When the ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization last met scarcely five months ago, it hardly seemed worth the trip to Iceland. As Secretary-General Manlio Brosio recalled before the ministers gathered last week in NATO's bleak new heaquarters outside Brussels: "Hopes for détente were so high that they tended to put in doubt the very necessity of a common alliance." That was not the mood in Brussels. In the interim between the semiannual sessions, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia had shattered all illusions of an imminent accommodation with the Russians. Gone were the pleasant prospects of further military cutbacks in the budgets of member countries or of a drawdown in force levels. In the wastebasket were the blueprints for converting NATO into a nonmilitary instrument of East-West bridge building. The situation that now faced the alliance was bluntly put by NATO Supreme Commander Lyman Lemnitzer, who had doubted détente and disapproved of the military dilution of NATO all along. The ten Soviet divisions that Russia has moved permanently into Czechoslovakia have "significantly altered" the balance of power in Europe, he said. He urged the allies to put their forces in a greater state of readiness, to bolster their reserve units and revamp their mobilization plans.
Modest Yet Vigorous. Such measures would cost money—money that the Europeans, protected for nearly 20 years by the U.S. nuclear umbrella, have always been loath to spend. In his 16th and farewell appearance before the ministers, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk was as candid as Lemnitzer, telling the European partners that they must carry a greater share of the burden. Rusk and U.S. Defense Secretary Clark Clifford offered only an estimated $50 million in fresh U.S. aid. They also promised to return to Europe for maneuvers two infantry brigades and four tactical Air Force squadrons that had been repatriated to the U.S. last year, to replace 80 F-102 interceptors with newer Phantom jets, and to build shelters for U.S. planes now parked on open ramps in West Germany and The Netherlands. To this, the Europeans were expected to chip in new expenditures that will total some $450 million.
The result would be a response to the Kremlin's new aggressiveness, said Rusk, that was "modest enough to show restraint, yet vigorous enough to demonstrate concern." Despite the new Soviet threat that, after all, touches Western Europeans most directly, the European response seemed more modest than vigorous. Italy agreed to a 7% budget increase, equal to an extra $140 million; West Germany promised to spend an additional $180 million and to bring its twelve divisions up to strength. The British managed a neat juggling act by announcing a hike in their contribution without any increase in defense spending, accomplished in part by pledging to NATO some of the forces being withdrawn from east of Suez.