COMMENTS: Pershings Over Europe?
Denitch, Bogdan
The deployment of new missiles in Europe has occasioned severe differences of opinion within the European socialist community as well as among other Europeans. Such differences, of course,...
...It was, however, the normal acceptance of the reality of another global power that was attacked as weakness, and "defeats" in the Third World were seen as the result of meddling by the Soviets or their "proxies...
...The costs in terms of a new arms race and a very dangerously destabilizing introduction of new missile systems are, however, too great...
...The Soviets are both feared and distrusted, and quite properly so...
...Three objections have been raised against the new missiles...
...response to that...
...Reasoned comments from readers are welcome...
...Knowing this, I rather like the analogy and find it instructive to be able to say to myself, Yes, unquestionably, the West (and the United States especially) is clearly the more civil and surely the more democratic society—but also, at this point, the more dangerous power, playing games with war and peace that imperil us all...
...Clearly, no substantive negotiations were possible that would freeze either side into what it perceived as a position of inferiority...
...Third, there is the nasty question of timing linked to the sharp increase of possible conflict through error...
...The problem therefore, from the American hawks' point of view, is how to get the European allies to comply with our way of viewing—and tackling—the defense of Western Europe...
...But since no one in Europe will accept nuclear missiles with a German (even democratic West German) finger on the nuclear trigger, and as NATO can hardly have a finger on the trigger while excluding the Germans, the new missiles will have to be under U.S...
...Here we come to the nub of the question: Do the new missiles help strengthen the defense of Western Europe, and if they do, is that a good thing...
...either—but our politics now are fatally marred by a degree of sanctimoniousness not seen since the days of Woodrow Wilson...
...It's quite a problem to accomplish this when no one, at least no one I have heard of, believes that the Soviets' precarious occupation of Afghanistan and the continual need for policing their own bloc, as in Poland, will allow them to pursue a more aggressive policy toward Western Europe...
...There is no justification for these missiles...
...Do the missiles make no military sense...
...2) most of our European allies have armies based on conscription, and therefore believe that they are contributing very substantially to the common defense of Western Europe...
...There are three simple reasons for their reluctance to jump into an arms race: (1) Soviet trade is far more important to the Europeans than to the Americans...
...They don't, but they show your willingness to accept the U.S...
...One reason, originally put forward to coax the West Germans into "requesting" the missiles, is the need to clearly link the defense of Western Europe to the U.S...
...To accept parity, after all, is to accept long-term coexistence...
...strategic deterrent...
...would risk a strategic nuclear exchange—all-out war—in response to a Soviet attack on Western Europe...
...But then, from the '60s on, a rough parity began to develop between the two superpowers...
...Of course, one of the problems with this Sparta-Athens analogy is that most of us forget that Athens, on the whole, was the one that tended to be more adventurous...
...The new missiles are very accurate and thus possible first-strike weapons: they take between five and nine minutes to reach Soviet targets...
...2) it seems to exacerbate a problem it was supposed to solve: the West European unease with the Alliance and increasing fear that the United States may prove irresponsible in matters of security...
...THE ORIGINAL PROBLEM that gave rise to these difficulties first surfaced during the Carter administration but had its roots in the American preoccupation with Vietnam at the expense of military security elsewhere...
...Such differences, of course, also exist on this side of the Atlantic...
...Yet, for the Soviets, agreements on nuclear arms control and on a relative balance in conventional arms never implied that the political maneuvering for advantage, in the Third World or elsewhere, would cease...
...But the problem in the real world is that the new American preoccupation with military strength is very costly indeed, and it is becoming ever more difficult to convince our NATO partners to share this burden...
...It was the perception in the United States that, during the '70s, the balance 147 between the two superpowers and their blocs had tilted against the West...
...Now, if all our troubles were caused by "the Evil Empire" and by the shift in military superiority that now allowed this wretched Soviet Sparta to challenge our Athens, clearly, one solution would be a military buildup...
...Their use makes the problem of inspection and control in any nuclear arms-control agreement all but impossible...
...The analogy would be Soviet missiles in Cuba...
...Second, this introduces U.S.-controlled missiles of a new type at the border of the territory of the Soviet alliance...
...The supposed need for this demonstration of unity and will stems from two or three assumptions, all wrong, about the nature of the military balance between the two blocs...
...Consequently, there is now some serious uneasiness in the relations between the United States and Western Europe...
...From my point of view, the deployment of U.S...
...The Soviet increase in intermediate missiles stationed in Eastern Europe—which indeed has sparked this whole mess—has created not only the beginning of a peace movement in some East European countries but also resistance from Warsaw Pact partners in welcoming Soviet missiles: three Warsaw Pact countries are not accepting them...
...They are to demonstrate the unity of the Western Alliance and its ability to assert its will...
...Below we print two brief comments on this issue by two editors of Dissent...
...It makes one's blood run cold to have to rely on Soviet technology to that extent...
...What better proof, then, of your loyalty to the alliance...
...This "solution" presents many problems—most important: (1) it is to avert a prospect no military expert has claimed exists: a Soviet attack on Western Europe short of an all-out nuclear war...
...3) our NATO allies do not really think that a war between the two blocs is likely in Europe—and this judgment constitutes a fatal weakness from the American point of view...
...But this is precisely the reason why negotiations and arms-control treaties are essential...
...Here we get to an elegant proposition: the less sensible and rational the deployment, the better a symbol of reliability is a government's willingness to accept them...
...judgment about what is needed for the defense of your country...
...It has been an open secret among military "experts"—left, right and center—that the major function of these Pershings and cruises is psychological...
...And in this area, there's no hesitation to "throw money at problems...
...How better, then, to show reliability than by accepting the Pershing and cruise missiles...
...No — Bogdan Denitch There is no valid argument for stationing the new U.S...
...To cite an American general, quoted in the London Times last October, "anyone who believes that the call for 148 the missiles originated in Europe must believe in Santa Claus...
...And American hawks, both liberal and conservative, refuse to accept parity...
...And so this will lead to the stationing of Soviet nuclear subs as close as possible to our coastline, hardly increasing anyone's security...
...control...
...as senior partner in the alliance, and not only the U.S...
...within the old NATO framework, the Americans have deplored the West Europeans' "selfFinlandization," implying that the Social Democratic parties are getting soft on Soviet totalitarianism...
...An oversold detente, in the Carter era, was becoming for many a symbol of American weakness vis-à-vis the Soviets...
...There is no way of telling the difference without an on-site inspection...
...In a rare moment of frankness, Henry Kissinger told the NATO allies that the United States would hardly risk New York and Washington to defend, say, Hamburg or Berlin against an attack not directed at the U.S...
...and we should remember the U.S...
...Arms negotiations, of course, did not really mean that for the U.S...
...EDS...
...This brings us back to the Kissinger remark: why should the U.S...
...In plain language: the installed missiles are to dispel the Europeans' increasing doubts that the U.S...
...One of the basic problems with past arms-control agreements and the kind of detente accompanying them was that they led to exaggerated, great expectations, especially for the American public...
...While West Europeans have been raising doubts about the reliability of the U.S...
...risk its cities for your sake if you are not absolutely reliable allies...
...This parity in turn facilitated negotiations toward arms control...
...Anyone who has the slightest idea of how many false alarms our own much more advanced warning systems have set off in the past few years should sleep less securely, knowing that what stands between a Soviet false alarm and our own safety is the level of technology demonstrated in the case of the Korean airliner 007...
...missiles in Western Europe...
...First, the cruise missiles can be armed with either conventional or nuclear warheads...
...And exactly because the Europeans sense this limitation of America's commitment, it was necessary to install the intermediaterange missiles in Western Europe, which could respond to a Soviet attack or the threat of it...
...In the period from the end of the Second World War until the mid-'60s, the United States had a clear military superiority, both in conventional and nuclear weapons...
...missiles has had a constructive effect: it has increased West European tendencies toward independence from both military blocs...
...THE MILITARY BUILDUP did begin under Carter, and it has continued at an ever greater pace under the present Administration...
...It has also had the constructive effect of building a massive peace movement in Western Europe, on the whole, free from illusions about the Soviet bloc...
...Do the missiles make your country an obvious target for Soviet missiles...
...finger on the trigger but also U.S...
...In domestic politics, abstract moralizing about the Soviet Union and theoretic rejection of coexistence has remained immensely popular...
...Five to nine minutes to check for possible error in Soviet computers and radar...
Vol. 31 • April 1984 • No. 2
