TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/111191/1111004.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 7.1 KB | 146 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 64

NATO

"Au Revoir, U.S."?


Europe weighs new military formations, raising questions about
the future of the Atlantic partnership

By BRUCE W. NELAN -- Reported by Daniel Benjamin/Bonn and Bruce
van Voorst/Washington, with other bureaus


    The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, its members
boast, is the most successful alliance ever. It deterred the
predatory Soviet Union, won the cold war without firing a shot,
and gave Europe its longest peace in this century. On the
principle of not fixing things that are not broken, the Western
allies could be expected to leave well enough alone now that the
Soviet threat has ebbed. They are cutting back their armed
forces and military spending, of course, but they might be wise
to maintain the structures that served them so well.

    In speeches and documents at this week's NATO summit in
Rome, the 16 member heads of state and government will reaffirm
their faith in the alliance and approve an updated Strategic
Concept that has been in the making for more than a year. That
50-page policy statement calls for smaller, more mobile forces
in Europe and for keeping NATO's multinational military command
intact.

    But behind this carefully constructed united front, a
fundamental debate has erupted that could bring the entire U.S.
presence in Europe into question. The allies are wrangling over
how to produce a separate "European defense identity." In
practice, that means the creation of purely European military
units and raises the questions of how they should be linked to
the U.S. and the alliance as a whole, and what would happen to
the U.S. units on the Continent. Onlookers on both sides of the
Atlantic wonder whether Europe is preparing to say au revoir to
the U.S. -- or if that is the way it might look to the
Americans.

    All the European leaders insist it means no such thing.
They repeat that they still consider NATO, with the U.S. fully
engaged, as indispensable to their security. But their growing
disagreements about the future shape of the alliance are now out
in the open. The purported focus of their discussion is
military, but the substance has become highly political. As the
12 nations of the European Community move closer together, its
members are speaking up in NATO councils in favor of their own
separate security identity to defend their Continent. A Bonn
official explains that European economic and political unity
logically implies a common foreign policy. And, he argues,
"foreign policy without defense policy just does not exist."

    So the Germans last month allowed the French to talk them
into proposing a future European army to be directed by the
Western European Union, whose nine member states also belong to
NATO. Despite that potentially divisive effort, the French keep
saying the politically correct things about the importance of
the Atlantic alliance. Foreign Minister Roland Dumas last week
called it "the primary instrument at the present time for
Europe's security." But ever since President Charles de Gaulle
pulled his troops out of NATO's integrated command in 1966,
Paris has been trying to undercut American influence on the
Continent. "NATO remains America's anchor in Europe," says
Philippe Moreau-Defarges of the French Institute of
International Relations, "but it cannot be the structure for
Europe's future."

    Before the Franco-German challenge, Britain and Italy had
offered a different plan. Let Europeans create a joint military
force, London and Rome suggested, but only for use in
emergencies outside the NATO area, like the gulf war. The
essential difference is that the French want to turn the WEU
into the military wing of the European Community, while the
British and Italians see it as firmly linked to NATO.

    The U.S., meanwhile, is being resolutely understanding,
bent on preserving NATO as its key to influence in Europe.
"France's independent stance is something we have lived with for
a long time," says William H. Taft, the American ambassador to
NATO. "In these times," a senior State Department official adds,
"the U.S. must convey an image of stability, confidence and
steadfastness."

    Washington's unflappability is reinforced by its private
view that the proposal for a Euroarmy is feasible only in the
very long term if at all -- and constitutes no present threat
to NATO. In London, U.S. Ambassador Raymond Seitz said that the
U.S. was "comfortable with the concept of a European defense
identity" as long as it was not designed as an alternative to
the Atlantic alliance. American officials predict that the Rome
summit will confirm this attitude by accepting no changes in the
traditional course.

    The summiteers will also have to cope with the problem of
how best to lend aid and comfort to NATO's former enemies of
the Warsaw Pact, who are worried about the instabilities of
Central and Eastern Europe. The states of Central Europe, whose
Brussels embassies are already in liaison with NATO
headquarters, will not be offered membership in the alliance
itself. Instead the summit will invite them to join a newly
created North Atlantic Cooperation Council. Hungarian Prime
Minister Jozsef Antall acknowledged last week that full NATO
membership for his country was "unrealistic," but he and the
other Central European leaders are still hoping to get a solid
security guarantee.

    But security against what, exactly? Though there are still
almost 4 million troops and thousands of nuclear warheads in the
former Soviet Union, the danger of a massive sweep westward is
nil. More credible threats lurk in possible ethnic violence,
border violations and mass migrations of refugees. Instability
and uncertainty are the enemies NATO must guard against. In
these circumstances, says Colonel Andrew Duncan, assistant
director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies
in London, "it is difficult to justify NATO on the scale it is
today." What is needed is "some sort of military-political
organization based on NATO with both an American and a European
pillar."

    Dedicated Atlanticists in Europe believe that the U.S.
pillar will be vital to their security for years to come. Some
are concerned that traditional American isolationism may rise
as the cold-war sense of danger recedes and Europeans become
more independent. So far, alliance leaders remain confident
that that is not happening. "As in the past," says Italian
Foreign Minister Gianni de Michelis, "this isolationist mood
will remain in the minority."

    If American isolationism does begin to percolate along
with concerns about the country's domestic needs -- especially
in the coming election year -- it is likely to be toned down by
the steady reduction of U.S. troops and nuclear weapons in
Europe. American forces there are already down to 260,000, from
320,000 in 1990, and could go as low as 150,000 by the end of
1995. That will make NATO cheaper and less controversial. But
nothing has yet been devised to make the alliance dispensable.