Questions About NATO's Leadership

...And l he criticisms have varied in nature...

...Towle argues that an American disengagement from nato would be disastrous first because Europe could not meet the Soviet challenge alone, and second because the 15 other Alliance partners could not maintain their unity of purpose without the U. S. leadership...

...All the same, the pro-Washington forces are hardly at rest...

...This year's elections in West Germany and Britain produced governments firmly in agreement with the fundamentals of Washington's defense policy...

...Still, at a recent meeting of the prestigious British Association, Dr...

...He further maintained that "the people of the West are looking for guidance and leadership," clearly suggesting that the United States is not adequately providing either...

...In such an atmosphere, hints from Moscow that it is amenable to important security agreements that would facilitate considerable reductions in the Continent's astronomical defense expenditures have not surprisingly prompted suggestions that nato's present orientation is at least in part lopsided or impractical...

...Some circles have also expressed suspicion that the Russians and Americans are not necessarily the devils and angels they are respectively made out to be...

...military as a drug that has become addictive...

...He gives no thought to the possibility of a diminution of America's nato role that would fall short of actual withdrawal, evidently assuming that Washington would never tolerate being less than top totem on the Western pole...

...servicemen in Europe...

...The British Institute for European Defense and Strategic Studies is sufficiently concerned about Yankee-go-home sentiment to have commissioned a monograph entitled Europe Without America: Could We Defend Ourselves...

...protective umbrella...

...Smoker said, showed that Western countries intervened in 64 wars between 1945-76, the USSR and its adherents in six...

...He urged that American bases in the country be closed, as they were in France by Charles de Gaulle...

...in other words, the Continental countries and Britain should accept that the U.S...

...the candidates who took issue with the Reagan build-up were humiliated...

...Although these figures included only direct military involvements, and some observers protested that the count was highly selective, the study gave others cause for reflection, especially since most Britons automatically equated the "West" with the United States...

...is something of an outsider...

...Paul Smoker of Lancaster University's Richardson Institute for Conflict and Peace Research reported that scrutiny of third-power interventions in armed conflicts since World War II reveals "that if the Soviet threat is cause for concern, the Western threat isat least 10 times more serious...

...Towle depicts neutralism as fool's gold, a neo-Gaullist philosophical delusion that would make any Alliance country subscribing to it an irresistible temptation for the expansionist Soviets...

...Attacks on the status quo have been both more subtle and more specific...

...To be sure, the downing of South Korean Air Lines flight 7 by Soviet fighters last September 1 has taken the wind from the sails of those speaking most forcefully against what they have dubbed the "don't-trust-Russia-one-inch brigade" in the White House and IheU.S...

...Inaddition, there isa good deal of more general displeasure with what are perceived as the egocentric and fumbling global maneuvers of the Reagan Administration...

...A poll conducted by the conservatively inclined Frankfurter Allgemeine Zei-tung indicated that about 75 per cent of West Germans object to the planned deployment of new American missiles on their soil later this year, regardless of whether the Kremlin agrees to reduce the number of nuclear weapons it has targeted on the West...

...At a time when every major European country is experiencing rampant unemployment, disappointing industrial growth and an expanding national debt, thesearch for new approaches to both domestic and foreign issues is inevitable...

...Written by Philip Towle, a Fellow of Queens College, Cambridge, it seeks to forestall the growth of a movement it describes as "springling] in part from a belief that America's military presence in Europe is now a source of danger rather than security to her allies, and that America's demands for support from her Alliance partners are a matter of considerable economic and political inconvenience...

...Westminster's aim is to avoid increasing taxes or making any further cuts in social services, for the belt tightening that has already taken place is the most conspicuous and resented symptom of Thatch-erism...

...Yet for all the grumbling, it would be incorrect to conclude that America's allies have turned neutralist or that popular pressure is mounting on Reagan to take the advice of Senator Ted Stevens (R.-Alaska) and recall some of the 355,000 U.S...

...The arguments are often regarded as old hat, a stigma that even truth cannot erase...

...They are more evident, in fact, in lands where the special linguistic and cultural links between Britons and Americans do not obtain...

...He takes Washington to task for subordinating the search for detente in Europe to its world-wide rivalry with the Soviet Union, implying that the broader struggle between the superpowers is none of the European Allies' business...

...Many Europeans, while recognizing that the Russians are offering fewer concessions on nuclear missiles than they would like everyone to believe, nonetheless are concerned the Alliance is passing up a chance to move toward an international climate where the danger of nuclear holocaust might be muchdiminished...

...And Belgian Foreign Minister Leo Tindemans has declared it is time to stop talking about the defense of Europe and start talking about European defense...

...One study, Dr...

...THE DOUBTS IN EUROPE Questions About NATO's Leadership BY NORMAN GELB London The recently resumed U.S.Soviet talks on nuclear arms reduction have led to questions in Europe about the structure and guiding principlesof the North Atlantic Treaty Organization...

...Besides the cries for economies motivated by domestic political considerations, however, wider and deeper disagreement with current defense theory is being voiced by some very distinguished parties...

...Defense Department...

...In short, gripes and grievances will continue to be heard no matter what happens, but they are unlikely to force a basic change in nato in the foreseeable future...

...If they succeed, some will say that new hope for lasting nuclear peace renders Washington's predominance in nato obsolete...

...Hedley Bull, professor of international relations at Oxford, has called for the formation of a European caucus within nato...

...No doubt the results of the arms parleys in Geneva will influence many opinions-and will fail to make a dent in many others...

...In Britain, for example, although Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher remains President Reagan's closest soul mate on the eastern shore of the Atlantic, the Treasury is calling on an outraged Defense Ministry to trim itsspend-ing substantially-a step that would run counter to nato policy...

...the free world lacks "a positive political strategy for dealing with the Soviet Union...

...The fact that peace has prevailed in Europe during America's tenure as the- head of a united Western front no longer impresses analysts who have progressed from frustration with the foreign policy bunglings of the Carter Administration to contempt for the careerings of the Reagan crowd...

...Sticking up for the Americans whatever their shortcomings and failings does tend to be more awkward in Europe today than in times past...

...Soviet aggression in Afghanistan and bullying in Poland are widely reported and for the most part roundly condemned here, and the outrage at the Korean airliner tragedy was virtually unanimous...

...Thus former Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington declared not long ago that Norman Gelb, the NL s London correspondent, is author of The British, recently published by Everest House...

...Even before the horrible incident, no responsible European leader or pundit had gone so far as to propose that nato be disbanded or weakened...

...West Germany, Italy, France, and Britain would vie for the top position, and the smaller member nations would resent them, rechanneling a bitterness that is now more conveniently and less harmfully directed at the distant Americans...

...If they flounder, some will say that American intransigence blocked the path when the restoration of detente would have been worth the risk of offering a few concessions...

...Indeed, it would appear that while Europeans welcome the opportunity to let off steam if a pollster calls, when it comes to the crunch they can be counted on to back away from action that would damage the reassurance offered by American leadership and the U.S...

...Nor are qualms about the Alliance confined to Britain...

...Sir James Cable, until lately a senior Foreign Office official, described Britain's dependence on the U.S...