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Military alliances are not what they used to he and perhaps it is just as well, considering the so-called “Pact of Steel’' wherein the dictators of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy committed their countries to a common coffin. As the threat of thermonuclear war recedes, todays allies confer more and more in the dialogues of diplomacy and less and less in the language of the military.
by Alvin J. Cottrell ancl Stanley L. Harrison
One of the first diplomatic acts of the newly independent United States was to initiate a “permanent alliance” with France that incorporated mutual military and peacemaking obligations. Eighteen years later, George Washington, in his Farewell Address, advised his countrymen to “steer clear of permanent alliances with any Portion of the foreign world.” By 1801, the Franco-American pact had been abrogated and Thomas Jefferson, in his Inaugural Address, advocated avoidance of “entangling aUiances.” Both Presidents thus have been misrepresented as isolationists despite the bet that both allowed for temporary alliances during extraordinary situations.
Nevertheless, isolationism dominated U. S. foreign policy for approximately 150 Vears until the United States took the lead in the formation of NATO. Today, the United States has collective defense arrangements in every region of the world.
Not all collective agreements are alliances, however.
Traditionally, alliances have been designed to cope with a specific enemy or group enemies. Obviously, the North Atlantic Treaty generally fits this description. Even a°ugh no enemy was mentioned, the alliance was aimed at the Soviet Union and its blies. This is in contrast to the Organization of American States, which designates the plenty only in hypothetical terms; yet, is often inaccurately described as an alliance.
**e Rio Pact, which is under the charter of the OAS, is a collective security agreement. There arc, paradoxically, some Latin American signatories to the Rio Pact Which, in candor, if not diplomacy, might confess that the nation they fear most is the ■'ited States.
Such an “if the shoe fits . . . ” philosophy is the main distinction between collective Security arrangements and alliances. The former is aimed at any and every nation °'crywhere that commits aggression, including friends as well as enemies. Alliances are "'ure precise in application and, indeed, many in the past have spelled out the exact ajure and number of types of assistance to be supplied.
R >s important to bear this in mind, if only to make clear the traditional distinction ^(rause it lias become common practice, particularly in the United States, to use the . 0 terms interchangeably. Perhaps one reason for this is, as Dr. Arnold Wolfers r'tes in Alliances, Policy and the Cold War, that the term “collective security” makes mual security pacts “more palatable to a people . . . adverse to alliances.”
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^ 'he world. The enemy is not named, not even implicitly. Fie is defined by his behavior; ^)retically, any member can constitute the legal enemy of a collective security. AUianCes have usually been characterized by the formal signing of an agreement or \Trt’ uhhough scholars do make a distinction between de jure and de facto alliances. CxCaarly all alliances in history, however, have been formal or de jure alliances. An 5 ‘"Pie of a de facto alliance is the “special relationship” between the United States Co .*^reat Britain which had its beginnings as far back as the early 1800s and has lriued, despite differences from time to time, to the present. In short, the United
°ts. Under its Charter, it is the foe of any abstract disturber of the peace anywhere
*he United Nations is in many respects the last word in collective security arrange-
States and Britain have generally behaved with regard to each other for nearly a cen- tury-and-a-half as though we were, in fact, allied, even at times when there was no formal alliance. It will be recalled that at the time the Monroe Doctrine was announced a formal alliance was suggested. The sentiment of Alexander Hamilton—“Twill be best not to entangle”—prevailed, however.
In order for a formal alliance to hold together through all international environments, some common purpose must prevail. The most common purpose is security. Explicit assurance of aid to deter or counter a common enemy is a pragmatic unifier.
In the early days, NATO was strengthened, in large part, by the threat of Communist military action in Europe. Following the Czech coup in 1948, and after the North Korean attack across the 38th parallel in 1950, many Europeans believed the Soviet Union would attack Western Europe. Today, except for the West Germans, who have the special problem of the defense of West Berlin —a militarily indefensible position in most ways—the threat is not nearly as credible to Europeans as it once was.
Moreover, to be effective, an alliance must have a strong cultural and ethnic base. NATO does. This is a quality lacking in the other U. S. alliance agreements, with the exception perhaps of ANZUS. This element should continue to sustain NATO even as the military threat recedes.
It seems unlikely that NATO will come to an end in 1969, or for a long time thereafter. In contrast, the SEATO and CENTO treaties were relatively weak treaties from the outset because they were not based on sound foundations. U. S. ties to the CENTO group represent a somewhat frail reed in that there is no formal membership; the U. S. relationship is sustained by a series of identical bilateral treaties between the United States and member nations. A Joint Resolution of Congress provides the legal underpinnings for U. S. participation. There was, many believe, an overly simplistic assumption by the Eisenhower Administration that, because the alliance technique proved such a sound framework for policy in Europe, it would be valid for the Middle East and Asia, too. This was perhaps as fallacious an assumption as the idea that the Marshall Plan, since it worked well in Europe where the appropriate economic foundations for its success existed, would also be a good policy framework for Asia.
In the CENTO and SEATO Treaties there did not exist, at least on anywhere near the; same priority basis, a commonly perceived' threat. While the United States clearly saw i' threat in the areas covered by these treaties emanating from monolithic CommunisnV some of the nations in those areas had other ideas of the threat.
Clearly, Pakistan viewed India as the principal threat, and still does. In fact, the Pakistani Foreign Minister initially defended the pact in his Parliament on the grounds that i1 was the only way they could get the military assistance needed to deal with India. Pakistani President, Ayub Khan, writing i® Foreign Affairs in 1964, complained bitterly that India was receiving more favorable treatment from the United States, eve® though Pakistan was aligned formally with the United States, while India remained neutral. In addition, many of these countries entered the CENTO and SEATO Treaties in the hope that they would receive preferential treatment from the United States, economically, militarily, and politically. It is also possible that regional members felt they would exert more leverage on the United States multilaterally than bilaterally. This, however, is one factor which favors the continued adherence by some regional members of both pacts.
It is not impossible to have an allianc® where there are conflicting interests, bul every alliance does require some real community of interest, and when a large numbd of nations are involved, the motivations become more varied, thus requiring a clearly accepted threat in order to achieve maximum1 support for a concerted response.
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Iran has been disillusioned with the United States since that conflict because it was prevented from using U. S. military assistance equipment to aid Pakistan. Iran joined CENTO primarily because of the expectation °f aid and other considerations from the United States rather than from deep concern °ver the Communist threat. In fact, Iran’s mterest in CENTO can be said to have increased. An article which appeared in a semi- neutral—and relatively uncontrolled by the government—Turkish newspaper, Milliyet, sUted that Iran wished to continue membership in CENTO because it feared Soviet penetration of the Middle East, particularly in Syria and Egypt; even more so following the Israelis rapid defeat of the Arabs in 1967 and the consequent need for even greater reliance °n the Soviets for assistance. Pakistan, howler, has been making overtures to dissolve the treaty on the grounds that it is valueless, ^ut, Pakistan is reluctant to exacerbate their relations further with the United States by Withdrawing unilaterally.
Ironically, while the SEATO treaty was airned at Russia and China jointly, it is clear n°w that the Pakistanis would not undertake aily hostile action against China.
The European members of SEATO, especially the United Kingdom, had interests Deyond the pact that exceeded intra-pact §oals. For example, England’s principal in- [erest in Asia centered on India, and to a csser extent on Burma and Malaya, non- 'Oeinbers of SEATO. In situations involving ^Eato action where India is not in mutual acc°rd, that nation had in effect an official Veto over England’s policy in the alliance.
Prance, under De Gaulle, has virtually Withdrawn from participation in SEATO be- pouse of animosity toward the United States.
he entangling relationships inherent in llluIti-nation groupings produce friction that Suggests that other, less-volatile ties should be c°nsidered by the United States. For ex- artlPle, bilateral pacts with nations deemed ls°ful to the policy goals of the United States '.lay Present the opportunity to advance for- j'g*1 policy aims without engendering serious ^tramurai squabbles.
* be United States has defense agreements,
on a bilateral basis, with the Republics of Korea, China, and the Philippines, as well as with Canada and Japan. Indeed, in some cases where nations are linked by alliance with the United States, they prefer a bilateral commitment. For example, Thailand preferred a unilateral U. S. guarantee despite SEATO ties. Subsequently, in 1962, Secretary of State Dean Rusk assured the Thais that the United States would go to that nation’s assistance without waiting for SEATO to act.
Thailand is probably the most loyal member of SEATO because she has gotten more benefits than any other nation from membership in it (e.g., the SEATO Headquarters is located in Bangkok, which is financially and prestigiously valuable). The Thai Foreign Minister recently stated, however, that the indirect technique now used by potential aggressors differs from those envisaged at SEATO’s inception and adjustments would have to be made in SEATO to correct them. In short, the bilateral Thai-U. S. agreement stated that the members’ responsibilities to act under SEATO were not only collective, but individual. This interpretation has been accepted by a majority of the membership. This, in effect said that the United States would aid Thailand alone, if necessary. In testimony before Congress, Secretary of State
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Dean Rusk has even gone further when he stated that no nation should assume that the United States would stand aside, even if no treaty existed, if it felt vital interests were involved. In effect, the United States will neither be limited nor bound by purely legal commitments.
Perhaps, as Professor Hans Morgenthau has suggested, a simple rule of thumb for deciding on the correct policy approach is that where the problem is primarily military and cannot be dealt with in an isolated fashion alone, as was true earlier of Europe, the alliance is the appropriate policy technique, but where the problems are political, as is true in most of the world today, a multi-group alliance is not the correct approach. For example, in the SEATO area, Vietnam notwithstanding, problems are largely political and the multilateral alliance concept probably was not the best course to pursue. The United States probably would not encourage the alliance approach today were we not already committed in this area. Multilateralism was not the best approach to deal initially with the threat in Asia; for, at the time SEATO was promulgated, the problems were very much political and required resolution on a national basis.
For example, an appropriate political approach to the area’s problems at the time the pact was approved, might have kept the area from becoming the military problem it is today. In both the Middle East and Asia, the United States might have been better off to have had bilateral agreements wherever such agreements appeared necessary.
Alliances have value despite their weaknesses. CENTO and SEATO, for example, both enable the United States to maintain close relationships with the leadership in these countries in furtherance of the U. S. guarantee of military support against a Communist attack. And, no matter what criticisms can be made of CENTO and SEATO, once these alliances came into being, the members acquired a stake in keeping them in existence. Member nations must see some direct value or they would withdraw or stop attending meetings and paying the maintenance bills no matter how small this cost might be—and it is quite small.
One other U. S. alliance, the ANZUS
Treaty, a tripartite alliance with Australia and New Zealand, has received little attention. Nonetheless, it is important to U. S. interests. The alliance is very popular with the Australians and New Zealanders. It means much more to them than SEATO. There can be little doubt that the alliance has increased in importance to the New Zealanders and Australians with the growth of the Chinese Communists’ nuclear capabilities.! The pact does not name a specific enemy, and one reason for this is that sometimes it is unwise to designate the enemy too precisely- For example, the threat may come from more than one direction. Parenthetically, the United States specifically named Communism as the threat in the CENTO Treaty to avoid involvement in interregional clashes, e.g., Pakistan and India.
In a final evaluation of the CENTO and SEATO Pacts, it is clear that in terms of the criteria cited above, the SEATO Treaty h more soundly based than the CENTO one- But ANZUS is firmly anchored in mutual goals for each of the participants. Indeed, this pact, linking as it does the close neighbors of Australia and New Zealand, comes closet to a bilateral U. S. agreement than the group alliance structure to which the legalists tend to assign it.
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These formal commitments are important, first of all, because, generally speaking, wars today occur between smaller powers and usually not between nations in alliance with the two superpowers. (One must exclude the Vietnamese Conflict from this analysis. First, because it is being fought by one of the superpowers and secondly because it is a war Initiated a long time ago and thus cannot fairly be treated as a new conflict.) Therefore, the rule holds: that aggression against an alliance member could involve war with a superpower. There is little promise, moreover, that such a conflict would be kept limbed. The pitfall here is obvious: limited wars °f attrition constitute a serious drain on the resources of any nation. Even a so-called superpower can experience serious diminution °f its resources in blood and treasure given °ue or more involvements through alliance ties. What, then, are the realpolitik assessments of multilateral alliances?
Despite the fact that the United States, §>ven the opportunity to do so, might rest its c°rnmitments to many nations in disparate rc?ions on a bilateral basis and not on a multi- tateral structure, each, in some measure, contributes a positive gain to foreign policy goals. f° be sure, the United States would have fovver intramural difficulties if the alliance 'Cchnique had not been used. But each alli- ;ince system provides substantial political everage. It has been suggested repeatedly but the Soviets might pay something in mturn for the liquidation of CENTO, or, for mat matter, SEATO. Most knowledgeable observers do not think so. The Soviets are, owever, much more seriously preoccupied "mb the large U. S. military missions in some member nations. This is particularly true in bu case of Iran. The Soviet Union has reportedly suggested from time to time to the fanian government that that nation should |~fo itself of military ties with the United ‘ tates. In turn, the Soviets would give Iran ^msiderable aid. Moreover, the Soviets, in * achiavellian fashion, have pointed out that, at the same time, the United States would °ntinue to aid Iran and that the Iranians °tild have the best of both worlds. So it °tild appear that the Soviet interest resides Uch more in removing the U. S. military presence from an area and not merely in dissolving a formal commitment no matter how much pause such a commitment may present to the Soviets. That they are aware of the importance of assistance is evident. A decade ago, Joseph Berliner, in his book Soviet Economic Aid, demonstrated that the Soviet Union gained more political influence abroad from military assistance than from economic assistance.
It has been argued that the U. S. commitment to NATO could be just as effective without benefit of the North Atlantic Treaty. This view rests to a considerable extent on the idea that the U. S. European relationship represents something of a de facto alliance, in which there is so strong a community of interest that no formal treaty obligation is required.
Indeed, President Charles de Gaulle has proposed bilateral accords in lieu of NATO. Moreover, he has long appeared to assume that either the Soviets are very unlikely to attack Europe or that the U. S.-European community of interest is so great that the U. S.
guarantee is adequately present, whether there is a strong treaty connection or not. He is not alone in this view.
Thomas Schelling in his Arms and Influence, subscribes cautiously to the view that our commitment to Western Europe is so solid that it would remain without NATO:
Some of our strongest commitments may be quite implicit though ritual and diplomacy can enhance or erode them. Commitments can even exist when we deny them. There is a lot of conjecture about what would happen if the NATO treaty lapsed after its initial 20 years. . . . Our commitment to Europe probably diminishes somewhat if the NATO treaty legally goes out of force—but not much. Most of the commitment will still be there.
One might be tempted to agree with Schelling if NATO were only an organization primarily important from a military point of view. Today, NATO is as valuable, if not more so, as a political organization. Also, insofar as NATO is important militarily to our European allies—and it is very important to West Germany—Schelling does not comment on what view West Germany would have of the degree of our commitment should the alliance dissolve. Furthermore, he fails to answer the question of whether the liquidation of the legal alliance would affect the Soviet view of U. S. commitment in such a way as to lead to new adventures in the area (e.g., Berlin).
If the European members of NATO seem to doubt the credibility of the U. S. deterrent combined with an effective treaty and continuing presence, it seems safe to assume that they would have much more reason for concern if the treaty were allowed to lapse. In the case of NATO, the legal ties are symbolic and therefore necessary. Indeed, the ideology inherent in present international relations may compel the formal ties of a treaty and organization even when pragmatic assessments indicate no clear requirement. But the fact that alliances have changed in the context of the modern world cannot be disputed. There are significant alterations that must be recognized in order to secure the optimal benefit from contemporary alliances.
Fundamental differences in U. S. alliances can be detected between present-day alliances and, say, those alliances prior to World War II, none of which involved the United States directly.
A significant difference is the weakening of the commitment of assistance to be provided when the casus foederis arises; that is, when a situation arises in the pact which calls for the commitments assumed by the members to become operative. It was common in the treaties of the 19th and early 20th centuries to state categorically that, in the event of attack on one of the signatories, the other members would go to the assistance of the attacked power with all their military forces. For example, the treaty of 1940 between Italy and Germany, the so-called “Pact of Steel,” called for each contracting party to go to the other’s assistance with all its military forces. That Pact went even further, however, and called for this all-inclusive commitment no matter how either of the contracting parties became involved in war:
If it should happen against the wishes and hopes of the contracting parties, that one of them becomes involved in warlike complications with another power or powers, the other contracting party will come to its aid as an ally and will support it with all its military forces on land, sea, and in the air.
Thus, the commitment of assistance was not even contingent on being the victim of aggression. Indeed, this pact was intended to facilitate German aggression. It seems clear that it would be difficult today to obtain signatures for a treaty which in effect allows a member or members to initiate war and still be guaranteed full military support.
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It will be recalled that the North Atlantic Treaty contains one of the strongest commitments of any alliance known today and yet, under Article V, it merely enjoins all members to consider an attack against one as ah attack against all and to take what action it deems necessary to aid the attacked member or members. This leaves the members a wide latitude of possible actions from full support to nothing but moral support. It is conceivable, for example, that in the event of a conflict on the central front in Europe, that Denmark and Norway, not to mention Greece and Turkey, might not support NATO mil*' tarily at all, irrespective of what the actual military value of such assistance might be.
The commitments in the SEATO and CENTO Treaties are even weaker. To a large extent, these treaties call merely for consultation and agreement on the measures to be taken and to take action in accordance with U. S. constitutional procedures. In SEATO, unanimous agreement is required even to designate an attack endangering the peace of any nation in the area.
Related to this idea of the weakened commitment in present-day alliances is the idea that alliances are now more deterrence- °riented than in the past. This is not to say that alliances were not always deterrence- rented to a considerable extent. This is not a new idea. Present-day alliances, however, are much more deterrence-oriented in the ^ense that they are not really considered by S. allies as fighting alliances within the traditional meaning of that term. Today, for r^aniple, there is no question but that the European allies of the United States, think ^rnost entirely in terms of deterrence, and llQt really in terms of fighting should deter- fence fail. This has been at the root of much hJ. S. disagreement with its NATO allies, hnost nothing they say about the military Posture of the NATO alliance can be taken at face value.
Geography is heavily involved in this be- ^Use the Europeans simply believe that the uited States, when it advances ideas of ^ auuated deterrence (greater reliance on ^Oventional forces, etc.) is merely saying at a war in Europe is more desirable than a ^ ategic exchange which would involve the . merican continent. Europeans favor a poly Vvhich appears that it will initiate nuciear seaPons right at the outset. The hope is that a posture will look so risky to the oppon- jj that it will be deterred. And this is why (1Uropean allies are very little interested in fussing strategy.
Ilc of the more recent developments in lanCes jn w|1|cj,1 some modern alliances, and St; lcularly NATO, are more strongly con- pe 'ltc<f than those prior to World War II, is ^,acetime planning. Here NATO and the hi;;-w Pact are similar. Never before in Com0rV has there been such an integration of tjlnllland structure and planning in peace- thg6 a^'ances- This factor constitutes one of Unique facets of the NATO alliance. For example, when NATO was conceptually formulated, there was little thought of the present high level of integrated planning, particularly in the military field. Integrated military commands have become a fundamental part of NATO operations. Today, this includes standardization of weapons and the efforts to co-operate in foreign policy aims.
A second unique aspect of NATO is the cooperative spirit of the alliance which provides for extensive voluntary stationing of foreign forces, during peacetime, on the homeland of the signatory nations. (The term “voluntarily” is used to distinguish NATO from the Warsaw Pact.)
This high degree of integration, although a welcome sign of co-operation, was a factor that prompted General de Gaulle’s withdrawal of French forces from NATO’s military commands. Clearly, he thought integration had proceeded too far and that if it went any further it might become irreversible. Thus, it was the success and popularity of integration that provoked French withdrawal. Naturally, the officer corps in NATO has a vested interest in the integrated commands, since this concept opens up more slots for the military and hence, the lessening integration (e.g., the French initiative) of commands would mean early retirement for a number of European officers. This development, then, suggests a way in which some modern alliances, such as NATO, differ from earlier ones, namely, in this matter of a real, vested interest in the
continuation of an alliance in peacetime. No peacetime alliance has ever gone on to actual federation, but the integrated command structure of NATO holds out greater hope of such a possibility than any other alliance in history.
Alliances have gone on to federation in war. As a matter of fact, Bismarck achieved this in Germany by provoking war with France, and through his treaty with the southern German states, he managed to federate Germany under pressure. As yet, federation has not occurred within present alliances, but the move away from military effort is noticeable. The change produced by the contemporary international exigencies is the increasingly political character of alliance. This development, apparent in NATO, may act to sustain that alliance far beyond the period which an early and more limited premise may have promised.
The new political value of alliances opens up a broad vista of future co-operation and progress. It is obvious that, whereas in the past the greater part of NATO planning had been devoted to the military sector today, over half of our NATO planner’s time is preoccupied with political matters. It is presently fashionable to call this “detente management” or “peace management.” In brief, this encompasses such tasks as the Nonproliferation Treaty, “building bridges to the east” and other increasingly important political questions. Harlan Cleveland, U. S. Ambassador to NATO observed, for example, in a speech to the National Press Club on 23 August 1967 that:
. . . NATO is not only moving, bag and baggage from Paris to Brussels; NATO is also moving from peacekeeping to peacemaking, from the management of a Cold War to the management of a continuous peace.
It is safe to say today that most Europeans see NATO’s value more in political terms than they do in military terms. General de Gaulle, for example, has always seen the integrated commands in NATO as a framework for the projection and domination of American interests. Indeed, there is some validity in this viewpoint. For, under NATO, it is true that the United States has been able to project its influence very deeply into European political
A graduate of the University of Maryland in 1955, Doctor Harrison was employed by the Martin Company from 1955 to 1958 and the Vitro Laboratories from 1958 to 1960. He was on the staff of the Institute for Defense Analyses, Weapons Systems Evaluation Group, Office of the Secretary of Defense, from 1960 to 1963. Since 1963, he has been with Research Analysis! Corporation and a part-time instructor in the Univer-j sity of Maryland’s Government and Politics Department.
Doctor Cottrell was a member of the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania from 1952 to 1960 where he taught International Relations. From I960 to 1963 he was with the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group, Department of Defense. He then served for three years as Professor of Foreign Affairs, National War College until 1967 when he assumed his present position as Senior Staff Member, Georgetown University, Center for Strategic Studies.
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affairs. To a large extent, as Max Frankel writing in the New York Times, has observed) the United States has perhaps been motf dedicated to the concept of integration that' it has to NATO as such. A similar emphash can be attributed to the United Kingdom which maintains much influence in Europe today through the integrated commands NATO. It is worth noting that the presea1 Labour leadership has openly stated tha1 England’s principal interest in Europe 15 political, even as regards its efforts to join thc European Economic Community. Franck under De Gaulle, sees NATO as politically important also, but in a negative sense, sinc‘’ it fosters the intervention in European affair by the United States which he has long sough1 to avoid. For the West Germans, NATO pi-0' vides the framework for their return to gre3’ power status. It also offers them a veto oW any allied effort to renounce the West G&' man goal of reunification. But the military psychological value of NATO is higher in tl>e case of West Germany than for any Europe3’’ nation because of its geographic location afl3
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It is obvious, in the case of NATO certainly, *bat the political role has assumed great importance. There are clear parallels evident in lbe role of the Warsaw Pact, and the Soviet Dnion has given clear evidence that it recog- tllzes the importance of this trend, since it also uses the Warsaw Pact to achieve a wide J'ariety of political objectives (e.g., the Pact aas been used by them to gain support for ’beir position against the Chinese Commu- ^’sts, and it was also used to oust Imre Nagy as Premier of Hungary on the grounds that le had breached the unity of the Communist ^ 0rld movement.) Despite the drawbacks indent in multilateral alliances, the future task °r the United States is plain. First, this nation *aost nurture the present alliances in order to btain the political leverage from political j^nicipation. Second, in all cases, it must seek ,° honor its military commitments as an adJUnct to these goals.
^hat, then, is the military value of alli- ^Ces today? Unlike in the recent past, the Uted States will not gain strength commensurate with the addition of new members an alliance. Alliances today—and this is articularly true of the United States—are mable more because they enable superpowers to project their power and influence sr°ah and thus to apply this power with °me discrimination.
n a sense, alliances permit the superpower
to apply its power in a graduated sense without resort to the ultimate weapons.
Many of the discussions of military strategy in NATO today are in a sense militarily sterile. Indeed, it is safe to say that the military dialogue is only carried on—again excepting the West Germans—largely for the reason that the alliance began as a military alliance and, hence, all discussions are, therefore, couched in military terms. All participants recognize, however, that the real issues are, in fact, political. A perfect example of this has been the animated and confused debate over nuclear sharing.
Alliances in the old, purely military sense are anachronisms. There is only one place in the world where there appears to be a sound basis for employing the alliance-type approach to problem-solving. This is in the North American-Western European region. The United States must move from the confines of a NATO alliance which was primarily designed to restore the balance of power in Europe—an objective largely achieved. The next goal must be directed towards a true Atlantic partnership which can provide the basis for projecting Western power, political and economic—and if necessary, military—to all corners of the globe. North America and Western Europe constitute the only two centers of power outside the Communist states. One of NATO’s leading architects, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, has constantly reiterated the point that NATO provides the nexus for joining these two great power centers. In most other areas of the world, the necessary foundations for a regional alliance policy framework do not appear to exist.
Revision or additions to NATO, as well as the other lesser alliances, will constitute a major task for U. S. decision-makers in the next several years. The inexorable truth prevails, however, that the United States—holding as it does the responsibility for the entire Free World—is by necessity bound to its allies and even to many so-called uncommitted nations whether by formal alliances or not.