TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/070290/0702005.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.3 KB | 114 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 34

AMERICA ABROAD

Defusing the German Bomb


By Strobe Talbott


    The revolution of 1989 short-circuited history, jolting the
late 20th century with some vexations that everyone thought
would wait until the 21st. In no time at all, German
unification went from almost unthinkable to all but
unstoppable. Last week's hints out of Bonn that citizens of
both Germanys will vote for a single parliament later this year
was just the latest reminder that from now on, there will be
German answers to the German question in all its complex and
troubling dimensions. The four wartime Allies that crushed the
Third Reich in 1945 can still consult, negotiate and harrumph
to their hearts' content, but they cannot dictate on any
matter. That includes the most sensitive and controversial of
all: whether a united and fully sovereign Germany will
eventually become a nuclear power.

    During a visit to Camp David in February, Helmut Kohl was
asked whether his country would "see fit to develop an
independent nuclear-weapons capability."

    "No," said the Chancellor. "This discussion is over in
Germany. We are not at all longing to be an atomic power."

    That was an artful dodge. The question pertained not to any
current debate going on in Germany but to a dilemma that could
arise years from now. By then the U.S.S.R. may have shrunk and
changed its name, but it will doubtless still be a large
country armed with far too many weapons of mass destruction for
the comfort of its neighbors.

    Tomorrow's Germans may not be "longing" for a nuclear status
symbol any more than today's are. They may have followed the
example of Japan, that other phoenix risen from the ashes of
World War II, and learned to be an economic superpower without
wanting, or even needing, commensurate military might. But like
everyone else, the Germans will certainly want safety. They
will want to know who is going to deter whatever threat they
still feel from the missiles and bombers of others.

    Kohl's answer is NATO. His Camp David host, George Bush,
agrees. They both believe in the old adage "If it ain't broke,
don't fix it." NATO has kept the peace for 40 years, and
there's no reason to believe it can't do so for another 40.

    The trouble is, NATO is broken, at least conceptually. Its
reason for being was to deter the Soviet Union from launching
an invasion through West Germany to the English Channel. With
that danger diminished to the vanishing point, NATO is already
undergoing its own deconstruction, more subtle, dignified and
gradual than that of the Warsaw Pact but in the long run just
as relentless.

    Whatever Kohl says now, it is highly unlikely that after
unification his citizens or their parliamentary representatives
will welcome either American nuclear weapons or soldiers on
their soil at more than token levels and for more than a
transitional period. For their part, U.S. Congressmen and the
Joint Chiefs of Staff are unenthusiastic about sending combat
units overseas to serve as political symbols -- and temporary
ones at that. So the only real suspense in the next stage of
the drama may be whether Germany says Danke and auf Wiedersehen
to American troops or the U.S. brings them home first.

    Once the last American trip-wire battalion is gone, Germany
will feel liberated in some respects but vulnerable in others.
Then what? Will the government in Bonn -- or perhaps by then
Berlin -- ask for help from Britain and France, which have
their own independent nuclear deterrents? German pride would
make that expedient unattractive.

    At that point the Germans will be sorely tempted, for
reasons that have nothing to do with the poltergeists of
national character, to want their own nuclear deterrent. Never
mind what Kohl told Bush at Camp David in February, or what
Bush told Mikhail Gorbachev at the same mountaintop retreat
earlier this month, or what Gorbachev told the Supreme Soviet
two weeks ago when he seemed, with much ambiguity and no
enthusiasm, to accept the idea of the West German army remaining
in NATO. Never mind what agreements were signed as a result
of the Two-plus-Four talks back in the early 1990s. Germany
will do what it thinks necessary to protect itself against the
clear and present dangers of the day.

    The alternative to a nuclear-armed Germany is not to try to
breathe new life into the aging NATO alliance, conceived as it
was in the cold war and dominated as it is by the U.S. More
promising would be for Europe to move quickly beyond a monetary
and customs union to acquire not just a political identity but
also military muscle. That way there may be a European defense
umbrella over the Germans' heads by the time Uncle Sam folds
up the American umbrella and takes it home.

    When the issue of German unification burst out of nowhere
late last year, it initially distracted attention and drained
political energy from 1992 and greater European integration.
As the world faces up to the nuclear corollary of the German
question, Europeans may realize they have more incentive than
ever to get on with the business of building supranational
institutions on the Continent, including ones that will obviate
the need for there ever to be a German bomb.