Pillar of the New European Order : NATO: It is not simply an alliance against threat or intimidation. It is a model of partnership and a vision of a Europe of peace in freedom.

The prospect of war in Europe is at its lowest ebb in nearly 50 years. Risks remain, but the situation in Europe has evolved to the point where NATO’s concept of political security is coming into its own. We have an opportunity to develop a new European architecture of peaceful cooperation that can deal with potential conflict as well.

What remains important about the alliance?

First and foremost, it has oriented the United States toward a lasting commitment to uphold peace and stability in Europe. The United States will maintain this commitment as long as the allies wish.

Since its inception, NATO has become a model of how free nations broadly define and collectively manage their security. Within the alliance, former enemies have reconciled. All members enjoy equal security.

The alliance’s stabilizing framework extends to the neutral states of Europe. The emerging democracies in Central and Eastern Europe also recognize that without NATO they would not have recovered their independence. Only the alliance’s collective security system can offset the preponderance of Soviet power in Europe and ensure that the relatively weaker feel confident vis-a-vis the relatively stronger. Without it, Europe would return to the shifting alliances and power politics of the past.”

One of the alliance’s historic achievements has been to convert nuclear weapons into the ultimate instrument of peace-keeping. Since arms control can reduce but never disinvent nuclear weapons, Europeans would be well advised to retain the controlling structure that the alliance represents.

NATO is not, of course, alone in striving to put in place the architecture of a future European order. But talking about one or another institution as the basis for the future misses the essential point: We must build on existing institutions and successes. The European community, for instance, is playing an important political role, not least in the economic reconstruction of Central and Eastern Europe. It is obviously the most attractive and dynamic European political organization. Yet despite its emerging political identity, it has no security dimension, nor will it acquire one for the foreseeable future.

The cohesion and stability at the heart of Western success are the result of NATO and the Economic Community. Building on this, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe has a promising future in the new European order. Yet it lacks the legal authority of binding obligations, permanent institutional status and the machinery to resolve conflict. Given the differing values, interests and views of its 35 members, each with a veto right, it alone cannot guarantee security.

The Atlantic Alliance thus remains an essential pillar of any future European security structure. Only it can keep the United States and Canada tied to Europe; ensure stability so that change can unfold without fear of reversals; coordinate overall Western strategy for the reconstruction of Central and Eastern Europe, and make sure that a united Germany remains firmly anchored to the West.

The alliance, in meeting its challenge of extending security without diminishing it, will face three tasks in the 1990s:

--Building a new European order that is not only more just but also more durable than that created by the Cold War. The demise of the Warsaw Pact and its military threat and the imminent prospect of German unity have fundamentally changed the terrain. We are already adjusting, militarily and politically, to this new environment.

By supporting Mikhail S. Gorbachev so long as he moves the Soviet Union toward democracy and reform, the allies are proving that they do not intend to exploit Soviet weakness. The allies will respect the legitimate security interests of the Soviet Union in Europe so that it can confidently embrace reform. NATO is also offering a united Germany membership in the alliance, making the Germans’ inherent right of self-determination compatible with stability in Europe. It is in the Soviet interest as much as that of Germany’s neighbors and partners.

At the same time, the alliance will spur the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, speed up the establishment of democratic institutions and promote respect for human and minority rights and the rule of law. Additionally, it will use the conference as a means to tear down barriers to human, cultural and economic exchanges across Europe’s vanishing line of division and to promote economic progress in the East.

The alliance is stimulating arms-control negotiations to make the ebbing of East-West confrontation an irreversible process. If we can bring the states of Europe to cooperate on their vital security interests, the Europeans will find it much easier to cooperate on everything else. An agreement on reducing conventional forces, which we hope to secure this year, is the indispensable foundation of a new European architecture.

--Maintain a secure peace. Our defense structure will continue to be the main guarantee of peace as well as the vehicle for crisis management. War at the close of the 20th Century is so potentially catastrophic that we cannot take its prevention less seriously merely because it is now less probable.

But conflict cannot be prevented by arms control or diplomacy alone. Developments in the Soviet Union are unpredictable. Conventional disarmament must not obscure the fact that the Soviet Union is still a nuclear superpower. Although the Soviets are following through on their promised unilateral reductions in troops and armor, they have restructured their remaining forces. We must also remember that the collapse of the Soviet imperium has stirred both regional tensions and nationalism throughout much of the Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe.

--NATO must ensure the partnership between North America and an increasingly self-aware and politically unified Europe, while managing all the complexities of their relationship. Erosion of the transatlantic linkage will leave all of us worse off, including our partners to the East.

NATO is not simply an alliance against threat or intimidation. It is a model of partnership, success and a vision of a Europe of peace in freedom. Today’s historical developments allow us, finally, the prospect of realizing this vision, to move beyond confrontation to cooperation.