Alliance In Travail N.A.T.O. UNDER IMPACT OF THE NUCLEAR AGE

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28446, 28 November 1957, Page 14

Alliance In Travail N.A.T.O. UNDER IMPACT OF THE NUCLEAR AGE

[By

STEPHEN COULTER,

Paris Representative of the "Sunday Times")

[Reprinted by Arrangement}

If the questioning now going on inside N.A.T.O. and. S.H.A.P.E. has been accentuated by the Russian sputniks and the sudden outburst over arms for Tunisia, it was not started by them. An observer who has watched these two organisations from the earliest days has been feeling the atmosphere of flux for some time. Now it is plain that N.A.T.O. has come to the crossroads. The issue is precipitated by a question of financial necessity. Nuclear and other technical developments have so increased the cost of defence that all countries are asking how much they can afford, and on what branch of defence the economies must he made. The question has been thrown into N.A.T.O.’s lap by the British White Paper and the suggestion of reduced ground forces in Germany. But it is only the expression of a much larger question which has now become urgent. What is N.A.T.O. for? At its inception the alliance was set up to provide a common defensive shield to meet the then seemingly acute threat of a Russian march into Western Europe. The concept was broadly that of an integrated defence force, like those of the last war but brought up-to-date, improved, augmented, and made instantly ready. The need was obvious; the political apparatus for reflecting it m policy seemed secondary. Changing Needs But while the over-all success of N.A.T.O. in its initial purpose is beyond question, the fundamentals of the problem have been changing. The need is not now so overwhelmingly plain. The stimulus of fear in Western Europe has been lost. At the same time, notions about the hypothetical field of action nave immensely widened. Russia and the West have developed nuclear weapons and guided missiles with parallel success. Economic aid has been given and absorbed. There is, in short, an entirely new state of affairs to respond to. The basic question is: granted that N.A.lkO. is for mutual defence, what kind of defence does that imply? On the one hand, there is the concept of the nuclear deterrent, the idea that the threat of mutual destruction will be enough to prevent world war (which can be identified with a N.A.T.O. war) because both Russia and the West will be too afraid of the consequences to start one. That concept implies making the deterrent appear so powerful and certain as to be effective. Then there is the possibility of an “intermediate” war with both sides avoiding weapons of annihiliation but using atomic warheads. And. finally, there is the chance of a long-continued cold war. with threats and indeed actuality of fighting with conventional arms in marginal territories. To which of these possibilities, in the new circumstances, is N A.T.O. adjusted? If not yet single-mindedly to any, which of them is it to Although hitherto there has been a tendency amon§ N. A.T.O. planners to go on the principle that to prepare for total war will look after anything less, they have faced neither the political nor the military implications inherent in that doctrine. For Total War? These indeed are tremendous. For if N.A.T.O. is now to be adjusted to the concept of total war, the basic political decisions before the West must include farreaching arrangements for maintaining government control under m clear attacks, a high degree of decentralisation, civilian evacuation, stock-piling of food and medicines —all things on which survival itself might depend. Specialists are now pointing critically to the multiplicity of commands—General Norstad’s Command, the Channel Committee, th j Canada-U.S. regional planning group, the Atlantic Command—with no-one supreme Commander-in-Chief to direct the whole. The commands are now controlled and co-ordinated by the N.A.T.O. Ministerial Council. Nobody supposes, however, that this body could immediately promulgate necessarily unanimous decisions in a nuclear emergency and in the present state of N.A.T.O. planning there are no emergency arrangements for it to function in war conditions. If the N.A.T.O. States are to achieve really effective collaboration in defence, they may well have to modify their sovereignty. Mr Macmillan seemed to be hinting as much at Guildhall a week ago when he spoke of interdependence in defence, foreign policy and economics. Mr Spaak. the N.A.T.O. Secretary-General, has since gone further by saying he conceives N.A.T.O. responsibility to be world-wide—which implies, indeed, a common foreign policy for the West. New Political Apparatus

If these are indeed the idea£ which President Eisenhower and the other heads of government are preparing to press at their meeting in Paris next month, they

infer new and far more powerful J1.A.T.0. poltticpl machinery than exists at present. Is the new direction in fact towards a' fresn political apparatus of high order for continuous discussion oh basic problems of interdependence? Europeans talk about re-erect-ing N.A.T.O. into some monumental constitution with no lesser task than to develop and guard Western civilisation in all its aspects. The French insist that it must be reorganised to prevent such happenings as the Anglo-U.S. delivery of arms to Tunisia—a notion which carries the shadow of political veto before it. The French have long conceived of N.A.T.O. as a political club whose members have one overriding obligation—of falling in with each other’s separate national policies. N.A.T.O. clearly cannot go on relying on occasional : encounters between the leading statesmen of the West to give it political impulse at intervals. Tt may be that progress towards economic unity will steadily entrench the idea of political unity, and break down notions of exclusive sovereignty; but it is a slow business. If, on the other hand, N<AJT.O. were to be assigned a more limited mission on the assumption of ; there being no total war, this would still, in the view of many officials in Paris, demand considerable change in the present arrangements. The presence of the Permanent Standing Group In Washington is, for instance, being called into question on the grounds that, as the N.A.T.O. military authority, it is too far removed from the political leadership. meeting in Paris. Opinion in N.A.T.O. is divided. Is such an organ, indeed, necessary at all? The question of the Permanent Standing Group, however, is really subordinate to another. N.A.T.O. has a Ministerial Council of Foreign Ministers or their ambassadorial representatives: it has. strangely, no Defence Council of Defence Ministers or their Chiefs of Staff. This seems an extraordinary deficiency, when, for instance, in the United Kingdom, the” lead in matters profoundly affecting the alliance is being taken by the Minister of Defence under direct authority from the Prime Minister. Standardising Arms Such a Defence Council might well take up as a matter of urgency the standardisation <of • weapons and equipment—a point, that can be pursued whatever the political assumptions. A - fresh standardisation programme should extend from radar networks to. guided missiles if necessary. It; would instantly raise the problem of financing their supply to the various N.A.T.O. partners from a common fund. And this in turn would lead to larger considerations. For the essence of N.A.T.O. Is collective defence, and the essential object is therefore sufficient, balanced, collective forces, whatever interpretation may be given to “sufficient” and “balnitovd-" There is a direct connexion between balance and the collective nature of the power: iio one country can have a balanced and complete defence in all arms for all contingencies. We must all be in a measure dependent upon others; a point newly underlined by Britain and America, whose intimate association remains basic to N.A.T.O.’s success. Plainly the new phase now opening out before N.A.T.0., and epitomised in the coming conference of heads of government, demands, frankness, vigour and decision if the West is not to awaken in future to more uncomfortable surprises than the sputniks.