NATO Cancels War Games to Shift Scenarios

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, responding to sweeping changes in the former East Bloc, has canceled its biennial nuclear war games until it can devise more realistic--and politically acceptable--scenarios for the exercises, U.S. and NATO officials said.

The decision to cancel the controversial games came after alliance officials tried unsuccessfully to find an alternative simulation that would not offend the 14 NATO countries that normally participate in the exercises.

The canceled Wintex-Cimex games--short for Warning and Intelligence Exercise and Civil-Military Exercise--involve a group of lower-level national security officials from the participating nations.

The nuclear war games have sparked particular controversy in West Germany. Bonn abruptly called for early termination of the last such exercises in March, 1989, because the participants authorized simulated nuclear strikes on East Germany and a second round of strikes that involved use of nuclear weapons on West German soil. At the time, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl called the scenario “completely unacceptable” to Germans.

Officials said that West German political sensitivities were a key factor in the alliance’s recent decision to cancel future games.

In addition, military and political officials acknowledged that the traditional Wintex-Cimex scenario has become increasingly anachronistic and implausible.

“There’s no point in doing something that might prove to be irrelevant, or if (some of the allies) have reservations that are reasonable,” said one knowledgeable U.S. official. “It’s time to re-evaluate. We are in a time of transition.”

The cancellation of Wintex-Cimex comes as NATO is reassessing its entire spectrum of war games and military simulations. The alliance is attempting to devise more cost-effective training and to adjust its responses to changing circumstances, particularly the rapid dissolution of the Warsaw Pact as a military entity.