U.S., Bonn Differ on NATO Strategy

In its first public split with the new government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the Clinton administration on Monday rebuffed a German proposal to have NATO repudiate “first-strike” use of nuclear force.

As German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping began a round of high-level talks here, U.S. officials asserted that retaining the option of being the first to launch a nuclear strike would provide the same deterrent value it had during the decades of the Cold War.

“It is something that is integral to the NATO strategic doctrine,” U.S. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said.

German officials have been hinting that they will press for a change in the doctrine. In an interview published over the weekend by the German magazine Der Spiegel, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said Bonn wants to take up the issue with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization “because we see things differently.”

These public assertions are alarming American officials, who have come to expect smooth relations with their biggest NATO ally and who have been assured that the new government will continue most national security policies of its predecessors.

Some U.S. officials said they are uncertain whether Germany is trying to mollify some of the more pacifist elements of the governing coalition--Fischer is a member of the Greens party--or if the issue signals a more fundamental change in German attitudes about the conduct of the 16-nation alliance.

“I can’t tell whether this is a gesture or something more important,” said one U.S. official, adding, “It is a concern.”

Advocates of the first-strike policy, which has been in place for decades, say that maintaining the current uncertainty about whether the Atlantic alliance would launch a nuclear attack deters potential opponents from using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, and even from mounting a large-scale conventional attack. The advocates also note that Russia still has thousands of nuclear weapons.

“We think that the ambiguity involved in the issue of nuclear weapons contributes to our own security, keeping any potential adversary who might use either chemicals or biologicals unsure of what our response would be,” Cohen said.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told Scharping in a meeting Monday that U.S. officials “do not see any need to change NATO’s nuclear policy or start a debate on this subject now,” said Albright’s spokesman, James P. Rubin.

Opponents contend that the first-strike policy makes it more difficult to persuade countries not to develop nuclear weapons, or to get others to give them up.

Pressures to repudiate the old doctrine have been growing within some NATO countries, including Canada. Germany’s Greens party in particular opposes any use of nuclear technology in military or civilian settings. Some members of Schroeder’s Social Democratic Party have also pushed for disarmament.

German officials have indicated that they will bring up their proposal at a NATO summit in April.

Helmut Sonnenfeldt, an analyst at the Brookings Institution, said he considers it “troubling” that the Schroeder government would raise the issue publicly before that meeting. He said the resulting frictions could make it more difficult for NATO members to resolve differences over other pending issues, such as Kosovo and Iraq.