NATO: The View at the Summit

  • Share
  • Read Later

(9 of 10)

West Germany will support French demands for more European say on the use of U.S.-supplied nuclear weapons, fearing that the U.S. might refuse the use of atomic weapons against a "local" attack on Germany because of the risk of bringing retaliation on the U.S. The Germans are also talking about building an elaborate rocket antiaircraft defense line along its eastern border, want other NATO nations to contribute to its financing on the ground that it will defend the whole NATO area.

Italy, anxious to re-establish Western—particularly Italian—prestige in the Arab world, urged a U.S.-Western European economic development fund for the Middle East (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

Turkey, which is in dire financial straits, will ask for greater economic cooperation, i.e., aid.

A Question of Purpose. From the moment of its conception, the summit conference was doomed to run afoul of a basic disagreement about the purpose and possibilities of NATO. In the eyes of many Europeans, vocally led by NATO Secretary General Paul Henri Spaak of Belgium, NATO ought to be an almost supranational political organization through which the North Atlantic nations can present a common front to the world—Africa and Asia, as well as Russia. "It is illogical," says Spaak in an implied reproach to the U.S., "to have unified fighting forces without a unified policy."

All this, responds a senior U.S. official, "is the idea of people who are really interested in the integration of Europe and will use any means at hand to further it. I sympathize, but we must be practical." Being practical, to the U.S. way of thinking, means keeping firmly in mind that NATO is first and foremost a military alliance whose reason for existence is to counter the threat of Soviet aggression in Europe. The U.S. regards NATO as the hard core of its system of alliances, is anxious to improve political cooperation among NATO members and, since Suez, has made a renewed effort to do so. (Example: the most recent U.S. disarmament plan, which was checked over step by step with the other NATO members.) But U.S. policymakers do not see any wisdom in alienating the Afro-Asian nations, perhaps to the extent of driving them into the Soviet camp, in order to placate one or another of NATO's European members. Nor do they believe that this is a necessary price to pay for the coordinated defense effort that is NATO's primary avowed purpose.

For all its outcries at unilateral U.S. action, Europe itself is not prepared to practice true political interdependence. Greece will not accept NATO intervention in Cyprus, or France any "meddling" in Algeria. "Premier Gaillard," observed Paris's Le Monde, "wants general coordination of the policies of NATO's 15 members. Or put more exactly, he wants their agreement with French ideas."

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10