Iraqi Invasion Leads to Rethinking by NATO, European Community : Response: With threat of Soviet aggression eased, leaders discuss how to react to trouble elsewhere in the world.

The Persian Gulf crisis is forcing Western European leaders to seek better ways of taking collective action in support of their national and common interests.

In a week of private meetings and semi-public seminars in Brussels, where both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Community are headquartered, officials talked about how to deal with aggressive steps taken by countries other than the Soviet Union.

High on the program was the crisis touched off by Iraq’s invasion of neighboring Kuwait last month.

As the threat of Soviet aggression has faded in the wake of the revolution that swept across Eastern Europe last year, NATO, the EC and other international organizations have focused on how to deal with new possibilities.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the subsequent threat to much of the Western world, have led defense-minded Western European institutions to re-examine their positions on when to extend military power and how to develop a consensus on using that power.

Some Americans have been critical of Western Europe for not doing its share in the gulf crisis. Most of this criticism has been directed at West Germany, which has a huge income from exports and a large army and navy but is under constitutional restrictions as to what it can do outside the NATO area.

But Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s pledge to help underwrite the U.S.-led multinational force deployed against Iraq in Saudi Arabia, through a contribution of billions of dollars, seems to have satisfied Washington. Further, Kohl pledged to attempt to rewrite the constitution of a united Germany.

In part because of the U.S. criticism, NATO is indeed looking for ways to broaden its charter. Officials in Brussels now agree that it would be legal and wise to allow NATO to deploy military forces beyond the frontiers of its 16 member states if it were in the organization’s vital interest to do so.

NATO was upstaged by the Western European Union, which was quick to offer its relatively thin services to coordinate Europe’s response in the gulf crisis.

The WEU, based in Paris, is made up France, Britain, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain and Portugal. The French are high on it because it is not directly affiliated with NATO and not dominated by the United States. It has no military command.

But “with the WEU, you need to create an entire administrative structure,” strategic analyst Edward Luttwak argued. “This, NATO already has.”

Another NATO specialist declared bluntly: “The WEU is something of a joke. They literally have about seven or eight employees at their headquarters.”

And a NATO ambassador had this to say: “The WEU is really a parasite of NATO. When they want to offer military cooperation advice, they come to us and ask how to do it.”

A few days ago, Italian Foreign Minister Gianni De Michelis suggested that the 12-nation European Community form a military component. He said this would be in Western Europe’s interest and would keep the French from worrying about taking directions from Washington.

But with the EC’s attempt to bring about a single market at the end of 1992, including heated arguments about a European monetary system and a central bank, few observers here believe the EC could take on military responsibilities very quickly.

Further, if other nations join the EC, particularly those with a neutral background like Switzerland, Austria and Sweden, it would be difficult to get any kind of consensus on quick action in time of crisis.

An Irish diplomat, whose government has adhered to a policy of nonalignment, was stunned by De Michelis’ suggestion.

Still, EC experts do not rule out some kind of defense arrangement, though only in the very long run.

The difficulty of finding consensus is also one of the objections to another proposal: creating a defense arm for the 35-member CSCE, the Vienna-based Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. This could provide some sort of peacekeeping mechanism for all Europe.

“The problem with upgrading the CSCE,” Prof. William Griffith of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said, “is that it is too big--like the U.N. General Assembly. You’d never get a unanimous vote or even a consensus to act in time to respond to any crisis.”

Most European leaders turn back to NATO as the best organization to coordinate military activities involving member nations within or beyond their frontiers.

NATO seems certain to reduce its force levels and headquarters staff now that the Soviet threat seems to have disappeared, but many diplomats and officers here believe it could be rejuvenated by giving it a broader role.

In the view of many people in Brussels, NATO has the advantage--although some think it a disadvantage--of not being entirely European, of having the United States and Canada as members.

Gen. Manfred Woerner, the NATO secretary general, and other officials point to NATO’s huge integrated military structure, built up over 40 years, and argue that it would be illogical to dismantle it.

Gen. John Galvin, NATO’s military commander, has urged the organization to rethink its treaty strictures and look farther afield, or “out of area.”

One of the top NATO planners is now suggesting that the organization is really not legally bound to restrict its military activities to the organization’s geographical area, so long as all member nations agree that an outside crisis truly affects the national interests of all.

And other NATO experts agree that they ought to set their sights beyond the horizon, but they add that it must be done with sensitivity and caution.

“For instance,” one ambassador commented at a NATO dinner, “we want to support the U.S. in the gulf, not only because of Iraqi aggression but because our vital interests are affected too.

“But I don’t think anyone--including the U.S.--would want to plant the NATO flag on a Saudi Arabian sand dune. We don’t want to make it look as if a bunch of Christian Crusaders have arrived.”

Some people at NATO worry about public opinion assuming that the organization isn’t doing enough when needed. But Simon Lunn of the North Atlantic Assembly pointed out that “NATO can’t do what it is not set up to do; you’ve got to change the brief.”

He said he thinks NATO is doing pretty well in responding under its charter to the gulf crisis.