TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/051490/0514108.000

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                                                                                NATION, Page 26

This New House


As Germany moves closer to unification, the U.S. and its allies
begin to renovate NATO without making life more difficult for
Gorbachev

By JILL SMOLOWE -- Reported by William Mader/Bonn, J.F.O.
McAllister with Baker and Bruce van Voorst/Washington


    Old truths are collapsing as quickly as the Berlin Wall,
while Europe rushes to meet its bright and shining future. The
Soviet Union can no longer lay claim to the loyalties of its
East European neighbors. The U.S. can no longer assume that its
West European allies will look to Washington for leadership.
And the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for 40 years the
crucible of security arrangements for the West, can no longer
count on being the vessel in which Europe's future will be
forged. All of these crumbling assumptions have left Washington
grasping to define what role it can -- and should -- play in
a newly emergent Europe.

    The frenzy of diplomatic activity last week underscored how
energetically Washington is trying to ensure a strong U.S. hand
in the design and maintenance of Europe's new security order.
Over three days, Secretary of State James Baker met with his
NATO and European Community counterparts in Brussels, then
conferred with German leaders and Soviet Foreign Minister
Eduard Shevardnadze in Bonn. The next day he proceeded to the
Foreign Ministry to discuss the future of Germany at the
so-called Two-Plus-Four talks, the six-nation group composed
of West and East Germany and the four Allied powers of World
War II (the U.S., the Soviet Union, France and Britain).

    The high-ranking consultations were designed both to ease
Soviet concerns about the merging of Germany and to explore the
creation of a fresh European security order. For Americans,
there was the added challenge of defending the primacy of NATO,
the main institution that channels U.S. political influence
into the councils of Europe. As Baker made his rounds,
President Bush articulated his vision succinctly: "NATO will
continue to be vital to America's place in Europe."

    Bush acknowledged the changes that have swept across Europe
over the past year by calling for a NATO summit in early summer
to explore the "future political mission of the alliance." He
also paid tribute to the 35-member Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe for seeking to sort out the complications
created by eased East-West tensions. But Bush made clear that
as far as the U.S. is concerned, NATO should be retrofitted,
not demolished and replaced with a new security structure.

    What Bush left unsaid is that if NATO collapsed, America's
relevance -- and influence -- in Europe would be substantially
diminished. "We do want to remain a European power, but the
question is how do you do that when the only institutional
voice of the U.S. right now is NATO?" asks a senior
Administration official. "That's why we're talking about NATO,
because it gives validity to the U.S. presence in Europe."

    Bush's assertion of NATO's pre-eminence is coupled with an
awareness that the alliance must demonstrate flexibility as the
cold war winds down and security arrangements are reconsidered.
Thus Bush announced last week that the U.S. would not develop
and install a new generation of short-range nuclear missiles
and nuclear artillery in Western Europe. He also offered to
advance mutual-reduction talks with Moscow over the fate of the
700 aging Lance missiles already deployed by the U.S. and
opposing missiles on the Soviet side, but only after the
signing of a conventional-forces treaty that would result in
dramatic troop and weapons cutbacks by the U.S. and the Soviet
Union in Central Europe.

    While Bush's concessions lend to the appearance that the
U.S. is participating in great European events, they in fact
do little more than make a virtue out of a necessity. The now
canceled missiles would have had a 280-mile range, allowing
them to carry only far enough to hit Czechoslovakia or within
the borders of a rapidly unifying Germany. And neither Germany
shares Bush's enthusiasm for the retention of the present Lance
missiles, with a 78-mile range. Bush's stepped-up campaign for
a conventional-forces treaty, limiting the Soviet Union to
195,000 troops beyond its borders and the U.S. to 225,000 troops
in Western and Central Europe, may be stalled by disagreements
with Moscow over aircraft levels.

    Bush recognizes that the rapid pace of events will later
lead to even deeper troop cuts on both sides. Soviet forces are
not capable of launching a surprise invasion of Western Europe
now that their allies in the Warsaw Pact have declared
independence and the U.S.S.R.'s military effectiveness has
disintegrated. The Soviet army is significantly weakened by
ethnic strife and insubordination in the ranks. (At the NATO
meeting in Brussels last week, a senior defense expert disclosed
that the Soviet army mobilized an entire division in its
Moscow barracks last February as a signal to the Kremlin
against further military cuts.) Warning time in advance of a
hypothetical Soviet land attack across Europe could be as much
as six months to a year, according to some intelligence
estimates. In short, the need for large standing forces in
Europe has been significantly reduced.

    A far thornier issue is Bush's demand that a united Germany
be a full-fledged member of NATO. The issue dominated the
opening round of the Two-Plus-Four talks. Washington's position
is endorsed by European governments on both sides of the old
divide. They feel that the new Germany must be "embedded" in
a joint security system -- NATO, at least for now -- just as
it is in the European Community. The Europeans count on
America's strategic nuclear umbrella to keep the Germans from
reversing their treaty promises not to develop nuclear weapons.

    U.S. policymakers are convinced that the Soviets will
eventually come to regard German membership in NATO as the best
way to guarantee a stable and secure Europe. As yet, however,
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has continued to hold out
for either a neutral Germany or one belonging to both security
alliances. Bush's grave concern is that the Soviets may promote
unacceptable conditions. They might call for German unification
without NATO membership or membership in NATO but modified to
forbid the placement of any NATO nuclear weapons on German
soil. The latter proposal could become a hot issue in the West
German elections scheduled for December, offering a powerful
campaign weapon to the opposition Social Democrats, whose calls
for a nuclear-free country strike a resonant chord in both
Germanys.

    Moscow's current intransigence over German membership in
NATO makes Gorbachev the odd man out. After meeting with
Gorbachev in Moscow last week, East German Prime Minister
Lothar de Maiziere said that, despite Moscow's objections, his
country would be interested in joining NATO, albeit one with
a changed "structure and strategy." De Maiziere did not spell
out what changes he had in mind, but West Germany is confident
the East Germans will follow Bonn's lead.

    NATO has already embraced a plan put forward last February
by West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, under
which NATO would not station troops on East German soil and a
reduced number of Soviet troops could remain in East Germany.
Hence the Bonn government remains strongly committed to a
unified Germany's membership in NATO. Says West German Defense
Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg: "The alliance between the North
American and West European countries continues to be an
indispensable guarantee for a stable change."

    Even as West Europeans affirm their commitment to NATO,
however, they are exploring new political and security
arrangements that could render the alliance an also-ran at best
and obsolete at worst. Two weeks ago, at a special summit of
the European Community in Dublin, Community leaders voted to
consider a Franco-German proposal for full "political union"
by 1993, including a common defense policy. The proposal raised
the distant prospect of a challenge to NATO as the new Europe's
primary defense forum.

    The Community's progress toward a common market by 1992 has
made Washington keenly aware that if it is to continue playing
a vital role in Europe, it must strengthen its ties to the E.C.
There have been some procedural adjustments that signal
Washington's increasing regard for the Community's importance.
Bush has inaugurated a policy of receiving the E.C. president
twice a year, and plans are in place for the E.C. and the U.S.
to hold two summits a year to provide a forum for
European-American dialogue.

    More adjustments can be anticipated if Washington hopes to
change its profile within the Community as a perennial
outsider. Baker has suggested a treaty with the Community to
establish "a significantly strengthened set of institutional
and consultative links," a loose formulation that he has not
yet begun to clarify. No less vital is the need for a mechanism
to handle disputes so that, as former Assistant Secretary of
State for European and Canadian Affairs Rozanne Ridgway warns,
"We don't get bogged down in mutual recriminations over American
beef hormones and French wine."

    The U.S. must also redefine its relationship with the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the assembly
that first met in Helsinki in 1975 to seal formally postwar
borders and advance the cause of human rights. The CSCE is the
sole international organization to bind the whole of Europe.
It doesn't have so much as an office, a desk or a secretary.
But its membership includes all members of NATO and the Warsaw
Pact.

    As a result, the CSCE is very much the flavor of the month
in Europe, particularly in Bonn. Genscher asserts, "The
architecture of all Europe is taking shape in the CSCE." He has
put forward eight proposals to energize the organization,
including regular conferences of the foreign ministers and a
pan-European institution for the protection of human rights.
The West Germans see the CSCE as a vehicle to provide the
Soviets with a feeling of continuity and security as the Warsaw
Pact falls apart. "Gorbachev has absorbed such monumental
defeats," says a Genscher aide, "that we've got to give him
some compensation."

    The U.S. is willing to boost the organization's fortunes,
provided it does not become a substitute for NATO. The CSCE
hopes to convene a summit later this year, probably in Paris,
to give final approval to the unification of Germany within
borders accepted by all. But the U.S., which is a member, is
stalling a summit until the Conventional Forces in Europe talks
are concluded, and the CSCE meeting can serve as the forum for
the signing of a treaty. "The CFE talks are the mechanism for
the Soviet withdrawal of military forces from East Europe,"
says a senior Pentagon official. "There can be no higher
priority."

    The final shape of Europe's new house is far from clear. The
one certainty is that European voices will increasingly
dominate the Atlantic-security debate. There is an interim
consensus that NATO still has a role to play. "The argument
over NATO is not over its existence but over its adaptability,"
says a senior State Department official. Still, with
parliaments and voters demanding a reduction in military
outlays, it seems inevitable that many U.S. troops will leave
Europe, and the specifics of European security will increasingly
be in European hands. Democrat Sam Nunn of Georgia, chairman
of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is urging the U.S. to
scale back its forces in Europe to between 75,000 and 100,000
within five years.

    When it was first formed in 1949, the Atlantic alliance was
a treaty rather than an organization, and Washington officials
insisted that no American troops would have to be stationed on
European soil. One year later, the North Atlantic Treaty became
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and U.S forces in
Europe were increased. Today Washington's challenge is to
ensure that NATO does not revert once again to a group that
looks good only on paper.