This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
With the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949, the United States concluded its first peacetime military alliance. Indeed, the United States entered an era of alliances, for subsequently, by 1970, the military commitments of the United States, formal and informal, had grown to number at least 42.
Despite the momentum of this trend toward alliances, it is likely to prove just as temporary as any other method—or fad—in American diplomatic history, European diplomacy, or international affairs. To explain that remark, I propose to consider first some historical reasons for America’s turn to alliances, then some theoretical aspects of alliance dynamics, and last America’s practice in alliance policy since World War II, with particular reference to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
It is important to begin by delineating precisely the reasons why the United States turned to alliances to resolve foreign policy problems following World War II. The explanations for this notable development in American policy are to be found not so much in the traditional preoccupation with Soviet military presence in Europe, although of course that was an important factor underlying American and West European concerns after the war. Instead, as recently declassified (and in part published) documentation from the State Department, the National Security Council, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff makes clear, the United States resorted to alliances for complex, though clearly identifiable, reasons.
First, the United States faced for the first time in its history a powerful, permanent enemy in peacetime, even though the likelihood of military engagement with the Soviet Union seemed a remote possibility except at such moments of crisis as the ‘war scare” emanating from Berlin in March 1948. Second, the preferred American method for dealing with this novel threat, international organization for peacekeeping, was clearly failing on two counts by about 1947-1948. The United Nations was proving an ineffective instrumentality for resolving conflicts of interest among the great powers, principally the United States and the Soviet Union. And equally important, the United Nations was incapable of assuming responsibility for the control of atomic weapons and energy within the context of Soviet- American rivalry. A third reason for the turn to alliances, especially NATO, was the American conviction that assurances of an American military stake in European security would enhance the stability and confidence necessary to European economic recovery after the war.
In turning to alliances in the latter 1940s, American statesmen unfortunately did not complement their sound contemporary reasons for the action with equally sound, and equally necessary, consideration of the eventual policy implications and complications which would result from alliance dynamics. There is no indication in available documentation that these leaders recognized the single most important point concerning the use of alliances, namely, that alliances are not suitable for dealing with long-term problems. There are perhaps five schematic situations in which alliances once formed must perform, or at least endure. Each, however, leads to weakening or dissolution of alliances; only one leads to resolution of the problem which may underlie the schematic.
What occurs when alliances attempt to deal with contingencies or to maintain themselves over long periods of time? First, consider the situation in which an alliance does not have to face the problem for which it was formed. The fearsome prospect envisioned in the fundamental documents of the alliance may, in fact, never materialize. NATO, for instance, was formed principally to allay European fears of further Soviet territorial expansion, in particular through the operations of the Red Army. But it has never had to defend against such an incident. Over time, when a contingency for which an alliance is formed does not occur, alliance members’ interests are likely to diverge. This is such an obvious idea that is requires little elaboration. In war as in peace, the inevitable divergences of self-interest among
With the wind whipping it, the NATO /Jag seems every hit as glorious as Old Glory. But, as with all alliances, threads are coming unraveled, seams are coming unstuck. NATO needs to be reassessed by an America that is becoming increasingly resentful over allies who conspicuously fail to support U.S. interests and refuse to bear a fair share of the common defense burden.
The apparent U.S. commitment to use nuclear weapons in defense of Europe put the formation of conventional forces on the back burner from 1949 to 1952. But, as military chiefs and chiefs of NATO military commands posed for a group picture in April 1954, there had been an ominous new development seven months before-the Soviet Union announced its possession of a hydrogen bomb.
sovereign nations drive them apart. Partners may find it possible to be close and even in substantial agreement temporarily, but with time the coincidence of interests is certain to decline. The passage of time will result in a changing assessment of the likelihood of the original contingency, changing assessment of threat, and natural divergence of members’ interests.
Consider a second case. Suppose that the contingency for which an alliance is formed arises and is not met adequately, so that an alliance is defeated or destroyed. There the outcome as regards the future of the alliance is completely obvious. It loses, and probably dissolves.
A third possibility is more pleasant to consider. Suppose that the contingency for which an alliance was formed not only arises but is met adequately. That indeed would be a welcome outcome, that is, unless the continuation of the alliance and any ancillary associations still seemed desirable to some members. For the result of victory, or of removal of the cause for the alliance, is likely to be the end of alliance. It is possible, of course, that an alliance may meet short-term challenges, as in crisis situations, with success, but through crisis management rather than elimination of an adversary. In such a circumstance an alliance would likely find motivation to continue, and would perhaps still be necessary for its original reasons, although it would face the problems of long continuation mentioned in the first example.
Suppose yet a fourth case. A contingency for which an alliance is formed may arise, yet it may arise ambiguously or in a form not anticipated by alliance members. This eventuality tends to confuse and even to destroy an alliance, or to limit its ability to respond. And here, perhaps, examples are necessary. In the Czech crisis of 1968, for instance, NATO had a serious problem in warning and judgment. At first, it seemed obvious that the problem for which NATO had been formed was at hand. There seemed high possibility of Soviet military operations in Central Europe. The question was where the Soviets would try to go with the forces mobilized. What, in fact, did they intend to do? The alliance had to decide how to respond to Soviet mobilization and movement. Ultimately, NATO members decided that the Soviet mobilization in the summer of 1968 was not a threat to them. Luckily, they were right.
The possibility of tactical nuclear warfare in Europe is another instance in which contingencies may arise which are related, but not quite identical, to those anticipated. It was easy to figure out how to prepare for and conduct tactical nuclear warfare in Europe when the West alone had such weapons. It is more difficult today. And anyone who has surveyed NATO-oriented periodicals cannot help being impressed by the disagreement, the lack of doctrine, and the lack of operational ability in tactical nuclear warfare. These facts indicate that conditions of warfare against the Soviet Union or Warsaw Treaty Organization forces in Central Europe do not much resemble those which alliance members were willing to take into account and to prepare for years ago. One last illustration of this complicated proposition: NATO, of course, has not been only an anti-Soviet alliance. It has been an anti-Communist alliance. But NATO members have not fully prepared to deal with the accession to power of Communists in a member state or in a non-member state within Western Europe. Thus, affairs in Portugal and most recently in Italy have thrown NATO into confusion to such an extent that current intelligence and other information of military importance has been withheld from the governments of these states. Domestic Communism of a legitimate nature has been a problem for NATO, but one not anticipated exactly, and consequently especially difficult to deal with.
Finally, consider a fifth possibility. Suppose that one or more members of an alliance attempts to use it for purposes not part of the original reason for which the alliance was formed. Such attempts are
almost certain to disrupt or to destroy the usefulness of an alliance. Again an illustration: the United States has been surprised and aggrieved by the stands of NATO members in relation to American interests in Middle Eastern crises. The attempts of the United States to draw NATO partners into support of American resupply of Israel have strained alliance relationships almost to breaking, especially under the circumstances of temporary oil embargo by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries during and following the conflict in the autumn of 1973-
These five cases or contingencies with the qualifications attached to them cover, theoretically at least, the possibilities which an alliance may have to face, most of which result either in diminution of the alliance’s capability to function, in its failure, or in its dissolution.
From brief discussions of history and theory, one may turn to evaluation of experience in NATO. In government circles the problems of NATO frequently have engendered search for solutions, but not fundamental reconsideration of that association of the Atlantic and outlying states. It is time to appraise NATO in new terms, to ask whether dysfunctions within the alliance limit its ability to attain Western objectives in defense and diplomacy, and then to ask whether problems outside the alliance may be solved by means other than alliance.
Whatever NATO’s past purposes and accomplishments, military or political, it suffers today from such serious difficulties that its future is in doubt. Problems of unity, commitment, and strategy at present seem to require reconsideration of NATO’s usefulness in current East-West defense and diplomacy.
Perhaps the most visible and thus the most distressing concern in NATO, at least from an American perspective, is that of unity among alliance members. Now that the Soviet threat seems to have receded and the time of postwar economic emergency ended, weaknesses in the structure of the alliance are showing up, more so in Europe than in the United States. In the late 1940s, American officials doubted the wisdom of including too many states. They worried also about a lack of focus that might come from admitting states from beyond the North Atlantic area proper. Portugal, Italy, Iceland, Greece, and Turkey all were either latecomers to the alliance or members only because they insisted. Policymakers should also have worried about the focus of the alliance being more precise: anti-Russian, or antiCommunist, or both? They should have considered the difficulties of decision-making on a principle of unanimity. Finally, once the proposed alliance had lost its focus on the North Atlantic area and become a central European and Mediterranean alliance as well, the United States should have insisted, as it was in a position to do in the early years after the war, on the inclusion of Spain.
At present, the folly of expanding NATO into a catchall alliance is manifest. Perenially, it seems, Iceland stands on the brink of a sharp leftward movement in domestic politics, with an antiAmerican, anti-NATO current just below the surface. Greece and Turkey frequently give the impression that they would rather fight each other than the Soviet Union or other Warsaw Pact countries. The rule of unanimity in decision has meant that NATO could not respond appropriately to dangerously ambiguous movements of Soviet troops in Central Europe—the very contingency which motivated the formation of the alliance—in such crises as that in
Czechoslovakia in 1968. The rule has also made it impossible to prepare for the employment of tactical nuclear weapons, upon which so much of NATO’s posture depends. The best, or perhaps the worst, illustration of this problem may be NATO’s constant—one is tempted to say permanent— standardization issue. Unanimity in principle was to mean respect for the freedom of decision of sovereign members of a voluntary alliance; in practice, it has meant consultation without decision, anxiety without action.
In contrast, European discussions of NATO tend to emphasize the problem of commitment more than that of unity, although Europeans often fail to realize that the question of commitment has received considerable attention in the United States. In the eras of strategic nuclear weaponry and detente, Europeans have come to doubt American willingness to fight nuclear war with the Soviet Union for the sake of European commitments and ties. And there may be some reason for such fear.
Despite the opening of economic relations with Eastern European countries, Western European leaders hesitate to face the future without an American commitment. European states lack nuclear weapon systems of sufficient quantity and quality to give them second-strike capability, and thus strategic stature. They lack the political unity necessary for a European defense force or command to control European nuclear weapons and to use them. And so they attempt to straddle the problem of uncertainty. The Germans do not wish the Americans to leave; yet they inaugurated Ostpolitik partly because they no longer trusted the United States to defend Western Europe at the cost of strategic engagement with the Soviet Union. They sought in the 1960s, and received in 1972 and 1975, Soviet guarantees of German borders—of West Germany’s right to exist and of the European status quo. These guarantees were intended to supplement, perhaps eventually to supplant, fading American assurances. Other European countries, less practically, seem to wish for that best of all possible worlds in which the United States would protect them with its strategic deterrent but make no demands on them economically, politically, or militarily. The United States, Europeans seem to be saying, should now provide Europe with the kind of “free security” which the United States enjoyed in the 19th century as a result of British power and benevolence.
From the American side, the problem of commitment also arises, though not in the same sense. Americans point to the Scandinavian members of NATO, always insecure in their vulnerability, who now clearly abhor the prospect of being drawn into a war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact nations, and who strive with the utmost agility to remain in NATO without offending the Soviet Union. In practice they are only half-members, unwilling to have nuclear weapons or NATO troops on their soil and likely to refuse any requested contribution to a NATO force in the event of European war. And so in avoiding offense to the Soviet Union, these Scandinavian members do not avoid annoying the United States and weakening the alliance. The most heartening news in this regard, perhaps, was the announcement late in 1976 that Norway was planning to undertake substantial improvements in its own conventional defense forces; but this was far from adequate in the foregoing context.
The result of divergent European and American concerns about commitment is disconcerting. For political and emotional reasons, Europeans will probably never have assurance or confidence that an American President will trade American cities for Russian cities on account of European cities. And similarly, Americans can never be sure that alliance members will all contribute to the defense of Europe in time and in a way that will make the resort to a missile exchange with the Soviets unnecessary or unlikely.
The problems of commitment lead directly into the problems of strategy which divide the alliance, and these may be the most worrisome of all. Indeed, the problems of strategy are so great that one wonders how the alliance has continued without resolving them. Strategic disagreements and deficiencies may yet prove the undoing of NATO.
The fundamental strategic divergence between European members of NATO and the United States appears beyond solution. Europeans conceive of NATO’s strategy as one of deterrence, and the United States believes that NATO’s first purpose and capability must be to defend Europe. If NATO deters, say the Europeans, there will be no need to defend Europe (or to fight a war in Europe, which is the meaning of this proposition). If NATO cannot defend Europe, Americans believe it cannot deter attack by the Warsaw Pact, for credible deterrence derives from perceived and real capability for defense.
The abstract problems of strategic divergence have had deleterious effects. In the years after World War II, an era of American nuclear monopoly, then clear preponderance in delivery abilities, then brief technological lead in tactical nuclear weapons, it was easy to justify a leisurely approach to the difficulties of European defense. Establishment of NATO and the apparent commitment of the United States to use
nuclear weapons in the event of a military threat in Europe in fact produced confidence rather than defensive military buildup. When Americans were distracted by the outbreak of hostilities in Korea, European and American leaders alike found it relatively easy to postpone formation of conventional forces adequate to defend Europe. Not until 1952, at Lisbon, did NATO establish goals for conventional force levels of an appropriate size. They called then for more than 50 ready divisions, a goal which has never been met. The leisurely approach to European defense which characterized NATO’s first three years has continued. At present, NATO forces are outnumbered two-or-three-to-one all along the frontiers of Western Europe. The ratios in armor and combat aircraft are even more unfavorable. NATO claims to have 33 divisions available for use. In fact, it has somewhat fewer—between 23 and 29 depending on who counts and how—some of which are seriously undermanned and poorly equipped. Greece has now withdrawn its troops from NATO; the United Kingdom and Italy are reducing naval assets in the Mediterranean and other dedicated forces; inflation threatens to bring about reduced contributions from other member countries.
A result in part of divergent strategies, NATO’s declining capacity for the defense of Europe is arousing alarm among military experts, and concern among diplomats and politicians of the alliance. But far less than enough is being done to reverse the trend or resolve European-American disagreement on deterrence versus warfighting as primary NATO strategy. For reasons of economy, as well as reluctance to face the prospect of war in Europe, European members of NATO steadfastly refuse to measure the consequences for deterrence of declining defensive capability. And so, for the illusion of security, European nations must depend on American willingness to fight strategic nuclear war with the Soviet Union over the defense of Europe, a willingness in which many, perhaps most, Europeans do not believe. Or they must depend on Soviet-Warsaw Pact passivity and pacifism, in which they have even less confidence.
With NATO so troubled, there is good reason to discuss its future. A question about the future has at least two sides, reflecting the difference in perspective depending upon which side of the Atlantic the observer stands. There is the importance of the Atlantic tie to the United States in a world of changing relationships among powers great and small. And there is the importance of the United States as an ally of the Western European states, located as they are in the midst of shifting patterns of continental and world diplomacy.
Europeans have been more selective, but not less strident, in affirming the fundamental and continuing importance of the Atlantic alliance. Yet the paradoxes of alliance politics are affecting European members of NATO far more than the United States. To the extent that NATO has deterred the Soviet Union and enhanced the military security of Western Europe, it has reduced anxiety, fear, and the need for mutual defense. To the extent that European states have prospered and recovered in the aftermath of
World War II, they have desired to reassert sovereignty, redress pride, reclaim responsibility for national policy, and pursue independent and selfinterested foreign policies. At the same time, they have less and less regard for the necessities or niceties of alliance cooperation, and less and less tolerance for American dominance in policy and planning.
With the fading of fear as to Soviet intentions, the dislike and distrust Europeans have long felt for the United States have become increasingly obvious. The French for years have called for the United States to leave Europe. Until now, at least, it has been perfectly safe to make such demands and express anti- Americanism, for American policymakers have readily affirmed their intention to accept insult and yet remain in Europe.
Dissatisfaction with old relationships is causing the advocates of NATO to turn to new questions. The future of NATO now is discussed primarily in terms of the extent to which it may change from a military alliance into an organization for European unity, ultimately perhaps a genuine Atlantic community. Many individuals have been remarking that new questions and tasks face NATO. Can it contribute to a new structure of East-West security? Can NATO evolve into a diplomatic rather than military instrument and reconcile military integration with national sovereignty? Can NATO help change the European security system to cooperation rather than confrontation? The answer to all these questions seems, unfortunately, to be “No.”
Now for a frank and possibly unpopular stand: old questions or new, American leaders must answer with a view to their own interests. The great problem for American policymakers is whether to continue attempting to resolve difficulties within NATO for the sake of those outside it. The genuine complexity, the emotional and traditional context, and the political sensitivity of these issues have caused Americans to avoid real decisions regarding them. But the time for delay has passed; the longer such questions persist, the more they will debilitate both the alliance and American national security. Present divergences among the interests and conceptions of NATO members may well have opened the first genuine opportunity in many years to return to realistic alliance policy.
For American leaders in recent years there has been a link between NATO, a military alliance, and the continuing idea of an Atlantic community which would encompass additional dimensions of political, economic, and cultural commonalities. The importance of Europe to American economic as well as military well-being has been proclaimed with fervor, and indeed to the point of exaggeration. Zbigniew Brzezinski has said: “Unless America continues actively to promote a broad vision of European restoration America does not have a foreign policy.”1 Paralleling proponents of advantage in continued European-American alliance, prophets of doom have warned Americans against considering “decoupling" American from European security. One analyst has written that it cannot be done, for there is no European substitute for the American nuclear guarantee, and he has cautioned that the more Americans negotiate with the East, the more reliable American alliance partners must be. Defense analysts have announced in NATO’s own bimonthly publication that no one on either side of the Atlantic has called for an end to NATO, because there is no alternative. And even if there were, they say, it would have to have the same objectives as NATO today: “to keep alive the dialogue and assure a working relationship between Europe and America. ”2 Behind all the prophecies of doom if the United States should allow the Atlantic alliance to fall into disarray or impotence lie visions of the ultimate horrors. The prophets raise the example of Finland, carefully avoiding any foreign policies which might offend the Soviet Union. “Were that to become the rule for Western Europe, the Soviet Union would quickly become the world’s premier power. The United States would be thrust back into a western hemisphere role . . . back into a fortress America, a garrison state, and a mood of suspiciousness inconsistent with liberal and humane values. In addition, we would have done grave damage to those values elsewhere in the world.”3 Defense studies in the United States begin with the assumption that the security of Western Europe is vital to the United States and conclude that the Atlantic alliance is now such an integral part of the world power structure which ensures peace that to remove or weaken it would probably bring about “a new violent conflagration of World War dimension.”4
Realism in alliance affairs requires recognition that no alliance is permanent, and that the American relationship to Europe or to any other part of the
1 "America and Europe,” Foreign Affairs, October 1970, p. 30.
2 Curt Gasteyger, “The American-West European Defence Relationship: Old Worries and New Issues,” NATO Review, No. 5, 1974, p. 8.
3 Morton A. Kaplan, NATO and Dissuasion (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1974), p. 22.
4 Horst Mendershausen, "The American-West European Defence Relationship: Core, Troubles, Prospects,” NATO Review, No. 5, 1974, p. 4.
world has never been, and is not now, immutable. Surely, therefore, it is an error for statesmen and analysts to assume the permanence of the Atlantic alliance, a confession of lack of imagination to say with resignation that there is no alternative, that neither the Europeans nor the Americans can do without it or something like it. For every factor of change in East-West relations, every aspect of development in the countries making up the competing or perhaps opposing alliances, makes the continuation of relationships in their past and present form less likely. Examples of such change are numerous, and need only illustration here. Normalization of relations between the two Germanies and an end to the Berlin problem in 1972 opened the way to broad East-West negotiations on European affairs. At the least, the German settlement of 1972 and the Helsinki Treaty of 1975 have made it likely that Soviet interest in European security will receive more serious attention from the United States. Detente, mutual and balanced force reduction negotiations, the 1975 conference on security and cooperation in Europe—all are diplomatic approaches to the same problems approached militarily through NATO for more than 27 years. All represent in some measure alternatives to NATO. The question for Americans and Europeans alike is in what measure.
To conclude, in alliance politics since World War II, Americans have suffered from misapprehension. American diplomats and political leaders have valued stasis more than movement. They have admired constancy and attempted to display it as well as demand it from alliance partners. In the complex world of states and statesmen, they have endeavored to transform desirable characteristics of individual personality into principles of foreign affairs, so that American alliance politics have seemed to rest on the homely adages found in almanacs and formerly taught in elementary schools: “Friends to the end.” ‘‘Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold.”
The trouble with alliances is that they are mutable; indeed, they tend to destroy themselves. Associations and combinations of states do not simply occur and remain stable. They change, continually and unavoidably. In success, alliances lose their rationale. In defeat, they lose their capability. In disuse or in misuse, they lose vitality. By failing to apprehend these principles, Americans have ensured that their era of alliances would be filled with surprise, disappointment, and error.
To ameliorate some of the weaknesses of alliance policy discussed in the foregoing paragraphs, it would be well for the new Carter administration to balance its intention to emphasize such ties with what one might call a “zero-base” approach to alliance policy. It makes sense to show regard for valued—and valuable—friends in Western Europe and Japan. It does not make sense to reward with aid and favor members of alliances who consistently and conspicuously fail to support the interests of the United States; who refuse to bear a fair share of the common defense burden; who resist measures in areas such as standardization which would improve both the financial and operational efficiency of the association. Nor does it make sense to continue the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on an indefinite basis, with no prescribed date for expiration and renewal of the treaty, for such deadlines force reevaluation and indeed revision of organizational arrangements in the context of changed circumstances..
In sum, the key to wiser alliance policy lies in unraveling present confusions about means and ends. NATO, and other American alliances and commitments, all began as means to policy objectives. Over time, however, it seems that the external concerns of many such associations have been replaced in importance by the objective of continuing and broadening the connection. When the continuation of alliance or the constancy of commitment—at basis a means of policy and strategy—becomes the objective, it obscures the utility of other means in attaining important objectives, and very likely complicates the employment of those means. It is evident, for instance, that concerns about NATO continuity have complicated American policy on such diverse and important issues as nuclear nonproliferation, strategic arms limitation, and reciprocal reduction of forces in Europe.
As the new administration seeks its announced foreign policy goal of “worldwide detente,” it is going to be essential to reassess, and not only to reinvigorate, alliance relationships, lest the virtues of constancy postpone the blessings of peace.
tDr. Etzold graduated from Indiana University in 1967.
After earning a master of arts degree in history at Indiana, he continued graduate study at Yale University, from which he received M. Phil, and PhD. degrees in the history of American diplomacy. An instructor in history at Yale in 1970-1971, he then taught history at Miami University (Ohio) from 1971 to 1974, and since 1974 has been professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College. He has published numerous articles on topics in defense and diplomacy, and his book. The Conduit of American Foreign Relations: The Other Side of Diplomacy, has just appeared.