Reykjavik and Beyond Deep Reductions in Strategic Nuclear Arsenals and the Future Direction of Arms Control (1988) / Chapter Skim
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5. Alliance Issues
5. Alliance Issues
Pages 34-45
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From page 34... ...
But we have not yet thought through all of the implications or, incleecI, all of the consequences for many of the safe assumptions and easy premises on which we have based much of our defense effort below the strategic level in the postwar period. Specifically, in terms of Western Europe, there is no other area in the world beyond the homelands of the United States and the Soviet Union for which a deep-cuts regime will have greater political and 34
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From page 35... ...
Any change in the political and military framework in which they find themselves is itself threatening. This is true even if the long-term outcome may actually be even less risky to them in terms of, let us say, the deployment of nuclear weapons on the ground in Europe or a regime of deep arms cuts that makes the United States less vulnerable to Soviet ability to preempt or to launch a disabling strike.
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From page 36... ...
36 REYKJA VIK AND BEYOND ~ e_— J From Herblock at Large (Pantheon Books, 1987~.
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From page 37... ...
Yet in the views of all of those who are engaged even in the muchintensified staff talks and national talks among European governments, all other alternatives to the present form of the Atlantic alliance are either not available at the moment or are in fact vulnerable to the same types of contradictory political, economic, and even military pressures that led to the political instability characteristic of Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. These dilemmas are known and clescribable, yet they do not seem susceptible now nor, I suspect, will they be susceptible for a Tong time- to satisfactory resolution, either in terms of logic or in terms of predictable political outcomes.
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From page 38... ...
This "something else" might involve the development of weapons systems of their own or perhaps a movement toward the formation of new political frameworks in which to seek their own security. ~ think that, within the limits of the foreseeable, there is strong support for superpower arms control on the part of most Europeans at both the conceptual and operational levels.
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From page 39... ...
discussions. There are very few on the side of the United States at the moment: only the Pershing ~ launchers, which are West German in ownership but for which the United States maintains the warheads in stockpiles on West German territory.
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From page 40... ...
Nuclear warheads controlled by the United States. The West German government has stated that the 72 missile launchers in West Germany will be phased out once the U.S.
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From page 41... ...
" There is a considerable range of estimates about what the Soviets have, not in Eastern Europe itself, but in the Western military districts of the Soviet Union, which are probably reserved for movement forward in times of conflict. When one goes beyond looking at these particular capabilities and considers the guarantees Europeans will want to have for the coming balances in these forces, one encounters significant distinctions among the different European positions.
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From page 42... ...
to Took at a total mix of forces. This mix wouIcl require some nuclear weapons on the ground in Europe as necessary elements in the total balance of conventional and nuclear forces.
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From page 43... ...
In part, they have traded the acceptance of a nonnuclear status for that guarantee and for the promise that there wouic} be the forward defense of all West German territory; that is, the defense as far forward as the demarcation line between East and West Germany as specified in the agreements that brought West Germany into NATO in the mid-1950s. This trade is still one for which West Germany expects to pay in terms of loyalty of a kind and alliance membership and for which it expects the United States to continue to make the same kinds of guarantees, even in a world of uncertain deterrence.
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From page 44... ...
Second, in the formulation of a deep-cuts regime, one must certainly be guided by one clear lesson from Reykjavik: the process by which deep cuts and any other associated constraints are undertaken must be quite careful and very consultative, unlike Reykjavik. At the moment, it appears that the United States does consult in the sense of giving information and listening carefully, although not conclusively, to the demands of its allies.
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From page 45... ...
Finally, perhaps the best longer-term prediction is that no matter how deep the cuts, no matter how deep the set of deliberations we will have now, there will still be plenty of work to be done in the discussion of European attitudes on defense and arms control.
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