On November 17, 1956, Premier Nikolai A. Bulganin advanced a seven- point disarmament plan. It included a partial acceptance of President Eisenhower’s “open-skies” proposal, advanced at Geneva in 1955. In Premier Bulganin’s version, the “open-skies” area should be that part of Europe where most North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Warsaw Pact military forces are stationed, an area extending approximately 500 miles east and west from the Iron Curtain. This arrangement, according to Bulganin, was to be contingent on the “agreement of the countries concerned.” In a letter to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on April 20, 1957, Premier Bulganin somewhat modified his earlier proposal: he suggested as a basis of discussion a proposal, made in early 1956 by Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden, for the establishment of demilitarized zones and the “thinning out” of military forces in Europe. In addition, Bulganin now urged the conclusion of two treaties: an all-European treaty of collective security and a non-agression pact between the countries of NATO and the Warsaw Pact respectively and a ban upon the testing of hydrogen and atomic weapons.
This congeries of proposals, some vague and some quite specific, are addressed ostensibly to the general problem of disarmament. They raise a number of technical questions such as the nature of the inspection system and the geographical areas that shall be opened to mutual surveillance. But these technical aspects, important as they may be within the context of armament control, are far less consequential than are the political implications of the Soviet proposals: Their ultimate, and, we must surmise, their real purpose is the dismantling of the NATO alliance as a quid-pro-quo for the liquidation of the shadowy Warsaw Pact and the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Germany. Their intermediate and, we must surmise, equally real purpose is to exploit certain manifest weaknesses of the Western alliance and to forestall German rearmament.
The Soviet proposals have found favor with not a few Western political leaders, notably Hugh Gaitskell, head of the British Labor Party, and Erich Ollenhauer, chief of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and principal contender in the German elections in the fall of 1957 for Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s mantle. The former, in his Harvard University lectures in the fall of 1956, made a persuasive plea for serious consideration of the Bulganin proposals, albeit suggesting some modifications and safeguards; the latter appears to have embraced the Soviet proposals, especially that for the demilitarization of Germany, with hardly any reservations at all. In the United States, a growing number of influential voices have been raised, calling for a careful consideration of the Bulganin proposals as a promising basis for East-West negotiation.
The Soviet proposal and other proposals more or less based upon the Soviet blueprint envisage the virtual liquidation of NATO and the neutralization—in one way or the other—of Germany. The following observations are addressed to the strategic and political consequences that are likely to flow from the acceptance of the proposal.
The principal arguments advanced by Western proponents of the proposal follow: The principal deterrent to Soviet aggression in Europe is U. S. strategic retaliatory power. NATO’s present role is that of a “trip wire,” upon the release of which SAC would go into action. A violation of the agreement for the 500-mile withdrawal by Russia would provoke American counteraction—atomic bombardment of Russia. The “trip wire” would be the agreement itself, and no Western ground forces stationed upon German soil are needed. Such counter-action can be brought to bear from relatively safe—because relatively remote and dispersed—- “peripheral bases” in Britain, Spain, Africa, the Middle East, and, of course, the North American Continent. The NATO forces have not been built up to their planned and/or required strength, and Britain and France, because of domestic and foreign considerations, have reduced their commitments to NATO and are contemplating further cuts. Therefore, NATO is a diminishing asset. The time to negotiate a deal with the Russians is now when NATO has still some effectiveness left and its growing weakness has not become fully apparent. NATO is expendable, for it was created to deter Soviet aggression, and, once the Russians have withdrawn their forces behind their national frontiers, the purpose of NATO will have been achieved. Then the responsibility for maintaining the strategic status quo can be placed safely on U. S. strategic deterrent power and, conversely, upon Soviet respect for that power, if not on other, more or less lofty, considerations motivating future Soviet conduct. European contributions for keeping this balance are unlikely to be of any significance and, more important still, are not needed.
II
The above arguments are based upon the assumptions that a future war would have to be fought with atomic weapons; that, at least in Europe, it could not be “limited”; that strategic retaliation would be effective; and that the presently available NATO forces could not make a significant contribution to Western defense in general and American defense in particular. Although these assumptions would have to be examined more carefully than is possible here, or for that matter, in any study based on no other than publicly available information, they bring to mind a few obvious objections.
First, the development of modern technology has been attended by many sudden, startling, and unexpected changes. The rule of the atomic bomb seems now as firmly established as that of the battleship thirty years ago. The atomic bomb and presently available and anticipated means of delivery are now entered as constants into the equations of war. Future technological developments (or technological developments already taking place but not yet assimilated to weapons techniques) may reveal these “constants” to be variables—and variables of diminishing importance. Throughout history, geographical position has been subject to some but, on balance, to less depreciation than other strategic factors. For the West and, especially, the United States, the abandonment of the present position at the narrow waist of Europe and its hinterland would constitute a virtually irreversible step. Because of contiguity, the Russians will always find it easier, all other things being equal, to reoccupy the territory which they propose to yield. Even were it possible to maintain American (and British Commonwealth) forces in nearby areas, they would have to reenter the continent, should this become necessary, mainly via the ports of France and the Low Countries, few in number and extremely vulnerable to air bombardments. This circumstance confronts the West with strategic difficulties which have no counterpart on the Russian side.
No strategic arrangement can become effective without a firm root in the psychology of the peoples that must service it whenever it is put to the test of actual war. There exists now a direct and categoric relationship between Soviet agression against NATO forces and American involvement. The removal of American ground forces from the principal approaches to Western Europe would remove the simplest and most forthright cause for American intervention. It is, to say the least, conceivable, in view of the Communist proficiency at posing indirect, minor, and seemingly inconsequential challenges (Salami tactic) and combining these into protracted major challenges, that, upon the liquidation of NATO, a series of situations might arise, each of which, although constituting a Soviet violation of the agreement for withdrawal, might not seem worth bringing into play U. S. strategic retaliation. The end result might be a complete and decisive reversal of the strategic status quo and the consequent domination of the Continent by the Soviet Union. The United States would-then have to decide to fight under the very conditions which, up until now, were judged disastrous.
Finally, the very act of entering official negotiations on the “500-mile” Proposal would knock from under existing governments whatever popular support there has been in Europe for maintaining or increasing NATO forces: the German program for rearmament would immediately become a dead letter, and, in all other NATO countries, popular pressures for reduction of military budgets would become irresistible. Even were the Proposal an ideal answer to the problem of peace and war in Europe, it stands to reason that to negotiate on it now, before the German contribution to NATO has been completed, would reduce the West’s bargaining power by about one half of what it might be in, let us say, 1959. In any case, it should be clear that NATO—as a live military force composed of national contingents —cannot be put together again, once it has been dissolved. The sense of urgency which led governments and peoples into the acceptance of NATO and its burdens, could not be rekindled at will. There will not be a second NATO. A similar hazard does not confront the Soviet Union.
On the face of it, the Soviet Union, too, has to reckon with problems arising from the dissolution of its alliance. The Soviet Union, however, contributes now the bulk of the forces assembled under the Warsaw Pact. Under present conditions, it might suit the Soviet Union well were the satellite armies reduced to token size. This would leave the Soviet forces the one and only sizable standing army in Europe. That the Red Army would have withdrawn eastward by a distance which mechanized forces can cover leisurely within one week, need not diminish decisively the Soviet Union’s chances for overrunning Europe without (a) meeting decisive checks on the ground and (b) being forced to halt the operation by U. S. strategic retaliation. The situation now is that NATO has two strings to its bow: forces on the spot that, although they might not hold the Russians, can make a Soviet offensive very costly, and U. S. strategic air power. Upon acceptance of the proposal for a 500- mile withdrawal, the defense of Europe will hang on one thread only: the reluctance of the Soviet Union to measure its strategic air- power and the rest of its military forces, “conventional” and nuclear, against U. S. strategic airpower. Under certain conditions as, for example, those that might arise when the Russians have solved (or think they have solved) the problem of passive defense, this thread might wear dangerously thin.
In the long run, the strategic considerations that now argue against the acceptance of the Soviet proposal or the counter-offer of a Western proposal for a dismantling of NATO as a quid pro quo for a Russian withdrawal, may turn out to be less important than the political ones. The processes of European economic integration are still closely tied to the military unity which Europe achieved under the NATO shield. NATO furnishes the one existing framework of Western political as well as military cooperation. Article 2 of the North Atlantic Pact, calling for its expansion into the political, economic, and cultural realm, is the one and only organic instrument of Western unity. Theoretically, it might be possible to divorce the problem of Western political and economic cooperation from the problem of Western collective security. Yet anyone familiar with the rocky road towards European and Atlantic unification knows that no Western nation would have set out on it had it not been for elemental reasons of survival against the Soviet threat. Common defense needs have impelled the Western Allies to venture upon common political and military policies. The common military organization is still the foundation upon which all the other common structures rest. This is perhaps true rather in a psychological than in a technical sense. But in the mind of the European and American man-in-the-street no fine line separates the need for common military cooperation from the far less demonstrable need for non-military cooperation. If Western unity is an American goal—and all postwar American Presidents and Secretaries of State have emphatically stated that it is— then the dismantling of NATO, before this goal has been achieved (or even come within sight), would be tantamount to renouncing it.
Significantly, the Soviet Proposal has found favor with all those who believe that a modus vivendi with the Communists can be found, or that war must be ruled out altogether as a means of settling international disputes, or that anything, even some massive political and ideological concessions, is preferable to war, or that Communism is either withering away from within or evolving towards some sort of democracy, or that the economic benefits of doing business with the Russians will be so large as to justify a political and military compromise—or who believe or profess to believe all these things. Significantly, too, the Soviet Proposal has been welcomed and appropriated, albeit in slightly changed forms, by the political opposition to those European leaders who, in fair weather and in foul, supported NATO, a strong stand against Communism and—U. S. policies.
III
Basically, a pull-back in Europe that would interpose a demilitarized security zone between the West and the Soviet bloc is warranted only by the assumption that the time has come to relax the pressure on the Soviet Union. This time has come if and when the disintegrative forces within the Soviet Empire have become strong enough to obviate the need for any Western action designed to bring about the fall of Communism, or the task of containing and, ultimately, destroying the aggressive power of the Soviet Union has become so costly as to exceed the combined resources of the West. The signs and portents that can be discerned from news emanating from the Soviet bloc can be interpreted as evidence of grave difficulties confronting Soviet leadership—about as grave as, but not graver than, those besetting Stalin during the epoch of the great purges in the 1930’s. They do not indicate the collapse of the Communist regime nor a lessening of its military power. To the contrary, they convey the impression that the regime has stuck to its plan for closing the technological gap between its own war machine and that of the West. The difficulties that plague the Soviet leaders have arisen precisely because they have not budged in their purpose, namely to attain and to surpass the striking capacity of the West. It is not surprising that the satellite peoples have become unhappy about the role assigned to them by Soviet conflict management. Both Poles and Hungarians traditionally have been oriented towards the West and hostile to Russia. But Soviet control over both peoples, after a brief period of relaxation, has tightened, and perhaps the most important lesson, that the Polish and Hungarian rebels against Communism have learnt, is that the West confines its policies of liberation to verbal protests and expressions of sympathy. More important still from the point-of-view of Soviet leadership is the firm adherence of Red China to its Russian alliance and Communist orthodoxy.
It would take an unusual degree of prescience now to forecast confidently the dissolution of the Soviet Empire and, especially, the erosion of its military might. It follows that the West in agreeing to a pull-back from Central Europe and an accommodation with the Soviet Union on such matters as arms reduction and control, must derive the rationale of its decision from the limitations, real or presumed, of its own capabilities. If it is true that the West cannot afford to maintain adequate force levels upon the European continent, then the West has no other alternative left but to work out a compromise, of one sort or another, with the Soviets, to adjust itself to the consequent alteration of the strategic situation—and to put the best possible face upon a move that, by any name, is tantamount to a withdrawal. A withdrawal such as that envisaged by the Bulganin proposal has, for the West, a finality which it does not have for the Soviet Union. For it would affect hardly at all the Soviet Union’s defense-in-depth, buttressed by the largest land mass of the earth, while the West would be confined to footholds along the narrow Atlantic rim of Europe.
Is the West unable to pay for effective NATO forces, stationed along the present line-of-division in Central Europe and capable of meeting Soviet challenges of limited conventional or “unconventional” aggression? This is the key question that must be answered in order to decide the future fate of NATO. The gross national product of the NATO members exceeds $600 billion. Of this amount probably less than 12 per cent now goes to the defense account. An additional expenditure of not less than one billion and certainly of not more than two billion would raise a shield of, let us say, twenty divisions provided with all the necessary capabilities to take on the Soviet forces stationed between the Dnieper and the Oder-Neisse line. This force would be composed mainly of contingents that the NATO members have agreed to contribute anyway. The additional outlay, suggested here, would pay for improvements that would raise the striking power of NATO so that it can meet every likely Soviet challenge. The West, of course, can pay for this force and maintain it indefinitely— provided it really wants to do so. Long before Bulganin advanced his proposals, Liddell Hart, the English military historian, wrote that the “extreme disparity” of the Soviet and the NATO ground forces was due not so much to a disparity of resources as to the West’s “deficiency of will.”
Is it realistic to assume that the present tendencies towards economies on defense spending have strengthened the bargaining power of the West vis-à-vis the Soviet Union? Obviously, the very initiation of negotiations for a mutual pull-back and demilitarized zones involves considerable risks: Another Geneva Conference, no matter what its diplomatic outcome, would lessen the sense of urgency that impels the Western peoples along the road of sacrifice for the sake of military security. The Soviets cannot be unaware of the fact that, in Western public opinion, the various plans for mutual withdrawals and armament controls and/or reduction are inextricably linked with considerations of budgetary savings. This fact alone furnishes the Soviet negotiators with a psychological lever which is lacking in the West’s arsenal of diplomatic tricks. It will be difficult for the Western negotiators to convince their Soviet opposites that the West’s resolution is less “deficient” now than it was when they met at Geneva in 1955.
There is an ominous resemblance between the situation now and that of the 1920’s when Britain and France drifted apart, the disarmament illusion benumbed the Western democracies, and Western diplomacy contrived the Locarno Pact, hailed as a European security system and the guarantee against renewed German aggression. When Germany challenged the status quo, the Locarno Pact proved worthless, because the Western democracies—having for all practical purposes, scrapped their effective military establishments—were unable to put together again the grand alliance that had defeated Germany. Although history repeats itself never quite the same way, the Locarno Pact and the subsequent history of Europe are worth rereading as an instructive preface to any negotiations with the Soviet Union for a European security pact.
IV
The purpose of Western statecraft should be to put punch into NATO, not to trade NATO for anticipated advances in military technology and a shadowy European security system. This requires considerable effort. In order to justify the expense, we must be convinced that NATO is worthwhile. Is it? The answer is: yes, because
1) NATO is the one and only means for defending Europe in Europe. Any other strategy must rely on thermo-nuclear deterrence and/or liberation in the style of World War II.
2) NATO ties down Soviet forces and resources that, without NATO, would be available for Soviet initiatives elsewhere.
3) NATO is the one and only working organization of Western cooperation. It is the cocoon within which the forms of European and Atlantic cooperation are developing. Once NATO is dismantled it is unlikely that the various schemes for Western and European unity that now look feasible and hopeful can be realized.
4) NATO, once dismantled, can never be put together again. We are now painfully aware of its many flaws. But if, in our impatience, we permit it to disintegrate, we may find that we have nothing to put in its place.
5) The above reasons are general and are valid for all NATO countries. For the United States specifically, NATO is the one proven vehicle and shining symbol of American leadership. All other vehicles are either “under construction,” or obsolete, or inadequate in range; all other symbols are either tarnished or ambiguous.
If NATO is, for the West, a necessity, then the West must seek to improve and expand it. The motto is: a better and bigger NATO!
Upon the European continent, the keystone of NATO is Germany. As long as NATO is viable, the Western orientation of Germany is assured; as long as the Western orientation of Germany is assured, NATO has strategic elbowroom in Europe, and potentially, the manpower and technological resources to “balance” Russia. Now, it is conceivable that, NATO having been traded for some European security deal with the Soviets and Germany having been neutralized, the Germans will still be “on our side.” This is conceivable but, in the light of history, far from certain. Treaties have a distressing habit of lapsing and especially mutual security treaties of the Locarno type. As long as NATO forces are on German soil and German power is integrated into the total of Western power, the German problem, difficult as it is, is manageable. Once this condition no longer obtains, the Germans might go off into various directions, even into one they have not thought about as yet and which will lead them into alignments hostile to the West. The Germans want four things:
1) a leading position in Europe;
2) national prosperity;
3) security against thermo-nuclear devastation; and
4) unification.
Since these four objectives are, to some extent, mutually exclusive and since, therefore, the Germans should not aim for them, there is no rational basis for solving the “German problem” to everyone’s satisfaction. There is no way of solving it without antagonizing someone and, to some extent, the Germans. The real problem is how to satisfy legitimate German aspirations without wrecking the entire Western system. Thus far, NATO is the one and only solution as yet in sight because
1) Within NATO-Europe the Germans might be able to assuage their legitimate claims to a prominent role without overawing their partners who, should the Germans deviate from their present democratic and pro-Western course, can rely on the United States as moderator.
2) By developing the non-military, economic aspects of NATO and by enlisting the German technological genius in the task of a joint Western program for world economic development, the Germans can wax even more prosperous than they now are.
3) By developing a NATO force capable of doing the Soviets some reasonable damage before they can cut loose in Western Europe, the odds for thermo-nuclear success are worsening for the Soviets. With or without thermo-nuclear war, the prize: Europe, would become too costly and, moreover might dissolve in the Soviets’ hands before they can grab it. This is security of sorts for the Germans. Since no one, including ourselves, can really expect a more secure “security,” the Germans might, nay must, reconcile themselves to this situation.
4) Whatever readiness the Soviets have displayed for discussing their withdrawal from Central Europe is correlated to their fear of the NATO base system or, rather, the U. S. base system as it supports, and is supported by, NATO. Any concessions the Soviets might make are, therefore, directly proportionate to the strength of NATO. The time might come when NATO can meet effectively any Soviet challenge in Europe. Then, and only then, will it be in a position of strength from which it can negotiate with the Soviets over German unification under democracy and freedom. Then, and only then, will the Soviets accede to the liquidation of the Pankow (East German) regime, withdrawal of their troops behind the Dnieper and an effective European arms control scheme. This has been the position taken by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in his plea for the continued loyalty of the German people to NATO. His thesis is still valid. It is a plausible thesis as long as the West does not falter in its resolution to back it up diplomatically as well as militarily. In brief, the West German’s fortitude in the face of Soviet blandishments is nourished by their belief that the West is genuinely interested in restoring a united and a free Germany. So far, the Russian proposals for a neutralized and demilitarized Germany are interesting exercises in semantics: they pay lip service to German unification; and they are studiously vague on how free a united Germany can expect to be. This is perhaps the one world political issue on which the West cannot compromise without losing not only everything it has achieved during the last ten years of cold war but also the moral justification for its stand against Soviet tyranny.
V
NATO, like all man-made things, must change and, ultimately, pass into limbo. Some of the political and military assumptions on which the North Atlantic Pact was based are now out of date. It is to be hoped that the West will find forms of integration that are more practical and permanent than a military alliance improvised to meet an emergency situation. But the transformation of NATO into a more durable political and economic structure will hardly benefit by premature negotiations with the leaders of the Soviets.
Should the West refuse to negotiate with the Soviets? Of course, it should not. As a matter of fact, the West has been negotiating with the Russians all the time on a variety of issues. A good example is the Austrian State Treaty which crowned long and difficult negotiations with the Soviet Union. It should be noted, however, that the case of Austria offers no analogies for that of Germany and that in Austria no grave strategic issues were at stake. What is now at stake and what the Bulganin Proposals seek to wrest from our hands is the last best hope of Western integration.
Should the West close the doors to all Soviet proposals for arms control and reduction? Of course, it should not. Slim as are now the chances for comprehensive and durable settlements, the West must keep its place at the conference table—if only to probe the purpose of the Soviets. No one now knows who might be tomorrow’s Communist leaders and when the Russian people will rid themselves of their Communist rulers—as undoubtedly, in the fullness of time, they will. Opportunities for a real East-West settlement, undreamt of today, might arise sooner than anyone can now reasonably anticipate. When this moment comes, the West must be ready with practical and just proposals. But until then, the West must keep its diplomatic powder dry. The impatient critics of the West’s present policies on East-West negotiations are wont to call for “bold and imaginative initiatives”—meaning the scrapping of NATO for a bigger and better Locarno Pact. There is something dramatic about vast diplomatic transactions “at the Summit,” that cut, with one stroke, through a maze of baffling complexities. It should be kept in mind, however, that such starry moments of diplomacy follow upon a long and patient build-up of power positions.
It is a humdrum job to keep together in peacetime an alliance of many nations and to foot, year after year, the rising costs of military security. The principal rewards are negative: nothing happens because the strength of the alliance counsels the potential aggressor to keep the peace.
The Communists would not be Communists if they would not seek to wreck by diplomatic chicanery and clever propaganda that Western security system which they cannot destroy by force of arms nor, at present, match. The unflagging effort which the Communists put into their campaign of smiles and growls is the most convincing proof of their frustration. They accuse the West of imperialism and warmongering. The record shows that, these last twenty years, it is the Communist empire and, unfortunately, not the Free World that has been expanding and that the Communists, and not the West, triggered a spate of wars and rebellions.
It would be ironical if the West let itself be put on the psychological defensive by the latest Communist drive for another Great Power Conference, a security pact, and disarmament. It would be a tragedy if the West were to trade away its superior strategic position for a series of paper agreements which the Communists, if they take their own doctrines seriously, will use as stepping stones to conquest—and then tear up.