad thing when measured against the impulsively dramatic shocks of recent years, such as the Reykjavik superpower summit and the U.S. bombing of Libya. Although Bush, as the better-known candidate, has the edge among European officials, Dukakis’ emphasis on competence and management instead of charismatic leadership is widely viewed here as an asset.

There is no doubt, however, that the next President will be promptly judged by the European allies in terms of his capacity to deal with U.S. economic problems. The Reagan Administration is being given a grace period to wrap up its affairs--no more surprises, please! But the new President is likely to have only a limited time to show that he can cope with U.S. budget and trade deficits before the criticism begins. At the same time, there is little cognizance in Europe that the United States may need some help; any growth of U.S. protectionism or other efforts to share the pain are airily dismissed as unacceptable.

The first serious challenge to trans-Atlantic comity in 1989 is likely to be found in the link between economics and security. Both Bush and Dukakis are committed to improving NATO’s ability to mount robust conventional defenses, and both want the European allies to assume a greater share of the burden. On this side of the Atlantic, those aspirations are dismissed out of hand. Even if the state of the East-West balance does argue for more Western military effort--a point debated in the Brighton convocation--there is little money and less will in Western Europe to do anything about it. Advice offered here to the next U.S. President is simple and direct: Forget about getting more defense spending out of the allies. There is a better chance--but not a good one--that the United States could cajole its allies into providing more foreign aid to strategically important countries, but this idea does not meet the point made by Bush and Dukakis.

This issue illustrates a strange phenomenon in current analyses of global politics. In the U.S. presidential campaign there is vigorous debate about defense and foreign policy, with charge and countercharge about the competence and commitments of the two candidates in a world fraught with military challenge. In Western Europe, however, that struggle is widely seen as passe, a failure to understand how the world is changing in the wake of the Cold War. And in this radical difference of viewpoint, especially about what should be done for European security, looms a new crisis in the Western alliance.