NATO: Evolution vs. Dissolution

...No sound reason exists why the Malaysians should not be buttressed by a NATO task force of advisers and military specialists the way the South Vietnamese are aided by U.S...

...trade outlets and access to raw materials were not exposed to blocking and closure...

...The Mediterranean —Europe's Caribbean—was safe...

...France requires a bomb-testing area in the Pacific and a missile-tracking station in South Africa...

...The "home guard" mentality has ruled in NATO since its formation, and it was entirely proper when the danger consisted solely of a land advance from the Soviet territories...

...The nuclear club now includes not only the United States but the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France, and undoubtedly will gain new members within the next decade...

...The danger of direct armed aggression on the Continent has diminished because of Moscow's changed tactics and its activities in the underdeveloped world...

...When NATO was founded, Europe's southern flank in Africa was fully protected...

...BUT CRYING over lost opportunities will do no good...

...The Netherlands, too, has its distant lands...

...The blend of policy for those regions would be more effective if European influence were combined with North American influence...

...But the U. S. has not been wise in all instances, lacking experience in dealing with Africa and Asia...

...It is unreasonable for the other Atlantic nations to act as though Britain were the only country with a stake in preserving order and political moderation in the region between the Congo and the Indian Ocean...

...What does this mean in military terms...

...The Soviets are determined to give Germans a bad image and to use the Federal Republic as a whipping boy...

...it must remove its blinders and scan the horizon of the future...

...Anthony Harrigan, who regularly covers the military scene, is on the editorial staff of the Charleston, South Carolina News and Courier...

...Such a strike force may also be the resolution to the difficulties that have arisen between the United States and its allies...

...In this connection, Europeans might bear in mind how difficult it was for Americans to get used to the idea of basing forces in overseas garrisons or actually committing them to combat in a place like South Vietnam...

...But with Communism assuming a polycentrir...

...The disaster of the Congo might have been avoided had it been possible to employ a NATO presence in Central Africa...

...Great Britain has had to draw in its horns economically, but has never abandoned the idea of, and readiness for, military intervention when necessary to protect its interests...

...The history of Europe—of the entire Atlantic world, in fact—is the history of voyagers and traders, of peoples and nations whose needs and energies demand activity on a worldwide scale...

...But in the early '50s, the Atlantic nations were still recovering from the shock of World War II, were totally immersed in their immediate Continental and Atlantic defense problems, and had, moreover, a paralyzing guilt-fixation with respect to the underdeveloped nations...

...That excessive dependence on the United States, without any check-rein, has had unfortunate consequences is now realized both by Europeans and many Americans with a sense of the strategic realities and historical necessities of the West...

...At least in part the Europeans have been reluctant to accept that estimate because they feel they would not have adequate command authority...

...it is a Europe that turns its back on full development of its energies, ignores protective measures on its frontiers, and offers no help to new nations that need assistance in the struggle to develop their own democratic societies...

...atomic weaponry against an existing Soviet military threat...

...And many other instances could be cited where a NATO task force would be immensely useful in maintaining stability and protecting Western strategic interests...

...A little Europe that looks no farther than the Mediterranean and the Baltic is not really Europe at all...

...It means that the future of NATO lies in the creation of a strike command for rapid deployment overseas wherever the security interests of the Atlantic nations are in jeopardy...

...France, by its determination to push ahead with an atomic force, clearly understands the necessity of a global role, though it emphasizes a unilateral approach...

...This is an example of unequal sharing of responsibility, for a Communist conquest of Malaysia in time would cause suffering, loss and danger to every one of the Atlantic nations...

...This may involve both external and internal stresses...

...If NATO had accepted these responsibilities in Africa and Asia and elsewhere a decade ago, the West would have been spared many severe losses and tragic setbacks...

...At home, some Germans, in an honest effort to adjust to postwar conditions, have prematurely ruled out the idea of Germany taking a vigorous political or military overseas role...

...For a number of countries in the alliance, a joint strike command for overseas missions undoubtedly would be a startling and even disturbing concept...

...the enemy presses on—determined to encircle the West and to move against Paris and London and Washington by way of Saigon, Dar-es-Salaam and Havana...

...But these changes do not in the least diminish the need for a Western military organization capable of meeting any Communist challenge...

...Establishment of such a force would be a quantum leap forward for NATO—a true evolution in accord with the needs of a new era...

...No nation in the Atlantic alliance can afford to make its own agonizing reappraisal of its responsibilities without taking these factors into account...

...Moreover, though old-style colonial empires have disappeared, European interests still extend across the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic in a real sense: Both France and Britain have strategic territories in many parts of the world which they do not intend to abandon...

...The situation today is markedly different: Europe is affluent and capable of maintaining large military establishments...

...The Continent, therefore, can no more afford to indulge in isolationism or any sort of "Fortress Europe" concept than the U.S...

...Yet Great Britain is the only NATO member that bears any burdens in that conflict...

...NATO came into existence as the military counterpart of the Marshall Plan...

...So the supreme command of the NATO strike force would definitely not be a post reserved for an American officer...

...The proposed NATO strike command, however, would by virtue of the global threat to the Atlantic community be a force chiefly designed for counter-insurgency...

...All the European nations have distant fisheries...

...At present, a number of defense establishments in Europe have a limited or parochial character...

...character, with threats to the Atlantic nations coming from many quarters, a different mentality and organization is necessary...

...Thus NATO must look outward, not inward...

...They are trained and organized only for ground action in the European theater, though the military threat to the West—the threat that has materialized in actual warfare—is to be found in Africa and Asia...

...Perhaps it would be more profitable to view the Treaty Organization's present troubles— and they do exist, of course—as evidence of the need for evolution radier than dissolution...

...Denmark owns Greenland, the largest island in the world, where 20th-century weather control, plus Arctic resources and trade, means opportunities for growth and development not even remotely considered a generation ago...

...All this has altered to the worse for the West, with Europe having to face the problem of Africa moving rapidly into revolutionary chaos and the Chinese Communist orbit...

...IT is late—but not too late—for the NATO countries to arrive at a new military and political consensus concerning their needs, capabilities and responsibilities...

...On the contrary, where the Communist threat to the West in the early '50s was restricted to Europe's borders, in the '60s it is truly global...

...If there is adequate vision in the Atlantic nations, NATO will be allowed to evolve naturally and logically toward a strike command that could be a power for peace and order in a threatened world...

...The NATO apparatus could serve as the logical instrument for restoring balance to Western activities in the underdeveloped world...

...It was designed to give warexhausted Europe the strength of the Atlantic nations and the protective umbrella of U.S...

...The need now is for providing the NATO shield and speai to meet the threat of insurgency and low-level violence and the tyranny of the weak...

...Similarly, the Federal Republic of Germany, which has closely integrated its defense establishment with NATO, has to look to overseas responsibilities where it is engaged in trade...

...The NATO countries have, to cite one instance, a clear-cut stake in preventing Communism from swallowing up the Malaysian Federation in Southeast Asia...

...In NATO, the West has the instrumentality for deploying its strength to wherever defensive strength is essential...

...Its purpose would be to deal with local Communist aggression, and since that does not involve the use of nuclear weaponry the matter of who would keep a finger on the nuclear trigger would not enter into the command problem...

...Yet German know-how and manpower would of necessity be a vital part of a NATO strike command for putting down Communistinspired revolutionary activities on the West's strategic frontiers...

...In the United States, there is a beginning of fresh understanding to the effect that the U. S. may have to carry the burden of numerous counter-insurgency operations in Central and South Ameiica...

...Washington has contended that its NATO partners can well afford larger military outlays and force levels...

...The time has not arrived for a united Europe, if indeed it ever will, but there is imperative need for a wide measure of unity in defense— not simply against the Soviet colossus on the Continent but directed toward all anti-Western forces everywhere on the globe...

...detachments...

...In the military field, for example, the United Kingdom needs Australia's rocket range...

...Both have associated nations that share their culture and political outlook...

...The other European countries have been slow to consider military moves beyond the Continental limits, though their ultimate security lies at the farflung global frontiers...

...No nation was more permeated by unrealism and guilt-feelings on this score than the United States, which declined to assist or back up other Western states that were in jeopardy from Indochina to North Africa...

...The recent turbulence in East Africa, where the United Kingdom had to stretch its strategic reserve to the limit, is another case in point...

...For example, a feature of NATO's first period has been the acceptance of the idea that the protection of Western interests in Asia and Latin America could largely be left to the United States...

...Dissolution By Anthony Harrigan IN a swift reversal of intellectual fashions, current opinion on NATO among many political writers calls for burial of the grand alliance of the West...

...could indulge in the now discarded idea of a "Fortress America...

...If the United States, with only scant historical experience of involvement in faraway struggles, can face necessity for military intervention in Southeast Asia, then the European countries, with their long heritage of fighting defensive battles in remote regions, certainly should be able to accustom themselves to a NATO strike command that would send troops wherever they were required...

...In short, Europe cannot sit on the sidelines, militarily or politically, while vital decisions are made that effect its interests...