Capitol Ideas/Star Wars over NATO
Bethell, Tom
CAPITOL IDEAS STAR WARS OVER NATO by Tom Bethell Imagine a country with a large, heavily armed band of robbers. So ruthless are they that after prolonged debate the citizens conclude that it would...
...The metaphor of "no daylight" prescribes a loss of sovereignty in the innocuous guise of unity...
...This story appeared under the headline: "Kohl: Europeans Need Joint 'Star Wars' Stand...
...The following scenario is probable, as I see it...
...The second European anti-Star Wars argument is: If we go forward with it, the Soviets might torpedo the arms talks in Geneva...
...A separate article could be written on this point, but it is worth noting en passant that what intimidates the Europeans is not so much weaponry as it is the Soviets' militant justification of their totalitarian system in ideological terms...
...Here we may let Drozdiak once again pick up the story ("NATO Allies' Concerns Fuel Debate on Star Wars," April 4, Washington Post): One concern among European allies is that at some point in the talks the Soviets will propose to reduce both long-range and intermediate-range missiles in exchange for severe constraints on the SDI program...
...and just as excessively generous U.S...
...just as U.S...
...Unity Seen Boosting Influence on Project...
...Podhoretz entertains the hope that with our continued succor, Europe still might see the light, repair its defenses, and resolutely resist the Soviets...
...It will make the quarreling over deployment of Pershing II and cruise missiles look like a love feast...
...Sooner or later the Soviets will indeed propose just such a deal: a large-sounding reduction of their missiles if we in return agree to abandon Star Wars...
...Here is the most frequently heard European objection to Star Wars (in the words of James Markham of the New York Times): "If the Soviet Union tries to match the American system, both Britain's and France's costly independent nuclear forces would be rendered impotent and obsolescent...
...Podhoretz is pessimistic about America and optimistic about Europe...
...Just as you can't have Communism in one country, so you can't have democracy in one country...
...Kristol is pessimistic about Europe and optimistic about America," Harries said...
...was right when he wrote in the New itself...
...My own suspicions about the Western alliance were aroused a few years ago by an Anthony Lewis column-that excellent early warning indicator of trouble...
...Perhaps, as a result, we might conclude that our own excessiveNorman Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary, has opposed Kristol on the NATO issue...
...In other words, he added, "Trotsky was right...
...Shulman/Lewis were by implication advocating that the direction of the alliance should be subordinated to its unity...
...If the Europeans find such an offer appealing but the Americans turn it down, a NATO official said, "that's when all hell will break loose in the alliance over SDI...
...The (London) Spectator described a recent Anglo-German conference in which "it was remarkable to find...
...And this is the bind that Reagan has placed himself in by so unwisely agreeing to return to Geneva...
...The truth of course is that the Soviets are hard at work already on their own Star Wars, have been for years, and will not hesitate to deploy a defensive system when they get the requisite technology...
...They are without question behind in the computer field that is crucial to the success of Star Wars...
...The United States is safer if it York Times Magazine (September 1983) huddles close to the West European that NATO was "sick" and that the U.S...
...It doesn't matter if we go over the edge of the cliff as long as there is no daylight between us as we go...
...A his same danger to the United States now looms much larger with the advent of Star Wars...
...Bearing in mind the latest displays of European pusillanimity, I phoned Podhoretz to see if he had changed his mind...
...welfare has undermined its recipients...
...We prefer to delude ourselves with the falsehood that the Soviets "don't really mean what they say...
...In other words, the Soviet negotiators at Geneva will agree, magnanimously, to reduce their nuclear missiles-but only if we agree not to acquire the means to shoot down the ones they keep...
...The more daylight between us and the patient, the less likely we are to become infected...
...suggests, in fact, that the Finlandization of Europe is proceeding apace under the present' dispensation...
...no one who was prepared seriously to defend" the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars...
...If the Soviets acquire new weapons systems after we do, it is because they are technologically backward, not because they are virtuous...
...they are comforting because nothing can emerge from them without Soviet approval...
...If we subject our allies to what he has called the "shock treatment" of withdrawal, then maybe they will be restored to health...
...economic aid is today threatening the well-being of Israel...
...That, increasingly, is the West European state of mind today...
...Hard to believe that anyone could be worried about this, I know, but it is a fact that the Europeans place greater faith in arms control by diplomacy-despite the vast multiplication of arms and weapons systems since the arms control "process" began 16 years ago-than they do in arms elimination by technology...
...and of course the opportunities for them to leak this research to the Soviets will be numerous...
...Jimmy was quoted the other day as saying that Star Wars creates an "almost insuperable obstacle" to arms control agreements...
...The European objections to Star Wars are so flimsy that they clearly mask something else-dread of the Soviet Moloch...
...The metaphor of a naval convoy suggests freighters...
...When Europe is considered in this light-not as the beneficiary but as the unintended victim of misguided American generosity-Kristol emerges as the optimist both about America and Europe...
...Embedded in this odd argument are the following assumptions about the Soviet Union: Basically its rulers are statesmanlike and responsible, and so the Soviet Union would never acquire Star Wars on its own...
...But surely the feeble European response to Star Wars suggests that this is not now likely to happen...
...So ruthless are they that after prolonged debate the citizens conclude that it would be safer to go about unprotected...
...If not, then we may feel sure that the patient would have died anyway...
...foreign policy] must be not to let any daylight show between the United States and its European allies...
...He declared himself "disgusted" by the European response, but still committed to NATO...
...Kristol could hardly have anticipated this latest show of weakness from our pathetic allies...
...The copycats in the Kremlin will prevail over such statesmen as Gorbachev ("New Star Strides Onto World Stage"- Washington Post front page headline, April 8), and lo and behold, the Soviets will have Star Wars and then the British and the French nuclear deterrents will be obsolete...
...So let us not provoke them into acquiring it...
...Even to draw attention to the intensely aggressive, accusatory character of Soviet Communism has itself become a taboo in the West...
...But such heroic forbearance cannot be expected to survive our own rash acquisition of the latest playthings from the military-industrial complex...
...Convoys, of course, must proceed at the speed of the slowest ship...
...You'd see Soviet-American friendship societies taking over book parties...
...The practical effect of Shulman's policy was to put European hands on the American steering wheel...
...There is a mounting West European rebellion against the idea that the West should contemplate defending itself against Soviet missiles by acquiring the capacity to shoot them down...
...Shortly after President Reagan's election Lewis wrote in the New York Times: "Marshal Shulman, until recently the adviser on Soviet affairs to the Secretary of State, put it on 'Meet the Press' today that the aim [of U.S...
...Within a year or so, I suspect, the crisis of NATO will have come to a head...
...As William Drozdiak put it in a Bonn-datelined story in the Washington Post: Senior chancellery officials said Kohl's call for a joint European approach to SDI reflected his conviction that the allies would deploying space-based systems if they became actively involved in the research phase...
...Weak as they are, he believes that our allies are "holding us hostage" because if we were to abandon them they would soon be Finlandized...
...should pull out of it...
...This will amount to giving them the fruits of our research, since their own contribution may be expected to be meager...
...After much grumbling the West Europeans will agree to be the recipients of our research, perhaps contributing a few scraps of data on their own...
...Most Europeans -and of course many Americans- know that they would be quite incapable of mustering a comparable fervor on behalf of the far more civilized values by which they are governed...
...That way they would indeed be exposed to robbery, but the robbers would refrain from killing them, maybe...
...In any event, we should get out of the sick room as soon as possible...
...Then the pressures on us-not so much military as cultural and spiritual-would be enormous," he said...
...Harries himself comes down on Kristol's side...
...Evidently officials in European foreign ministries feel safer vis a vis the Soviets when exposed to their missiles...
...ly protracted support of Europe has itself contributed to its spiritual debilitation...
...Defying the Soviet will is more frightening than exposure to nuclear attack...
...Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger has inexplicably, and I believe unwisely, invited the allies to participate in Star Wars research...
...Thereupon they will proclaim their right to block deployment of Star Wars, which they will by then regard as a joint project...
...Owen Harries, the former Australian ambassador to UNESCO who is preparing to launch a new foreign policy magazine in Washington, points to the inverse pattern of optimism and pessimism displayed by Kristol and Podhoretz...
...Readers, I beg you: Whenever you see the words "unity" or "joint" or appeals to the "unity of the alliance," please think of cliffs, the Gadarene swine, and Anthony Lewis...
...NATO today is surely sicker than he thought...
...You would have an international environment utterly uncongenial to the maintenance of American institutions, or free institutions generally...
...The nuclear "overkill" already in their possession will enable them to do this without reducing the military threat that they pose to us...
...This is also the State Department position (remember, we joined the arms control talks to mollify the Europeans in the first place), and it also happens to be Jimmy Carter's position...
...The offer will be made and will be found appealing in Bonn, London, and Paris, and at that point (to exaggerate) Reagan can either give up Star Wars or he can give up NATO-a choice he could have avoided by staying away from Geneva...
...All this tells me that Irving Kristol Tom Bethell is The American Spectator's Washington correspondent...
...Arms control negotiations are held out as the only hope...
Vol. 18 • June 1985 • No. 6
