Warsaw Pact Called a Threat No Longer : Military: NATO’s senior general comments as defense ministers call for a review of alliance strategies.

The senior general in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization officially declared here Tuesday that a military threat from the Warsaw Pact nations “no longer exists.”

The statement by Norwegian four-star Gen. Vigleik Eide, chairman of NATO’s military committee, marked the first time a high-ranking general has formally repudiated the threat from the seven-nation former Communist alliance.

Eide’s declaration came during a two-day meeting of NATO’s defense ministers at which they followed President Bush’s lead in calling for a full-scale review of the military and political strategies of the Western alliance.

One major proposal in any new strategy, strongly endorsed by U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, is creation of a multinational force, particularly among the troops based in West Germany. In a communique to be issued at the end of the meeting today, the defense ministers will recommend a detailed study on how such forces could take over missions now assigned to single-nation units.

Cheney said that, if arms control talks lead to lower levels of troops in Europe and reduced East-West tensions, “we can contemplate new ways of doing business.”

However, British Defense Secretary Tom King warned that Soviet “foot-dragging” could preclude agreement this year on a treaty limiting conventional forces in Europe. NATO members had high hopes for such a treaty, and the United States and Britain have indicated that without it, there would be no point in holding a summit meeting of the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, planned for this fall.

“We’re not happy about it; we want to get on with it,” King said, referring to the talks.

Cheney said that the delay on cuts in conventional forces is merely a “temporary pause,” while the Soviet Union works out the pace of troop withdrawals from the territories of its former allies in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and East Germany.

He and NATO leaders see the proposed multinational units as a device to interweave the troops of a newly united Germany with other NATO units, as well as a way of easing German resentment over the stationing of large numbers of foreign troops in the reunited country.

“NATO has to do something or risk being seen as hopelessly anachronistic,” explained a senior official. “It’s an effort to maintain the political relevance of our integrated defense.”

Under the plan, a multinational force could also operate outside NATO territory in case of emergencies, with German troops as full partners.

NATO officials described the multinational force as one in which an army corps, now consisting of three or four divisions from one nation, could be composed of one division each from the United States, Germany and Britain.

A German might command one corps with an American deputy, while a British general could be in charge of another with a German second in command.

Ideally, the principle would be extended downward to smaller units, according to officials here.

A German Defense Ministry spokesman said that creation of the multinational units could “provide a new form of NATO solidarity” while increasing the flexibility and mobility of the smaller forces stationed along the NATO borders.

While the plan has its supporters, other officials pointed out that in 40 years of existence, NATO has not been able to fully integrate the communications, logistics and weapons systems of its 16 members.

One senior U.S. military officer observed that such units would be less effective militarily than the single-nation units in the field today and that they potentially would face a highly standardized and centrally directed Soviet army.

The strategy review that is expected to be approved today will examine such issues.

At one level, the review will be designed to provide a role for NATO in the post-Warsaw Pact era that Gen. Eide was talking about, in a Europe where broad reductions in conventional arms have already been implemented and Soviet troops have moved out of territories of its former satellites. It would involve reduced force structures in Europe, of which the multinational force could be an integral part.

These concepts mean re-examining basic NATO defense doctrines, such as “flexible response”--the mix of conventional and nuclear deterrents--and forward defense, the basing of allied troops in West Germany.

In his presentation to the defense ministers, Eide warned that the Soviet military is “continuously modernizing and updating” a wide range of forces, including the navy. But his dismissal of the threat from the combined Warsaw Pact countries reflected the informed view that the former Communist alliance is in a state of collapse, even if not yet defunct.

The NATO foreign ministers did not discuss in any detail Tuesday what could well be the next controversial weapon in Europe: the air-to-surface nuclear missile, which could be launched from aircraft based in Britain, the Low Countries and West Germany.

This weapon is expected to be promoted by the United States as it withdraws its nuclear artillery and bombs from West Germany, but officials say it will also generate controversy in West Germany, where opinion polls show an increasing resistance to atomic weapons.

In another key decision reflecting the declining threat from the Warsaw Pact, NATO sources indicated that the ministers have effectively dropped the alliance’s policy of an annual 3% growth in defense budgets after inflation. The goal was not achieved by all NATO members anyway.

“The 3% formula will be quietly buried,” one defense official commented.