Meeting Moscow's Threat

Meting Moscow's Threat

Western Europe prepares to counter the Soviet juggernaut

The unavoidable geopolitical fact of life for Western Europe over the past quarter-century has been the threat from the East. The Soviet Union and its satellite states have assembled one of the most powerful military juggernauts in world history, and never before has the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact loomed so menacingly as it does today. While the Soviets have been eroding the West's lead in weapons technology, in recent years the pact has enormously increased its offensive firepower by deploying the lethal SS-20 mobile missile and the Backfire bomber--intermediate-range nuclear weapons systems capable of devastating military and civilian targets anywhere in Western Europe.

Now that Moscow has achieved strategic parity, the U.S. nuclear arsenal --once Europe's main line of defense --has been, by and large, matched. As a consequence, the military imbalance at lower levels has taken on a new significance, posing immense potential dangers for Western Europe, which would probably be the battleground in a limited nuclear war. Just how the West should respond to the new Soviet threat in Europe will be the chief topic next week when the Defense Ministers and Foreign Ministers of the 15 NATO states gather for their annual autumn meeting in Room 16 at the alliance's three-story headquarters near Brussels.

In one of the most important moves in its 31-year history, NATO is expected to approve a U.S. proposal to deploy 572 new intermediate nuclear weapons in Europe. Of these, 108 would be Pershing II mobile missiles; with a range of about 1,000 miles, the missiles could hit targets in the western part of the Soviet Union, though probably not Moscow. The rest of the new weapons would be subsonic but extraordinarily accurate ground-launched cruise missiles with a striking range of approximately 1,500 miles.

To dispel Soviet fears that the new weapons represent a threat to peace, the U.S. is expected to announce that it will withdraw about 1,000 of 6,000 nuclear warheads now based in Western Europe. In addition, NATO next week will almost certainly propose negotiating with the U.S.S.R. a further reduction of nuclear forces in Europe. Deciding the precise terms of this call for arms talks will be one of the main items before NATO Foreign Ministers. Because neither the Pershing II nor the cruise will be ready for deployment for at least three years, some NATO governments hope that this will give East-West negotiators time to agree on ceilings for Europe-based atomic arms.

The anticipated NATO action has triggered a thunderous propaganda campaign from the East. In October, Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev threatened that Western Europe would face grave dangers if it accepted the new nuclear arms. In late November, at a Bonn press conference, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko argued that NATO need not deploy new weaponry because a European military balance already exists, and warned that to change the equation would "undermine the prospect of negotiations" and create "new and adverse effects on detente." From East Germany last week came the straight-faced announcement that 96% of its citizens over 14 had "voluntarily" signed petitions denouncing NATO'S arms plans. And this week the Warsaw Pact's Foreign Ministers will be arriving in East Berlin for what appears to be a hastily convened meeting. "It's part of the pressure and propaganda game," observed a West German diplomat. "The Soviets still haven't caught on that they are overplaying their hand."

Indeed, all their heated fulminations have served mainly to persuade doubters in the West that the Pershing II and cruise missile must be extremely effective weapons systems; otherwise, why should Moscow be so agitated? Says a NATO official: "Brezhnev did the West a favor by forcing the issue out of the closet. He raised the political stakes. The issue now has such momentum that it is difficult to oppose." The Kremlin's bullying, moreover, has infuriated many Western Europeans. Even a member of the dovish left wing of West Germany's Social Democratic Party has angrily declared that "if the Soviets think that they can beat us into the ground, they are wrong."

In any case, Moscow's arguments against the new NATO weapons have been widely dismissed. Replying to Gromyko's assertion that a military balance already exists in Europe, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher stresses that "the problem is not the Western modernization program but the continuing arms advantage of the East. We don't want superiority, only balance." This viewpoint is shared by many strategic experts. General Sir John Hackett, author of the bestseller The Third World War, argues that with the SS-20 missile and Backfire bomber, the "Soviet Union now has a deep strike capability that can do immense damage to Western Europe."

The consensus of most experts is that the Pershing II and cruise missile are the best instruments available for restoring the nuclear balance and NATO's deterrent credibility in the European theater. First, they would vastly increase the alliance's firepower and thus the punishment that a potential attacker could expect to suffer. More important, if war erupted, the Pershing II and cruise would give Washington the option of responding with a European-based "theater nuclear weapon" rather than with a strategic weapon launched from inside the U.S. or from a submarine.

This distinction could be crucial, though it has nothing to do with the potential destructiveness of NATO's new weapons. The critical point is that if war came, the Soviets would not be attacked at first by the monumental weapons that are part of the American strategic arsenal. Moscow might be more likely to retaliate against Europe with its own theater nuclear weapons rather than against the U.S. with strategic weapons. While the destruction from a theater nuclear exchange would be tremendous, it would still fall far short of the nuclear holocaust that would almost inevitably consume East and West. This reasoning was at the heart of Henry Kissinger's widely noted September speech in Brussels. Kissinger argued that the American strategic arsenal alone cannot be relied upon to defend Europe, since to do so would almost certainly elicit massive Soviet retaliation against the U.S.

NATO's deployment of theater nuclear forces is thus viewed as a means of closing a dangerous gap in the West's deterrence. Says a leading British official: "The reason for NATO modernizing its nuclear forces is that we have to fill a position between the tactical Lance missile [a short-range mobile missile] and the big bang. We cannot make counterthreats credible without theater nuclear weapons." Notes American Defense Analyst Gregory Treverton of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies: "It is important to remember that deterrence is a combination of will and weaponry. Weapons do make a difference. NATO has to become more confident at a lower level of deterrence rather than at a higher level."

The decision to deploy theater nuclear forces has been two years in the making. British officials claim to be the first to have noticed the growing military imbalance in Europe; they sent a note about it to Washington in early 1977. Several months later, West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt raised the issue in a London speech. He deplored the fact that the "Euro-strategic balance" was shifting against the West and urged that it be restored. Soon thereafter, NATO created a High-Level Group, chaired by the U.S., to study the matter.

One year later the group began discussing specific options. Included were various mixes of Pershing Us, ground-launched cruise missiles and submarine-launched cruises, as well as weapons whose identities are still secret. The U.S. outlined the advantages and disadvantages of each of these items in terms of accuracy, payload, cost and political implications. Clearly, the Pershing II and cruises were the best solution to the new realities. Furthermore, neither was an entirely new system. Neither could be portrayed as a "terror" weapon like the ill-fated neutron warhead, which in the spring of 1978 had alarmed public opinion in Western Europe to the point where NATO governments hesitated about its deployment and President Carter decided to postpone the project.

However, there were--and still are --serious political obstacles. Schmidt has warned that he opposes basing the new weapons on West German soil, unless other Continental NATO countries also accept them. This deployment could invite a destructive pre-emptive Soviet attack, and Schmidt, reasonably enough, wants to "spread" this danger. Says he: "We Germans are not prepared to be alone in taking the risks." Bonn also insists that the new arms, unlike the short-range nuclear weapons currently under dual U.S.-West German control, must remain completely in American control. By keeping Bonn's hands off these nukes, Schmidt hopes to avoid fueling fears of a resurgent German militarism. Says a West German general:

"The suspicion is always there among our neighbors in all directions. We must make sure that it's not heightened." The worst suspicions, of course, smolder still in the Kremlin.

As next week's NATO conference approaches, it seems certain that Britain, Italy, Belgium and West Germany will accept the new missiles. So too might The Netherlands, which has been the most reluctant to endorse deployment of nuclear weapons. The Dutch government, as well as the governments of some other NATO countries, faces vocal and well-organized pacifist and left-wing opposition to almost any arms modernization measures. To a great extent, it has been to placate these groups that NATO plans to try to negotiate arms cuts with the Soviets.

If, as expected, the NATO ministers approve the proposed new measures, the alliance will be on its way to countering the latest Soviet threat. But until the new theater nuclear weapons start reaching their European bases in 1983, NATO will remain vulnerable to the Kremlin's exploitation. "It is not going to be an easy three years," predicted a Western diplomat last week. Even so, NATO at least is demonstrating that after a quarter-century of challenges from the East, it is prepared to face its newest threat.

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