After 35 years of preserving peace in Western Europe, the Atlantic Alliance confronts new military, political and social realities. In this article, a former Secretary of State proposes dramatic—and in his view, vital—steps to help the alliance meet the challenges ahead. Among them: NATO's Supreme Allied Commander should be a European, not an American, as is now the case; Europe should have a decisive voice in certain nuclear arms-control talks and greater responsibility for its ground defense. If Europe refuses to accept that responsibility, the U.S. should withdraw up to half of its ground forces from Europe.
Lebanon and the Soviet succession have preoccupied us in recent weeks, but the Atlantic Alliance must remain the pivot of American policy. On its unity depends the security of free peoples. From its cohesion will flow whatever hopes the Soviet succession offers for a new dialogue. Unfortunately, just as storms recur in nature, crises recur in the Atlantic Alliance. Nearly every Administration for a generation has been involved in them. However, the present controversies in NATO are both unprecedented and unsettling.
In West Germany, Scandinavia, the Low Countries and even in Britain (though to a lesser extent), "peace" movements have been pulling governments in the general direction of their policies, even though those governments disagree with their premises. In addition, the main opposition parties in West Germany and Great Britain—which, in the nature of democratic politics, can be expected to get into office eventually—are advocating policies that amount to unilateral nuclear disarmament for their countries. Because these groups hold sway over key segments of public opinion, too many European leaders—even conservative ones—have yielded to the temptation to demonstrate their peaceful intentions the easy way, by pretending to be reining in a bellicose and insensitive U.S. through their ministrations. As a result, among those who shape public attitudes—and thereby set what become the limits of the politically possible—there is less intellectual or philosophical agreement than in any previous period.
This creates an exceedingly dangerous situation. An alliance cannot live by arms alone. To endure it requires some basic agreement on political aims that justify and give direction to the common defense. If military arrangements provide its only bond, it will sooner or later stagnate. It will surely prove unable to take advantage of diplomatic opportunities for an easing of tensions. That is the central issue before the Atlantic Alliance today. It requires a remedy that is fundamental, even radical—in the literal sense of going to the root.
Four problems in particular are gnawing at the alliance:
1) Lack of an agreed, credible strategy. The gap between NATO's formal strategy and what the public will support has widened dangerously. The so-called flexible response devised in the 1960s remains NATO's official doctrine. It contemplates a defense of Europe that begins with conventional weapons and then goes up the ladder of nuclear escalation—until it reaches whatever level is necessary to halt Soviet aggression. In today's circumstances this doctrine has a fatal weakness: neither existing nor projected NATO conventional ground forces are adequate to repel a major Soviet