Drawing Fine Political Lines for Europe’s Future

Whatever the evolution of Germany, existing security arrangements based on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact are eroding. The collapse of Soviet power in Central Europe coincides with a declining fear in the Western democracies of military threat. Hence, President Bush’s proposal to reduce superpower troops on the Continent.

One political approach is to accelerate arms-control negotiations. But upheavals in Europe have not only overthrown communist regimes but also some of the premises of traditional arms-control theory. The attempt to negotiate a balance on both sides of the existing military line in the center of Germany is no longer realistic. When the current stage of conventional-arms negotiations began, the military and political demarcation lines were identical. And because the current stage of negotiation is confined to thinning out U.S. and Soviet forces, it does not depend so critically on the location of dividing lines. When that negotiation is completed, attention must turn to designing comprehensive security systems. Then a fact must be faced: Military and political dividing lines are no longer congruent. The military line runs through Germany; the political one is located at the Soviet-Polish frontier.

A line through the center of Germany can no longer be appropriate after the two German states have held elections later this year. Two democratic states drawing ever closer together, governed by parties professing comparable ideologies, cannot possibly belong to two opposing alliance systems for any length of time. Such an incongruity would make the West--in the name of arms control--a partner in the division of Germany and put at risk Germany’s pro-Western orientation.

The simplest approach would be to move the dividing line for European arms-control arrangements from the frontier between the two German states to the German-Polish frontier. The obstacle is that nations of Eastern Europe would be extremely reluctant to be grouped with the Soviet Union. NATO and the Warsaw Pact are simply not symmetrical institutions today--if they ever were. The Warsaw Pact has lost military rationale and will lose political purpose with the advent of democratic governments.

How can symmetrical force levels be established along a dividing line that includes Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary, which have already demanded withdrawal of Soviet forces? Must NATO be dismantled to keep pace with disintegration of the Warsaw Pact? That would turn pact weakness into a rationalization for dissolving NATO--a goal the Warsaw Pact failed to achieve when it was still relatively cohesive.

In future arms-control negotiations, the United States must not legitimize a larger Soviet military presence in Central Europe than the Soviet Union could maintain on its own. At the same time it must not encourage the impression that a complete Soviet withdrawal will have to be matched by a complete American withdrawal from Europe. Geographic proximity enables the Soviet Union to be a major military factor in Central Europe, while an American withdrawal across the Atlantic would destroy the possibility of a balance of power on the Continent.

A new European security system should reassure the Soviet Union with respect to its historic nightmare of invasion from the West; ease Western Europe’s fear of Soviet invasion; protect the countries of Eastern Europe against Soviet aggression and German resurgence; reflect the reality--demonstrated by two world wars--that a balance on the Continent requires U.S. participation, and be compatible with some reasonable process of German unification.

Establishment of such a system is primarily a political issue, not one of arms control. The key is the future evolution of Germany. There are in fact only three possible political outcomes: that Germany remain divided along the existing military demarcation lines; that Germany be unified as a neutral state with a status similar to that of Austria or Finland; that Germany be unified within NATO.

The permanent division of Germany would produce a chronic crisis by tempting outside powers either to exploit or to stimulate intra-German conflict.

The concept of a unified and neutral Germany has a surface plausibility but grave underlying problems, perhaps especially for the Soviet Union. Neutralization is most easily verifiable in countries that do not yet possess state-of-the-art technology. The larger the state and the more complex its economy, the more difficult to determine its real military potential. Japan, for example, could approach military superpower status soon after deciding to do so.

A free-standing, unified Germany would be in much the same position. Indeed after a few years it might repeat Germany’s historic mistake of attempting to achieve its own independent security, an enterprise that twice in this century produced global catastrophe.

But Germany as part of NATO would be under the arms-control umbrella of allies with a vested interest in observing agreed limitations.

An Austrian-type solution for Germany would create a single bloc from the French-German frontier to the Polish-Soviet border, of states with similar international status and therefore propelled toward joint diplomacy. Surely there is no better formula for eventual German hegemony over Central Europe or a long-term German-Russian conflict.

Ideally, a new security system for Europe should possess the following elements:

* The countries of Eastern Europe--with the exception of the German Democratic Republic--would be given a status similar to Austria or Finland. They would be politically neutral and agree to a regime of limited armaments specified by treaty and guaranteed internationally.

* Germany would begin the process of unification with a confederation; its first task would be to negotiate a peace treaty acknowledging current external frontiers.

* Germany would remain in NATO if it wished, but the territory of the current German Democratic Republic would be demilitarized and all German military forces limited by agreement.

* Foreign forces on German soil would be dramatically reduced.

* Nuclear weapons and foreign forces on West German soil would be pulled back west from the East German border to an agreed line nearer the French-Benelux borders.

Obviously such a scheme is illustrative, permitting numerous permutations. A five-year transitional period during which some Soviet forces remain in Central Europe seems entirely reasonable. But the basic objectives need to be established soon, before the existing politically incongruous military demarcation lines are again frozen in place.

In my view, the scheme outlined here would meet everyone’s political and security concerns to some extent. Such an outcome would bring about coincidence between political and military demarcation lines. An agreed, managed process of German unification would ease an otherwise festering crisis. The Soviets would acquire a buffer glacis of about 800 miles; a zone of limited armaments between the Rhine and the Elbe; a significant reduction of U.S. forces; a demilitarized area on territory of the current German Democratic Republic, and a neutral belt in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Western Europe would gain the same glacis in reverse.

Many thoughtful policy-makers shrink from tackling the German issue because, while recognizing its complexity, they fear that tackling it head-on might overthrow Mikhail S. Gorbachev. I believe procrastination would produce the most dangerous consequences. Gorbachev surely deserves great respect for his willingness to confront the crisis of his society.

But the West does neither Gorbachev nor itself a favor by pretending that the structural changes Gorbachev’s policies have impelled can be calibrated by arcane analysis of his domestic position. One way or another, the process now under way will proceed on many fronts: In an election year for both Germanys, the drive for unification will surely develop its own momentum; various parliaments will be reducing NATO defense budgets, and different national leaders will push individual arms-control proposals. Hence waiting on events is an invitation to chaos and to the unilateral dismantling of institutions that have brought us this far.

Another school of thought holds that even if Gorbachev’s domestic position is less precarious than feared, neither he nor any successor could ever agree to a security system that retains U.S. forces in Europe and does not require the dissolution of NATO. Yet so many recent events were regarded as inconceivable until they actually occurred, one should be careful not to assume certainty about Soviet conduct.

It may be that no security system will be able to contain the process now under way. In time Germany may become neutral--by its own choice or in response to a Soviet offer. Improbable as it now seems, a German initiative cannot be ruled out if German disillusionment with Western lack of support for its national aspirations continues to grow. And sooner or later the Soviet Union may play its “German card”--exchanging unification for neutrality--reckless as it would be for Soviet security in the long run. Whether Germany would accept it would depend not so much on exhortations as on the strength of its ties with the West.

Painful as I would find such a development, the United States would have no reason to panic. Instead it should offer to preserve NATO for whatever core group of the Atlantic Alliance wishes it. In my view, that offer would be accepted with alacrity by Western Europe as a hedge against German revanchism or renewed Soviet aggressiveness.

In short, NATO is needed for the internal West European balance and as a guarantee of European security. While U.S. deployments in Europe and the overall strength of NATO should take account of the declining military threat, abolishing NATO cannot be a quid pro quo for the ailments of the Warsaw Pact. What NATO must do is redefine the threat it is supposed to deal with, the strategy appropriate to it and the organization needed to reflect the changed roles of Europe and the United States.

The security system outlined here implies an important change in NATO doctrine. But the status quo is certain to be undermined by the random moves on arms control, German unification and legislative defense budget-cutting throughout the West that the absence of a coherent Western approach invites.

History does not produce automatic results. It requires conscious action--a recognition of the historic moment. Our arrival time can be flexible but agreeing on the destination brooks no delay.