Home › Books & Reviews › Capsule Reviews › Europe in the Western Alliance: Towards a European Defence Entity; Rethinking the Nuclear Weapons Dilemma in Europe; ATBMs and Western Security: Missile Defenses for Europe

Europe in the Western Alliance: Towards a European Defence Entity; Rethinking the Nuclear Weapons Dilemma in Europe; ATBMs and Western Security: Missile Defenses for Europe

Edited by Jonathan Alford and Kenneth Hunt
Edited by P. Terrence Hopmann and Frank Barnaby
Edited by Donald L. Hafner and John Roper
Reviewed by By Gregory F. Treverton
Winter 1988/89
Print Email
Login or Register to leave a comment.

Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.
Edited by Jonathan Alford and Kenneth Hunt
St. Martin's
1988
246 pp.
$45.00
Edited by P. Terrence Hopmann and Frank Barnaby
St. Martin's
1988
374 pp.
$55.00
Edited by Donald L. Hafner and John Roper
Ballinger
1988
325 pp.

These three volumes, each with a distinguished set of contributors, examine different aspects of European security. As SDI has faded, so have its European kin, anti-tactical ballistic missile (ATBM) systems, but there is an argument for better air defense in Europe quite independent of SDI, and the Hafner-Roper volume assesses an issue that will return in some form. The Hopmann-Barnaby book was completed before the INF treaty but is still a valuable brainstorming for alternatives to the current nuclear status quo in Europe. Perhaps the most interesting of the three, the Alford-Hunt volume looks at an old issue given new life by a combination of self-assertion by Europe and the continent's lack of confidence in the United States: greater European defense cooperation. The prospects remain modest-Pierre Lellouche is at his provocative best in outlining a bold program for integration by France, Britain and the Federal Republic-but the book is a fitting tribute to my friend and former colleague, the late Jonathan Alford.

Related

Essay, Special 1989
The Defense Debate
Gregory F. Treverton

US public expectations of a 'peace dividend' from the collapse of the socialist bloc are unrealistic. Structural properties of US defence policy-making, and the non-existence of any strategic vision not predicated on the monolithic Soviet threat, mean that "for the next several years the 'peace dividend' will be much smaller than enthusiasts hope, and earning it will require departures from customary congressional habits". Offers advice on a strategy for reducing US defence expenditure (1) avoid a return to the 'hollow army' by shifting towards reserve or 'round-out' units (2) cut US forces in Europe in the light of CFE results, not in advance of them (3) defer various high-price equipment programmes, while preserving R&D budgets (4) using arms control to cut what the USA "can safely do without".

Read
Essay, Jul 1966
Our Alternatives in Europe
Herman Kahn and William Pfaff

Nato's "disarray" has been made into a crisis by President de Gaulle's decision to withdraw French forces and facilities from the integrated structure of the Alliance. For the other NATO powers, and for the United States, this has provided a shock, but-in some ways-a salutary one. The fundamental issues of Europe's future, of Soviet-Western relations and of American policy are now more likely to be addressed. Before the French action these issues would likely have been evaded. Now there still is time to think relatively slowly and carefully about the objectives of the European-American alliance and of the United States itself in Europe's affairs.

Read
Essay, Fall 1989
The Coming of the Second World War
John Lukacs

The two world wars are the mountain ranges that dominate the historical landscape of the twentieth century. We still live in their shadows, in America as well as in Europe. Only with these wars did European and American history begin to coincide. The revolutions of 1820, 1830, 1848 and the wars leading to the unification of Italy and Germany marked the nineteenth century in European history, while the major events in American history were the westward movement, the Civil War and mass immigration. These events had certain transatlantic connections, yet not decisive ones. But in the twentieth century the two world wars have been the main events in the history of Europe and America as well.

Read