The Press FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1953. France and E.D.C.

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27226, 18 December 1953, Page 10

The Press FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1953. France and E.D.C.

At first sight, Mr Dulles’s blunt warning that the United States cannot wait indefinitely for France to make up its mind about the European Defence Community (and the participation of Germany in the European Army) may seem likely Ito strain to breaking-point, the already tense relations between the ■two countries. Mr Dulles’s speech ito the Atlantic Council has been received in France with a degree of resentment that borders on hysteria, ' not only by Communist, proCommunist, and neutralist political groups but also by politicians who support the European Defence Community and value the American alliance. Nevertheless it is the French who are being unreasonable, not the Americans. The European Army is almost wholly a French conception, designed to protect France and the rest of Europe as much against the possible future threat of German militarism as against the immediate danger of Russian expansion; and, apart from the few who regard the latter as no danger at all, Frenchmen are at a loss to suggest any alternative that promises to serve French interests equally welL The United States, which is supplying a large part of the material strength of the Western defensive alliance (an essential part of which will be the European Army), is entitled to expect from its partners at least reasonable promptitude in taking decisions, even if prompt and effective action is not always possible. And the European Defence Treaty has been awaiting ratification for more than 18 months. Mr Dulles did no more than remind the French that his own Government’s policies depend upon the support of the American people. Isolationist sentiment is jstill strong in America and many Congressmen know that it would be politically popular to withdraw American forces from Europe and to reduce or discontinue financial support of West European defence. Such a course has been made all the more attractive by the development of a new concept of American defence which has been given the impressive name of “ peripheral “ defence It amounts, briefly, to almost complete reliance on the combination of air power and atomic bombs to deter aggression within Europe; and it has the attraction, from the American point of view, that it requires a minimum deployment of manpower overseas, even though the costs, of bases, aircraft, and atomic bombs may still be high. Some French critics have asserted that Mr Dulles framed his speech in deliberately provocative terms in the hope that it would cause the breakdown of the European Army project and give the United States Government an excuse to embrace this new concept of American strategy. The assertion has no obvious foundation in fact and is more mischievous than Mr Dulles’s plain talk ever can be. The fact is that the idea of peripheral defence is still no more than a theory. It presents possibilities for the future; but not many American military experts believe that it can soon be an effective substitute for the defence system that has been built up within Western Europe by painstaking effort and at considerable sacrifice by the

countries concerned. As recently as the Bermuda conference, the Americans have declared their faith in this defensive system and their determination to support it not only with money and weapons but with manpower. But there must be an effective system to support—or at least an early prospect of one. Sir Winston Churchill admitted as much in his Margate conference speech in October, when he said that if the European Defence Community should not be adopted by France “ we shall have no choice in prud- “ ence but to fall in with some new “ arrangement which will join the “ strength of Germany to the “ Western Allies and North Atlantic “ Treaty Organisation Perhaps Mr Dulles sees more clearly than any other Western statesman the dangers of further temporising by France while the Russians use the forthcoming Berlin conference to keep alive in Europe the faint hope that a defence system, with or without Germany, may, after all, prove unnecessary. As the “Economist” remarked recently, if a vote on the European Defence Community is forced on the French Assembly before the Berlin conference has failed, it may possibly be adverse; but the position is very nearly reached where even an adverse vote will be preferable to no decision at all.