NATO in Disarray
Manor, F.S.
F.S. Manor NATO in Disarray Cyprus is divided, Brussels is on strike, and the Austrians joke --while the Soviet military buildup is the most threatening ever. The itinerary of my winter journey...
...An utter obliviousness to present realities informed the spirit wherever I went: Under the swaying palm-trees of beautiful Cyprus, where the Greeks still believe they will go back to the areas now firmly held by the Turks...
...12 The Alternative: An American Spectator March 1977...
...The American was a naval man...
...So the turtle carried the scorpion on its back and in the middle of the Canal it stung the turde...
...Not a word in the Soviet proposals about NATO's demand that the Russians withdraw one army of 68,000 men and 17,000 tanks behind the Soviet border...
...The truncated Greek part of the island is humming with activity...
...The defense ministers have more guts, but they wield less influence and have no money...
...And at the end of the week they .duly dispersed without taking any decision, having come to the comfortable conclusion that the Russians are not ten feet tall--as if even pygmy Russians could not race those tanks to the Channel and press buttons on all their wonder missiles...
...It was a fine aircraft, and the Russians are continuously improving their weapons on a scale the West cannot match...
...The Turkish foreign minister who attended the NATO meeting in Brussels called a press conference to warn the Western public about the possibility that his government might effect a reversal of alliances and make friends with the Soviet bloc, as Helsinki encourages everyone to do...
...At present the danger is we shall be jumped at unprepared," a British general told me...
...These are endearingly simple: An acknowledgement by NATO of permanent Soviet preponderance in Europe further tilted in Soviet favor by new drastic restrictions on West German forces...
...The Soviet units were fully equipped and trained for chemical warfare...
...Don't be silly," the scorpion reassured the turtle...
...He was equally pessimistic about the prospects of an Arab-Israeli settlement, his views sharply at variance with the anodyne pap on the Middle East fed to the public by the departing President Ford...
...It still lacks the viciQus East German dogs, F.S...
...Hotels had been lost in the part seized by the Turks, but new hotels are rising in the Greek sector, and if the British tourists no longer come because they have become poor, perhaps the Scandinavians will come, or the Germans, or the French...
...Brussels: Pants at Half-Mast In Brussels, as in Canada, the air-traffic controllers were on strike and our Boeing circled the airport for an hour, consuming precious fuel for which we give the Arabs our hard-earned substance plus our weapons that...
...The Austrians still tell jokes...
...He then complained about the ministers sitting in closed meetings and being briefed while the public remains unaware of what is happening...
...The Middle East of Beirut and Cairo, of Nicosia and Ankara...
...and in Vienna itself where the Austrians are trying to convince themselves their neutrality will save them from whatever cataclysm may engulf their neighbors...
...Kissinger was saying you have to couple a realistic appraisal with again renewed effort at disarmament and finding some kind of understanding that does not lead to a scandalous waste of resources...
...The same paralysis of will that makes the British and the Dutch slash their defense budgets in the face of the biggest offensive build-up ever by the Soviet Union, obscures the vision of the Greeks and the Turks, both threatened by the self-same build-up, both refusing to forget their petty quarrels in the face of a far more deadly peril...
...And a jump from peace to war would catch the alliance with pants half down...
...This estimate is taken from the communique issued by the Western allies on the occasion of the Christmas recess...
...Perhaps, in view of the growth of the Soviet naval might, he too has to maintain "positive optimism...
...A few days after my arrival in Vienna, yet another round of talks was completed and the negotiations adjourned for the Christmas/ Grandfather Frost holidays...
...Western superiority in quality is going fast, if it has not already gone, substantially helped by Western exports of sophisticated technology and large cheap credits given to the Soviet Union, something everybody in Brussels deplored, but the British had hardly finished their deploring when they turned on the United States to castigate the Pentagon for interfering with an export contract th~it would greatly improve the performance of Soviet missiles...
...and (b) that should they, contrary to expectations, succumb to temptation, they would scrupulously respect Austrian neutrality...
...He dismissed as wishful thinking reports that the Soviet aircraft captured in Japan was second-rate...
...It is the old Israeli story about the turtle and the scorpion all over again...
...They know that "we must develop a more realistic understanding of detente, and the task of public education falls on the Western governments themselves...
...At NATO the initials (interpreted by some as "much better for the Russians") still stand, but in the Russian language "balanced" is a four-letter word very much infra dig...
...I have now attended the NATO ministerial meetings for more than a decade and I believe this was one of the gloomiest sessions I have ever witnessed...
...The enemy is at the gates and the very heart of NATO is paralyzed by a quarrel over a cost-of-living bonus, with Communist correspondents on hand to report it all...
...But we must keep this quiet...
...In fact, a very senior American officer shared the Austrian optimism and believed that (a) the Russians would stay out of post-Tito Yugoslavia whatever the temptation...
...What he did not say was that this would end his political career...
...He "tilted" towards the Turks, and indeed all military estimates indicate that in a conflict the Turkish forces would go through the Greek lines like knife through butter...
...Our "flexible response" strategy is yet another instance of wishful thinking...
...You cannot be sanguine about that...
...An allied officer with much field experience demonstrated on his map how any Soviet advance into Yugoslavia would cut right across Austria...
...They were all eminently clear-sighted about the coming dangers, but they felt they had to maintain a "positive optimism...
...Note, not of what the East is offering: the East does not offer anything...
...warmonger !" A French officer attached to NATO, one who obviously does not share the go-it-alone ideas of his political bosses, said the Soviet preponderance in tanks was "a frightening prospect...
...the turtle asked in agony...
...We could have an agreement tomorrow, a diplomat told me, if we accepted the Soviet proposals...
...But NATO no longer has such time, because the Soviet forces massed at the West German border are so fully integrated, equipped, and supported that they can advance immediately...
...They have it all already on the ground," I was told repeatedly, "and they are right at our throat...
...The tragedy--or perhaps the criminal negligence--is that so many people are perfectly aware of what is going on, but are afraid to say so aloud, or if they say so are howled down by a chorus of media"persons" yapping in unison: "cold-warrior...
...Yugoslavia, Eurocommunism, an enormous increase in Soviet weapons research expenditure, and five Soviet armies with reserves and back-up forces at our throat: This is the message for 1977...
...Yet the three pieces of the mosaic--Cyprus, Brussels, and Viennam produced a remarkably coherent picture, one of Western ingenuity and enterprise, threatened by an equal dose of Western pusillanimity and an obstinate refusal to face harsh realities...
...Before the Sack I wound up my Vienna talks listening to Austrian politicians and officials, who after all are right in the middle of the row, desperately trying to keep out of it...
...The same illusions cloud the vision of the Canadians, who for 12 years have been supplying substantial forces in the futile attempt to "keep peace" on this peaceless island, once dedicated to Aphrodite, the goddess of love...
...Once, it was thought, a political crisis would be accompanied by a Soviet build-up that could be observed by satellites and give NATO time to take counter-measures...
...This faith in economic future, in the ability to master all adversity whatever the odds, differs sharply from the Western refusal to protect the fruits of these labors, to defend the freedoms each of us cherishes...
...In Western liturgy, "graduated response" means that if the superior Soviet conventional forces overrun NATO defenses, NATO will reply with its little tactical nukes and go on to slightly bigger nukes and so on...
...but my long experience of human folly leads me to believe that this is only a question of time...
...The minister argued that the central government of Archbishop Makarios must be sufficiently strong to hold the island state together...
...They must have been training somewhere beyond the Urals before bringing their new chemical toys to Germany to try them out on what would closely approximate the future battleground...
...Having spent a good part of the Second World War forever worrying about the efficacy of black-out, I find an almost childish pleasure in the dazzling illumination and the brightly lit, richly stocked shopwindows of the festive season...
...There is another interesting sentence in the communiquE: "...it is apparent that the military significance of what the West is offering is at least as great as the military significance of what it is asking from the East...
...The foreign ministers will be glad to hear it...
...It was a perfect reflection of the state of the alliance...
...but, first and foremost, the alliance lacks time and space, two vital ingredients without which deterrence is an illusion...
...I watched an Italian Communist reporter I know, the Brussels correspondent of l'Unit~ of Rome, together with her colleagues from Pravda, Tass, and--a new appearance this at the NATO meeting--a group of Bulgarian "accredited correspondents,;' interview the pickets and carefully copy in their notebooks the text of the slogans on the placards...
...No," the turde refused, "you are too dangerous...
...Why not...
...At NATO headquarters near the airport the pickets were out...
...Indeed, it would seem as if we were two different civilizations, one full of ingenuity, the other dying on its feet...
...On the authority of the world's Number One Guru we don't have to do anything...
...Otherwise, the Austrians reminded me of that Greek-Cypriot minister...
...They say the moment nuclear weapons are used, whatever their size, they will let go with everything in their arsenal...
...Pants seemed to figure almost i~s much in the discussions as did the estimated height of the average Russian...
...Back at home it is defense-budget-cutting-time as usual, something that is about as logical as cancelling, as an economy measure, a fire insurance policy while the neighbor's house is burning...
...MBFR: Much Better for the Russians To see how we are getting along with finding that "some kind of understanding" I flew to Vienna to learn more about MBFRs...
...The Greek-Cypriot cabinet minister, who, preparing for a vital international conference for which he was leaving that very evening, yet found time to spare an hour to a newsman from the Canadian Prairies, was remarkably realistic about his neighbors...
...Otherwise he really could not be in the job...
...Helsinki" has ceased to be a geographical term and now covers a vast multitude of sins...
...Central Front) is somewhat larger than 150,000 men...
...Jamleson waffled as much as his external affairs department The Alternative: An American Spectator March 1977 11 top advisers, who insisted that the Soviet preponderance was "perfectly manageable...
...All we need is another realistic appraisal and then let us offer the Russians yet another round of negotiations...
...Meanwhile, we shall worry about indexed unemployment benefits and forget the "horrendous waste...
...Perfect, is it not...
...She had committed the unforgivable faux pas of addressing the note to "the Soviet ambassador to MBFRs"--and it was rejected like an impertinent diplomatic protest...
...This," answered the dying scorpion, "is the Middle East...
...I hasten to add that the officer was not an American...
...If you mean that I shall go up and down the country scaring the pants off people, no I shall do nothing of the kind," he replied...
...Which is the world's most neutral country...
...If things become really bad, a well-informed official told me--and he fully expected the East-West conflict to become much worse-Austria will have to abandon her present active role in international affairs and withdraw completely into her shell...
...The civilian personnel of the alliance was on strike, placards and all...
...The Bulgarians' cameras clicked and whirred--Warsaw Pact meetings were never like this...
...The punkah that monotonously whirred on the ceiling to cool the 80-degree heat of Nicosia's December was witness to the British legacy: The punkahs that once revolved from the countless ceilings between the Mediterranean and Hong Kong were as British as Yorkshire pudding...
...Nonetheless, the communiqu~ ends on a brave note: "As regards prospect for progress in coming rounds, we are not pessimistic...
...A NATO defense minister mused on what may be happening...
...But in Europe the city lights were bright, the peoples' countenances happy, business brisk...
...In the present climate, manufactured by our all-powerful media, he would have "to sound like a redneck," he admitted ruefully...
...There is, moreover, a new facet to Soviet tactics: The Russians are now fully trained for chemical warf~are...
...You would sting me...
...You know I cannot swim and if I sting you we'll both drown...
...Now we'll both die...
...The NATO defense ministers were told in Brussels by their military advisers that none of these talks will affect the military balance or lead to a change in the three-to-one Soviet superiority in conventional forces...
...And SALT II...
...And the Mutual Balanced Force Reduction talks or MBFRs...
...The Soviets have never accepted this premise...
...and a pledge by NATO not to enlarge the alliance, such as by bringing in Spain...
...The talks can go on while the Russians complete their build-up, if there is anything more to complete, that is...
...The Russians have their entire infrastructure at the border and they can move any time without mobilizing reserves or bringing up reinforcements fast...
...The itinerary of my winter journey was entirely fortuitous...
...But when it came to the future of Cyprus the minister's clear vision became clouded...
...A senior naval officer in Brussels suggested we might have to "amputate" Cyprus to save the alliance in the Mediterranean...
...It would be funny if it were not for the backdrop of all those Soviet tanks and ground forces poised along the Central Front of Europe, where a welltrained Western company may mean the difference between those gay Christmas lights and a new devastation...
...Mr...
...NATO lacks ground forces, tanks, and planes...
...Czechoslovakia, of course...
...So I asked him whether, as an experienced politician, he planned to enlighten the public...
...Cyprus: The Scorpion and the Turtle On a tree-lined avenue of Nicosia the thick walls of the Moorishstyle building surrounded by delightful gardens spoke of a time long before air-conditioning had been invented...
...It is depressing to watch these smartly turned-out soldiers, the best troops in NATO, wasted on ludicrous duties where they forever argue with the two sides about a new piece of concrete wall, a new platform on an Observation Post that makes the Turkish OP three feet higher than the opposite Greek post or vice versa...
...But will she be allowed to do so...
...Jamieson's enlightening comments: " I f I have an overall impression from this meeting, it is that the Kissinger approach is the one that commends itself to me, because there is always in this kind of discussions the problem of assessing Soviet strength and saying the only alternative is to match it, in which case we would be in a horrendous arms race, whereas Mr...
...He did not foresee an early end to the Lebanese tragedy--and the latest reports of sporadic fighting in Lebanon bear out the minister's accurate assessment...
...But why a conflict...
...The southern flank of NATO is thus in complete disarray...
...But like the proverbial show, the talks must go on...
...These were Mr...
...Meanwhile, the spirit of free enterprise that built our civilization, indeed the Greek spirit that had inspired Western thought processes, is as alive as ever...
...We must consider that if they thinkwe are soft enough," he said, "and they believe in their system, they may intend to use their new military capability...
...The new Canadian minister of external affairs, Don Jamieson, was typical of the "face-the-wall-my-darling" attitude that prevailed among the foreign ministers...
...Why not a settlement...
...They don't interfere even in their own affairs...
...The ministers were given figures, shown pictures and graphs illustrating the massive gap between the forces of NATO and the Warsaw Pact...
...in due course they will use against the West...
...The Canadian air-traffic controllers had objected to the use of French in air-traffic control, and one wondered whether the Brussels controllers objected to Flemish...
...Young men impeccably dressed, except for the minatory bulge in their jackets, lounged by the various entrances while elderly messengers shuffled forever with cups of sweet Turkish coffee, this a legacy of three centuries of Turkish dominance...
...in Brussels where--as in the Vienna of 1918--the situation is considered hopeless but not desperate...
...A Western diplomat's wife, who sent a note to the Soviet ambassador thanking him for one of those parties with which the diplomats ease the tedium of their inaction, received the note back unopened...
...Manor is the senior editorial writer of the Winnipeg Free Press...
...This is not much to ask since "disparity in ground manpower in the area (i.e...
...No use scaring the pants off people...
...He believed in a united Cyprus in which the Greeks would be allowed to move freely across the zonal boundary, a line that in Nicosia is as ugly and depressing as that which divides Berlin...
...We have detente...
...It probably was the same in Rome just before Genseric sacked the city...
...10 The Alternative: An American Spectator March 1977 The scorpion asked the turtle to carry it across the Suez Canal...
...This Christmas, however, as I strolled amidst the well-dressed throng of Brussels and Vienna, watching passers-by laden with parcels, peering into stores crowded with customers, but above all savoring the gay lights that dispelled the early December darkness, I could never suppress the thought nagging at the back of my mind: How much longer...
...You have to have public awareness of this to get the political support that is necessary to do the things that are essential," the minister said...
...Why did you do it...
...They plead, they cajole, they argue, and when they cannot persuade one or the other side, they file a grievance with the United Nations in New York...
...And when I hesitantly pointed out that such dreams were unlikely to be realized, the minister said he had to maintain "positive optimism...
...The 'B,' however, is silent and must never be pronounced...
...In a recent exercise Soviet forces contaminated an area in East Germany with modern chemicals, then went through it simulating an attack on NATO's rear, and after a successful completion of the exercise decontaminated the region making it safu for occupation...
...And NATO lacks space because Western anti-tank weapons could not stop the overwhelming mass of Soviet tanks once they got moving...
Vol. 10 • March 1977 • No. 6
