Eurofears after Reykjavik

...It would be funny, were it not such a depressing testimony to the quality of transatlantic debate on these questions, that many of those who have lately excoriated the President for his uncompromising attitude toward the Soviet Union now step forward to warn of the perils of arms control and the need for a prudent approach to security issues...

...Whether these maneuvers will succeed remains to be seen, given the success the Soviets have already had in using the ABM treaty as a weapon of political warfare against the SDI...

...British and French concern over the viability of their independent nuclear forces in a heavily defended world must be treated sympathetically by the United States, but it is difficult to escape the impression that British and French wishful thinking on this score has led them to underestimate the effectiveness of current and prospective Soviet defensesagainst third country missile attacks...

...This is the core of NATO's current security dilemma...

...Europeans have complained that the American proposal at Reykjavik to eliminate all ballistic missiles within ten years would mean the end of the policy of flexible response and necessitate a major buildup of NATO's conventional forces in Europe...

...The fundamental point is that the Europeans cannot reasonably ask the United States to join them in a mutual suicide pact, when perfectly achievable and affordable alternatives exist for the defense of the Western Alliance as a whole...

...T he present condition of Western security policy is well described by the old Chinese saw: "There is great confusion under heaven...

...For if anything has undermined the American security guarantee to Western Europe in the last fifteen years, it has been arms control, in the form of the various strategic arms limitation agreements concluded between the United States and the Soviet Union...

...could have fewer incentives than it currently has to use its strategic nuclear forces for the defense of Europe...

...Leaving aside for the moment the question of the wisdom of the President's Reykjavik proposals, it is probably a healthy thing for Europeans to reflect on the wisdom of permitting Carnes Lord is director of international studies at the National Institute for Public Policy in Fairfax, Virginia...

...It would eliminate the possibility of easy victorythrough decapitation of the U.S...

...political and military command structure, and it would greatly complicate any Soviet scheme to destroy a large portion of the U.S...

...At the same time, NATO no less than the United States has been immobilized by a security theology which maintains that any attempt to deny the enemy his objectives is bound to be too expensive and politically and militarily provocative...

...But even a very imperfect SDI—let's say, on the order of 75-percent effectiveness—would create incalculable problems for Soviet strategic planners...

...In 1972, it should be recalled, the U.S...

...18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1987...

...The fact of the matter is that even a 50-percent cut in Soviet offensive strategic forces—the levels agreed to at Reykjavik—would only marginally inconvenience the Soviet plan for a disabling ballistic missile attack against the continental United States...

...W hat is truly unfathomable, however, is the frequently heard European claim that an SDI would "decouple" the U.S...

...The primary effect of fifteen years of strategic arms control, however, has been to destroy the political legitimacy of Western, and in particular American, nuclear superiority...

...makes sense only if the alliance enjoys some measurable superiority at the nuclear level...

...Since then, it has come to be taken for granted that the U.S...

...But the logic of defense is not applicable in the case of the United States alone...

...The only way to reconstitute a form of strategic advantage that will support "extended deterrence" of the Soviet conventional threat in Europe is to shift the emphasis in the U.S.-Soviet strategic competition from offensive to defensive forces...

...Both approaches grossly underestimate thepolitical dynamics of arms control...

...In this perspective, the wisdom of the course followed by President Reagan at Reykjavik becomes apparent...

...nuclear retaliatory force in a surprise attack against its bases and deployment areas...

...and NATO forces in Europe...

...But the unexpected direction taken by the security debate following the extraordinary October meeting between President Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev at Reykjavik offers an unparalleled opportunity for rethinking the basics of Western defense and arms control policy and laying the foundations for a new NATO consensus on the nature of the threat we face and the measures needed to deal with it...

...Nakedness before the threat of massive Soviet air and missile attack is the common condition of the NATO alliance as a whole...

...This is to say nothing of the direct protection to Europe (most notably, against attack by the Soviet SS-20) that would be provided by many of the SDI architectures currently under consideration...

...from the defense of NATO...

...W hat might serve as the basis of a new NATO strategy...

...In the first place, it needs to be said that the elimination of ballistic missiles as proposed by the United States would not mean the elimination of nuclear weapons...

...Another example is the American Peacekeeper (MX) missile...

...The spectacular Soviet buildup of the last fifteen years in central strategic systems has been matched by a quieter but no less impressive Soviet buildup in strike aircraft and short-range ballistic missiles in the European theater...

...planned to acquire 200 of these missiles...

...agreed to a freeze on strategic offensive nuclear weapons that actually placed it at a numerical disadvantage vis-a-vis the Soviets in levels of ballistic missile launchers...

...If nothing else, the British, French, and Chinese are almost certain to retain strategic ballistic missiles for essentially political reasons, unless and until they are plainly rendered obsolete by deployed strategic defenses...

...E uropeans, of course, have reasons of their own for invoking supposed similarities between the United States and the Soviet Union...

...The result is a gross imbalance between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in the numbers and quality of deployed air and ballistic missile defense systems...

...The Europeans' complaints assume that NATO now has and will retain some meaningful superiority in nuclear ballistic missiles, as called for by the doctrine of flexible response...

...The question now is whether the development of a new anti-tactical ballistic missile (ATBM) for defense against these missiles will be politically feasible in a climate saturated by arms control theology...

...In fact, an effective (not necessarily a fully or even very effective) SDI would greatly strengthen deterrence of a Soviet attack on NATO by creating a relatively secure rear that would permit unimpeded mobilization by the U.S...

...The force of this theology has been particularly felt with respect to ballistic missiles, but it has extended as well to defense against air attack, not to speak of civil defense...

...The immediate source of the confusion stems from the fact that an American President generally accounted the most conservative in this century has emerged as the sponsor of the most radical program of disarmament seriously proposed by any postwar Western leader, while his European critics on all sides of the political spectrum seem suddenly to have rediscovered the virtues of nuclear weapons...

...But apart from the fact that the (lively) possibility of Soviet cheating on such a ban would require the U.S...

...NATo could still pose a credible nuclear threat to the Warsaw Pact by way of strike aircraft and cruise missiles...

...By refusing to trade his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) for cuts in Soviet offensive nuclear forces, the President showed that he understands the paramount importance for the West—not just for the United States—of persevering in the project to develop effective defenses against ballistic missiles...

...Indeed, the dynamics of arms control are such that it is becoming increasingly difficult for the West even to attain parity in categories where the Soviets are far ahead, since the prospect of negotiation can be used to argue against proceeding with Western deployments...

...If we face up to the reality of NATO'S situation, then, we have to acknowledge that the time to rethink the basis of NATO strategy is now, not ten years in the future...

...First use of nuclear weapons by NATO and the U.S...

...The Soviets have over 800 intercontinental missiles of comparable or greater size already deployed...

...The threat posed by short-range non-nuclear (chemical as well as conventional) ballistic missiles has become a particular cause for concern, since it puts at risk not only NATO's conventional defense posture but its theater nuclear option as well...

...In fact, this is being increasingly recognized by defense professionals if not political elites in a number of NATO countries...

...What truly complicates the subject, however, is the difficulty of fitting the square peg of NATO doctrine in the round hole of Eurostrategic reality...

...On both sides of the Atlantic, though perhaps especially in the United States, arms control tends to be regarded as a technique for managing the military balance so as to minimize unnecessary spending on weapons and maintain (to use the incantatory term) "stability...

...For most Europeans, and for many Americans, the confusion of the situation is more evident than its excellence...

...Yet the arms control vogue of the last decade and a half has made it virtually impossible to make an open case for meaningful Western military superiority, either overall or in particular theaters of conflict or categories of weapons...

...The argument that a move to missile defense somehow represents an escalation of the arms race and the militarization of space falls apart as soon as one makes a basic acquaintance with Soviet military space activity and the Soviet doctrinal and programmatic commitment over many years to strategic defense in all its forms...

...and the USSR should have rough parity in these weapons...

...makes sense only if the alliance enjoys some measurable superiority at the nuclear level...

...Ironically, such a system can most likely be made acceptable in Europe only by keeping it from any taint of association with the American SDI or any hint of conflict with the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972...

...In her recent Camp David meeting with the President, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher extracted a promise that the U.S...

...would assist in modernizing the British ballistic missile submarine force no matter what happens in the arms control arena, and French Prime Minister Chirac has referred to the British and French nuclear forces as "essential factors" in the defense of Europe...

...arms control a central role in Western security policy...

...It necessarily follows that whatever makesthe United States and the West generally militarily stronger serves to deter Soviet aggression, and thus preserves the peace...

...to initiate the use of nuclear weapons in the event that NATO threatens to succumb to an attack by numerically superior Soviet conventional forces...

...For reasons of history, ideology, and geopolitical reality, as well as the structure of its present military establishment, only the Soviet Union poses a threat to the peace of Europe and the world...

...The SDI has been greeted with skepticism if not outright hostility by most Europeans, for reasons that are understandable only in part...

...There are many governments in Europe that appear to look on arms control as a cost-free exercise in domestic public relations, if not as useful diplomatic "reinsurance" with the Soviet Union...

...security stake in Europe...

...Vestigial nationalisms and resentment of American cultural and economic success remain significant, and not only on the European left...

...But if it is true that, in a political environment shaped by arms control assumptions, the West is ound to lose any competition with the Soviets in offensive weapons and especially offensive nuclear weapons, an offensive air threat is not sufficient...

...Under President Reagan's Democratic predecessor, the U.S...

...and the reinforcement and resupply of U.S...

...The current administration will be lucky if it protects the currently authorized buy of fifty MX missiles against the depredations of a newly Democratic Senate, let alone acquiring the additional fifty Congress has committed itself to funding if the Air Force comes up with a more survivable basing mode...

...The neuralgic reaction of the Soviets to the prospect—however theoretical—of an American SDI, in spite of the well-documented Soviet interest in strategic defense of all kinds, suggests that the President's vision may have something to it after all, or that the deterrent value of an SDI is likely to be far greater than its Western critics are generally willing to concede...

...the situation is excellent...

...By reducing the military confrontation between East and West to the technical problem of removing military incentives for aggression and thus preserving "stability," arms control has made a major contribution to the by now widely accepted idea of superpower equivalence...

...First use of nuclear weapons by NATO and the U.S...

...As just indicated, such an assumption is completely unwarranted...

...This makes it all-too easy for Europeans to misrepresent to themselves the nature of the U.S...

...The painful struggle to gain political acceptance in Europe for deployment of so-called intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF)—Pershing II ballistic missiles and ground-launched cruise missiles—is a clear case in point...

...to deploy some form of ballistic missile defense in any case, the likelihood of achieving even a paper ban on ballistic missiles approaches zero...

...Unfortunately for Europe, the principle of U.S.-Soviet parity in strategic weapons is fatal to the doctrine of "flexible response" which remains today the basis of NATO strategy, at least insofar as this strategy requires the U.S...

...There is no shorter road to reversing unfavorable trends in the military situation in Europe than a determined move by NATO to strengthen its defense against Soviet air and ballistic missile attack...

...It is true that an arms control agreement eliminating all such missiles would obviate the need for a full-fledged SDI...

...That nuclear disarmament might have unpleasant conseTHE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1987 17 quences for the overall balance of forces in Europe is not a thought of surpassing profundity, but NATO Secretary General Lord Carrington was no doubt correct when he told a press conference that NATO governments probably had not "really understood how complicated the subject was...

...It is difficult to know how the U.S...

...At the least, however, they suggest that NATO'S decade-long slumber has been disturbed, and that responsible Europeans are waking up to the opportunities as well as the dangers of the current strategic situation...

...As one European is supposed to have remarked, "The only thing worse than failure at the Reykjavik summit would have been success...

...That the Soviets would view NATO as in any sense actively threatening to them, even if it possessed a significant measure of military superiority, strains credulity...