No great joy over arms deal

Press, 8 October 1987, Page 12

No great joy over arms deal

STUART McMILLAN, recently in WesL, Germany as a guest of the West surprising aspects of West 11 '■ '• 111 **"■■*>'l 1 ! 1 ' ‘ l ' J, 1 /, infra. 1 ;j i

THE WEEK after the East German leader, Erich Honecker, had been to J Bonn and said pleasant things about removing the likes of the Berlin Wall, and roughly at the •? same time as the Soviet -Union and the United States were put- '•* ting the final touches toon agreement to remove intermediate nuclear weapons; from Europe, the'mood of 'the' West German Government was far from euphoric? Considering the amount of time given in Bonn to pondering German-German relattonsiand;? the utter certainty that if inter*, mediate-range nuclear were ever used in Europe then West Germany would be a target, some mild enthusiasm might have been expected even lf dancing in the streets was out,?: But the expectation would have been based on two serious misunderstandings about the..; Federal Republic of Germany, v TO take the nuclear: weapons

. first A-great dmt'oftolaktog around the worn iscooceotraton' the'- : isi»A ; ?bf-?av«wHi'j "Ccfear W Wb&WTte; very high-pcwqfed internatlppol; t M to. November Swaims to?W vqlop'strategies toreducemb project of z .:However Wlfet Germany starts differeut'?Owfoe. takea, the I avoidance of jaU war.nfitsimply or ewn . , Stoce ..the£W Geritoto States ?wouid be tue inifiai battlefield ini jnr Whicf the So viet Udon, < tatyapprweh byWest - 4 Germany is understandable, Germany. z, trust any: moves wstfaad forely? on-nuclear weapoM.as part of! that deterrence-,W«t Germany ■ takes toe ; vtew not. onljr’that nuclear i part of deterrence bid that the \

West should never renounce the right to first use of nuclear weapons. It believes that the Soviet Union has conventional weapons and forces which outnumber thoe of toe West and that the only reel deterrent to any adventures by the Soviet Union is the uncertainty over whether the West will resort to? toe use of nuclear weapons. In justification of its position. West Germany argues that Europe has been without war for more than 40 years, so the deterrent has worked.

The deterrent is not confined to the nuclear deterrent and West Germany is as profound a believer in the value of forward defence as has been found anywhere. The “forward defence” forces would be the forces of other nations, including the present forces of Britain and the United States stationed in West Germany. The country has? embarked on a policy of persuading France to take a more active role in the defence of Europe. For the first time since France left the military part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, France had troops which

took part in the huge NATO, exercise, '■Certain Strike,* don. the French but Veto Germany is at least coaxing France torosard the defence of Europe as indivisible and trying to persuade the French that they alone cannot defend France. West Germany believes that it must work through NAT.O. and incidentally believes that NAT.O. places great weight on West Germany's participation. This, gives West Germany confidence that its Minister of Defence, Dr Manfred Werner, will succeed Lord Carr-, ington as Secrotary-General of NAT.O. The other main candidate is Mr Karo Wllloch, a former Prime Minister of Norway. It would be the first time that a West German held the Secre- j tary-Generalship of NATO. Dr Werner did. something for his own candidacy at the "Certain Strike” exercise. He arrived at the scene of one of the major "battles” and was photographed riding in an American tank. There has been some speculation that the West German ap-

: \ .?■ ~ '?? ' proach to France is partly beGermany ferns the :tore of the nudear mtatoles on its own soil and wants to encourage Rance to extend a nuclear umbrella to West Germany as welL However this point was emphatically dented by Wert German I* 1 ? I** 1 ** r believed that France did not K have edMm ancteer weaiNns to rise of conventtonnl forces. It it is deriving nay joy at all from 4 the dimnnmnent moves to . b, wUUM to * ait coarcottMal ?/ ; fofijes and to stop the production of chemical weapons. However the changes over nuclear weapons are not leaving : West Germany completely .unj; touched. It Mas declared its wiUineneos to relinquish tts own m&siles which have American nuclear warheads. It has also developed the view, without, it must be confessed, a great deal of enthusiasm, that security can still be guaranteed with fewer nuclear weapons. The Honecker hints about having more normal borders between States than those which exist between the Berlin , divi? ' sions and East and West Ger- • many have not persuaded West Germany that the fulfilment of l the dream of a unified German ' State is just around the corner. There has tong been a deliber- : ate lack of clarity about the unification of toe two German ’. States. It is held out as an alm < and the main German political : parties dare not renounce the ■ hope of unification. The aim of reunification is to f be found in something as funda- . mental as the constitution. In > fact West Germany has no formal constitution as such. : Rather it has its Basic Law... A Constitution is for a State. The > Basic Law would suffice until- ’ there was a unified country. Sometimes someone speculates that a unified German State ? would be unacceptable to the ; countries of Europe who remember the experiences of the First and Second World Wars. Sometimes others speculate that a unified German State would be neutral between the poWer blocs in the way that Austria or Sweden is. '• ?..<■’.< ;■ ■ ?:, • But, however much the dream of a unified Germamy may command itself to West Germans, the social and political systems of the Warsaw Pact countries do not. That is why a unified Germany is both a non-achlevable and a non-renounceable dream; Anything that Mr Honecker or anyone else says can indulge the dream but make no other difference.