Where Are Allies When Needed?

Mostly debating, delaying or looking the other way

From the beginning of the Afghanistan crisis, two of the major questions have been: Where are America's friends? What actions might they take to punish the Soviet Union for its invasion? Last week an answer of sorts came from Italian Premier Francesco Cossiga, currently presiding for six months as president of the European Community, who took the occasion of a long-scheduled visit to Washington to tell President Carter what the nine-nation group is prepared to do. His message could have been put into two words: not much.

It was no surprise. Publicly, Washington feels unable to criticize its allies. But U.S. officials are disappointed and frustrated by the European allies' consistent unwillingness to join the U.S. in putting economic pressure on the Soviet Union by reducing East-West trade. Says one State Department official: "We are not overjoyed at the level of support." Adds another: "All the allies are somewhat reluctant to do very much on the economic front, and the political stuff is mostly symbolic."

The Western Europeans, of course, have joined the U.S. in condemning the Soviet move. And when the U.S. slashed grain exports to the U.S.S.R. and banned sales of high-technology products such as computers, the Europeans agreed not to undercut those acts by increasing their own exports. But they will not cut back. The most they will promise is to "review" the Alliance's list of which high-technology items can and cannot be sold to the Soviets. The review is likely to take a long time. Even their verbal denunciations of Moscow have been coupled with intimations that Washington is overreacting to the invasion of Afghanistan. Wrote Aldo Rizzo, political commentator for the Turin newspaper La Stampa: "There is no sign of that concordance of views between Western Europe and the U.S. that helped them through other grave crises."

There is one outstanding exception: Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has expressed willingness to join in economic sanctions against the Soviets, and her Foreign Office is prepared to go further. Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington recommends that the U.S. and Britain offer political, economic and military aid to nations in the Persian Gulf area and even that Anglo-American fleets be stationed in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean to counter any Soviet move toward the Persian Gulf.

On the European continent, however, the spirit is vastly different. France's President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, eager as ever to pursue a foreign policy independent of Washington, has made only one personal statement about the invasion of Afghanistan: an enigmatic comment in early January that "the U.S.S.R.'s intervention was not necessarily premeditated." Though official French statements since then have gotten stronger, the government has taken a recalcitrant stand within the European Community against anti-Soviet economic sanctions.

The West German government feels itself caught between Washington pressure for strong anti-Soviet action and French unwillingness to do much. Publicly, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt last week told the Bundestag that "we condemn the Soviet intervention" but also that "we must, with steadiness, consider our German and Western interests." Privately, he sighed to aides: "When you are neck-deep in manure, you must still smile." Bonn is increasing aid to Pakistan, Turkey and Greece, nations that might be threatened by the Soviets. Bonn also persuaded Paris at least to join the other community members in reviewing which high-technology items could be sold to the U.S.S.R. The West Germans will not go beyond that.

Italy put off, ostensibly for "technical reasons," a visit to Rome by a Soviet trade mission that was to have resulted in a new $1 billion trade credit from the Italian government to Moscow. But it will not join in any general economic sanctions. One reason: it is an unwritten law of Italian politics that no government in Rome can do anything that would give the nation's powerful left an opportunity to picture Italy as an "American colony."

Western European governments used to worry in public about whether the U.S. would support them in a crisis, but now they offer a variety of reasons for not backing the U.S. more forcefully. Several argue that the invasion of Afghanistan simply strengthened Moscow's control of a nation that was already a Soviet satellite--a deplorable act, certainly, but one that does not necessarily indicate aggressive designs on nations outside the Soviet orbit. Many European foreign policy experts also insist that the occupation of Afghanistan gives the West a golden opportunity to turn the Third World against the Soviets, but that this chance will be lost if Soviet-Western relations deteriorate into a new cold war. Says one Italian diplomat: "If there is a confrontation, the Third World would not be able to align itself with the West because this would cause internal problems with its population. But if the West avoided a confrontation, it could rally Third World countries and the Soviet Union would be isolated."

Much of this is probably wishful thinking, and the European desire to preserve detente with the Soviet Union is heavily colored by self-interest. Put simply, Europe is making money out of detente. Last year European Community exports to the Soviet Union amounted to an estimated $8.2 billion (as compared with U.S. exports for the same year, mostly in the form of grain and other farm produce, worth only $3.3 billion). West Germany, Italy and France are counting on Soviet natural gas to help meet energy demands in the oil-scarce years ahead, and a Western European consortium will build a pipeline to bring the gas west. The U.S.S.R. is also providing 30% of the enriched uranium that fuels European nuclear reactors. West Germany is also anxious to avoid new Soviet pressures against West Berlin or any interference with visits of its citizens to East German relatives.

The Europeans' attitude could change, if the Soviet danger came nearer. Western Europe is indeed worried about the possibility that the Soviets may move to reassert dominance over Yugoslavia after President Tito dies. Says a West German foreign ministry official: "That would be right on our doorstep." Just so.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.