Conventional Arms Control And East-West Security
This big, important book is a genuine East-West joint venture with its clutch of authors including two who subsequently joined President Bush's National Security Council staff and four who came to form part of the Soviet arms control negotiating teams. The book concentrates on military aspects of arms control, ranging from doctrine to verification, but it sets them in their broader context: conventional arms control cannot be separated from nuclear issues. More important, its ultimate subject is intensely political, nothing less than the future of the two Germanies and the shape of Europe.
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Our refusal to aid France in developing her nuclear strike force has never lacked American critics. Should we not seek an accommodation with General de Gaulle, trading missile technology and components for coöperation in another military or political field? Increasingly, it is said that we should. Proponents argue that France is well on the road toward acquiring her force de frappe, despite our opposition which has embittered French officials and made their program slower and more expensive. The bitterness and higher cost leave France both less willing and less able to support common enterprises, including the provision of modern French divisions to NATO and toleration of American-controlled nuclear weapons on her territory. It is said that these are unpleasant consequences of American policy, especially as they are felt by one honored major ally and not another. If we should supply Skybolt missiles to the United Kingdom for its Bomber Command, should we not assist France in some comparable way? Especially if France pays for it and eases our troubled balance of payments?
The Atlantic nations are moving toward a new security relationship which may in time involve the role of European strategic nuclear forces. We are in a period of widespread questioning of the nature of future American participation in the defense of Western Europe. In the squalor of American cities, the increased racial and social tensions of our society and the demands for a shift in national priorities away from defense toward domestic problems lie the seeds of change. If we add to these the economic recovery of Europe, the U.S. view that the allies are not carrying a fair share of their own defense, the balance-of-payments deficit toward which the U.S. forces abroad make a substantial contribution, the squeeze on the Pentagon budget, the tendency resulting from the traumatic experience in Vietnam to shed responsibilities, we find the ingredients of a reduced U.S. military involvement in Europe.
For several years now disputes have rent the Atlantic Alliance. They have focused on such issues as nuclear strategy and control, the organization of Europe and the nature of an Atlantic Community. However, the most fundamental issue in Atlantic relationships is raised by two questions not unlike those which each Western society has had to deal with in its domestic affairs: How much unity do we want? How much pluralism can we stand? Too formalistic a conception of unity risks destroying the political will of the members of the Community. Too absolute an insistence on national particularity must lead to a fragmentation of the common effort.
