A Farewell to Arms, Not Influence : Europe: As U.S. military dominance of the alliance passes into history, we must secure our interests with a post-Cold War policy of economic and political leadership.

This week, President Bush endorsed the strategic withdrawal of the United States from the European continent. That was the burden of his proposal to cut U.S. and Soviet troops in Central Europe to 195,000 each--an act with as much political as military significance. Whether this clear-cut change in U.S. postwar policy is good or bad is yet to be decided, but the new course is now firmly set.

Since Ronald Reagan met Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik in 1986, both superpowers have acknowledged the declining importance of military force in determining the future of Europe. That critical encounter and its aftermath, the 1988 treaty banning so-called Euromissiles, reduced the role of nuclear weapons in European security and in U.S. relations with its allies.

In 1989, Gorbachev went further and ended the Kremlin’s control of the East European empire. In the greatest strategic gamble in Soviet history, designed to secure support for perest-roika, he thus drastically depreciated the coin of the Soviet Union’s military power and undermined its claim to be a superpower. But as the political basis of military threat to Western Europe began to dissipate, so did the importance of U.S. deployments on the Continent.

In short, the 40-year job of containing Soviet ambitions in Europe seems just about done. In the future, security “from the Atlantic to the Urals” will depend far more than in the past on diplomatic understandings, economic advance and the success of democracy. This, in fact, is the classical West European view of the fundamental nature of lasting security--now seemingly accepted by Gorbachev--in contrast to the U.S. view that military forces have primacy.

Judging by his actions, President Bush is confident about the future of European security and believes that the United States should relinquish leadership to continental allies. He has recently been preoccupied with making Gorbachev’s retreat from Europe as easy and as expeditious as possible, including the withdrawal of 380,000 Soviet troops now politically exposed in East Germany. He is relaxed about the imminent unification of Germany. He has given stronger support to the European Community, as a political as well as economic force, than did any of his predecessors. And he sees America as making a modest contribution to buttressing East European democracy and economic reform, ceding the lead to the European Community and countries like France and West Germany.

Bush’s actions clearly comport with the national mood. Gorbachev is portrayed as “man of the decade.” Budget deficits increase the allure of a purported peace dividend. And it was no coincidence that the President’s troop-cut proposal earned him the most sustained applause during his State of the Union address.

Yet America’s strategic withdrawal from Europe is not without penalty. As the role of both nuclear and conventional military power has diminished, the United States has lost its leverage in debate within the alliance about the sharing of those military burdens that remain. More lasting, it is losing leverage in economic dealings with the European Community. Without a continuing role in European security, it will have to bargain solely on the basis of economic strength and performance--today, a weak reed.

Furthermore, despite the impetus for European leadership in building new forms of continent-wide security, it is not clear where it will come from. Despite the European Community’s successes, it is many years away from a common foreign and defense policy. The prospect of German economic dominance disconcerts even many of those Europeans who sensibly disparage fears of a Fourth Reich. The institution most often mooted as the core of tomorrow’s security, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, would have to be reformed radically to become more than a talking shop. Indeed, in Europe west of the Soviet border, no political unit other than the United States is likely for some time to have the capacity of organizing political action to promote European security, however it is defined.

Despite today’s bright hopes, it would beggar history to believe that there will be no setbacks, whether from renewed Soviet strategic interest in dominating its European neighborhood, or from political or economic failure somewhere in Eastern Europe, or from global recession that saps Western political cohesion. It is also premature to write finis to a part for military forces in European security.

America’s long-term interests, therefore, lie not in total withdrawal from Europe but in redefining what this country should and will do. For consolidation of current gains in Eastern Europe, this means helping to pay the freight, beginning with vastly greater economic investments. For impact on the Continent’s political future, it means cleaving to as many European institutions as possible, especially the security conference. For productive economic relations with strong competitors, it means perestroika here at home. And for insurance against the unknown, it means being prepared to keep some troops somewhere on the Continent.

George Bush is writing the final chapter of America’s Cold War involvement in Europe. But he must now develop the case for America’s continuing role as a European power, with new methods and means. U.S. military power will play a limited part. But America’s economic strength and political leadership in Europe remain indispensable to promoting U.S. interests.