Nato "Au Revoir, U.S."?

By Bruce W. Nelan

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, its members boast, is the most successful alliance ever. It deterred the predatory Soviet Union, won the cold war without firing a shot, and gave Europe its longest peace in this century. On the principle of not fixing things that are not broken, the Western allies could be expected to leave well enough alone now that the Soviet threat has ebbed. They are cutting back their armed forces and military spending, of course, but they might be wise to maintain the structures that served them so well.

In speeches and documents at this week's NATO summit in Rome, the 16 member heads of state and government will reaffirm their faith in the alliance and approve an updated Strategic Concept that has been in the making for more than a year. That 50-page policy statement calls for smaller, more mobile forces in Europe and for keeping NATO's multinational military command intact.

But behind this carefully constructed united front, a fundamental debate has erupted that could bring the entire U.S. presence in Europe into question. The allies are wrangling over how to produce a separate "European defense identity." In practice, that means the creation of purely European military units and raises the questions of how they should be linked to the U.S. and the alliance as a whole, and what would happen to the U.S. units on the Continent. Onlookers on both sides of the Atlantic wonder whether Europe is preparing to say au revoir to the U.S. -- or if that is the way it might look to the Americans.

All the European leaders insist it means no such thing. They repeat that they still consider NATO, with the U.S. fully engaged, as indispensable to their security. But their growing disagreements about the future shape of the alliance are now out in the open. The purported focus of their discussion is military, but the substance has become highly political. As the 12 nations of the European Community move closer together, its members are speaking up in NATO councils in favor of their own separate security identity to defend their Continent. A Bonn official explains that European economic and political unity logically implies a common foreign policy. And, he argues, "foreign policy without defense policy just does not exist."

So the Germans last month allowed the French to talk them into proposing a future European army to be directed by the Western European Union, whose nine member states also belong to NATO. Despite that potentially divisive effort, the French keep saying the politically correct things about the importance of the Atlantic alliance. Foreign Minister Roland Dumas last week called it "the primary instrument at the present time for Europe's security." But ever since President Charles de Gaulle pulled his troops out of NATO's integrated command in 1966, Paris has been trying to undercut American influence on the Continent. "NATO remains America's anchor in Europe," says Philippe Moreau- Defarges of the French Institute of International Relations, "but it cannot be the structure for Europe's future."

Before the Franco-German challenge, Britain and Italy had offered a different plan. Let Europeans create a joint military force, London and Rome suggested, but only for use in emergencies outside the NATO area, like the gulf war. The essential difference is that the French want to turn the WEU into the military wing of the European Community, while the British and Italians see it as firmly linked to NATO.

The U.S., meanwhile, is being resolutely understanding, bent on preserving NATO as its key to influence in Europe. "France's independent stance is ^ something we have lived with for a long time," says William H. Taft, the American ambassador to NATO. "In these times," a senior State Department official adds, "the U.S. must convey an image of stability, confidence and steadfastness."

Washington's unflappability is reinforced by its private view that the proposal for a Euroarmy is feasible only in the very long term if at all -- and constitutes no present threat to NATO. In London, U.S. Ambassador Raymond Seitz said that the U.S. was "comfortable with the concept of a European defense identity" as long as it was not designed as an alternative to the Atlantic alliance. American officials predict that the Rome summit will confirm this attitude by accepting no changes in the traditional course.

The summiteers will also have to cope with the problem of how best to lend aid and comfort to NATO's former enemies of the Warsaw Pact, who are worried about the instabilities of Central and Eastern Europe. The states of Central Europe, whose Brussels embassies are already in liaison with NATO headquarters, will not be offered membership in the alliance itself. Instead the summit will invite them to join a newly created North Atlantic Cooperation Council. Hungarian Prime Minister Jozsef Antall acknowledged last week that full NATO membership for his country was "unrealistic," but he and the other Central European leaders are still hoping to get a solid security guarantee.

But security against what, exactly? Though there are still almost 4 million troops and thousands of nuclear warheads in the former Soviet Union, the danger of a massive sweep westward is nil. More credible threats lurk in possible ethnic violence, border violations and mass migrations of refugees. Instability and uncertainty are the enemies NATO must guard against. In these circumstances, says Colonel Andrew Duncan, assistant director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, "it is difficult to justify NATO on the scale it is today." What is needed is "some sort of military-political organization based on NATO with both an American and a European pillar."

Dedicated Atlanticists in Europe believe that the U.S. pillar will be vital to their security for years to come. Some are concerned that traditional American isolationism may rise as the cold-war sense of danger recedes and Europeans become more independent. So far, alliance leaders remain confident that that is not happening. "As in the past," says Italian Foreign Minister * Gianni de Michelis, "this isolationist mood will remain in the minority."

If American isolationism does begin to percolate along with concerns about the country's domestic needs -- especially in the coming election year -- it is likely to be toned down by the steady reduction of U.S. troops and nuclear weapons in Europe. American forces there are already down to 260,000, from 320,000 in 1990, and could go as low as 150,000 by the end of 1995. That will make NATO cheaper and less controversial. But nothing has yet been devised to make the alliance dispensable.

With reporting by Daniel Benjamin/Bonn and Bruce van Voorst/Washington, with other bureaus