European Role in NATO

Your editorial, “A NATO for the ‘90s” (June 5), says so many of the right things about the importance of maintaining the--albeit redefined--transatlantic security partnership, that it may seem churlish to take issue with any part of it. You note in closing, however, “It’s good that the Europeans at last are ready to do more to support security on their continent.” Left without qualification, that comment tends to reinforce long-standing erroneous ideas about the level of European contribution to the Atlantic alliance.

I wonder, for example, whether many readers will be aware that the European members of NATO contribute 60% of its manpower and almost all of its fixed infrastructure? Do they know that, in addition to the 17,200 U.S. troops in the IFOR deployment, there are also 27,700 Europeans on the ground alongside them in Bosnia?

Are they aware that Britain alone contributes 55,000 troops to NATO’s Rapid Reaction Corps, or that well over 12,000 British servicemen, together with 25 Royal Navy ships and 64 RAF aircraft, have just participated with their U.S. counterparts in Operation Purple Star--the largest joint exercise since the end of the Second World War?

Let us agree by all means on the importance of a reorganized NATO, including a strengthened European pillar. But at the same time let us not understate the contribution already made by NATO’s European members.

MERRICK S. BAKER-BATES

British Consul-General

Los Angeles