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2) This situation became anomalous when the growth of Soviet strategic forces deprived general nuclear war of much of its credibility. Yet NATO deployment has been essentially unaffected by the change. NATO has improved its conventional defenses but has not closed the gap in such forces. As the current NATO commander made clear recently, even counting the five American divisions that have remained in Europe, the alliance is still unprepared to withstand a major Soviet ground attack for more than a few days. European ambivalence continues 35 years after NATO's creation. Our allies remain unwilling to develop forces strong enough to provide an alternative to nuclear weapons—and yet much of their public opinion shies away from even thinking about nuclear deterrence.
3) Were we to start all over again, we would therefore hardly repeat the decision of the '50s in today's circumstances. Let us assume a group of wise men and women from both sides of the Atlantic came together to plan a global strategy unconstrained by the past. Assume further that it started from the premise that ultimately the defense of the West is indivisible and that European security should be viewed under the aspect of the defense of the West in Europe—as a thoughtful French observer, Francois de Rose, put it. Such a group would almost surely conclude that the sensible division of responsibilities would be for Europe, with economic resources and manpower exceeding those of the Soviet Union, to concentrate on the conventional defense of the Continent. To maintain the global balance of power—by definition as essential for Europe as for America—the U.S. would emphasize highly mobile conventional forces capable of backing up Europe and contributing to the defense of, for example, the Middle East, Asia or the Western Hemisphere.
Such a division of responsibilities would also enable our military establishment to shift some of its intellectual energies and scientific research from a hypothetical esoteric war in an area where we have major allies to the defense of regions where conflict is much more likely. In such regions our allies are less prone to see their interests immediately engaged, and the countries being threatened are in a worse position to assist in the defense effort.
Even if we were to start all over again, an irrefutable case would exist for maintaining considerable American ground forces in Europe. This would be essential to keep our allies from feeling abandoned and to eliminate any Soviet misunderstanding that the defense of Europe no longer reflects a vital American interest. In a new division of responsibilities we should also preserve and preferably strengthen existing U.S. land-based airpower on the Continent. And we should continue our responsibility for both strategic and tactical nuclear defense, assuming that we and the Europeans could agree on a strategy for the latter. American intermediate-range missiles should remain in Europe to "couple" the nuclear defenses of both sides of the Atlantic so long as European leaders desired them. No change