NATO at Ottawa: The Nuclear Deadlock

By HEDLEY BULL

ONE of the effects of modern military tech- nology upon international politics, it may be argued, is to render alliances a thing of the past. Any State, in entering an alliance, has to weigh gains against losses. On the one hand, it is made stronger, by the prospect that the Power of other States will be added to its own; but,-on the other hand, it must compromise its national objectives, by embracing the causes of its allies. The chief gain, the support of one's allies in war, must be set against the chief loss, the commitment oneself to wage war on their behalf. At the present time such a commitment involves risks out of all proportion to those nations have taken for one another in the past. It is tempting to conclude, therefore, that as nuclear technology becomes more widely diffused, political communities will contemplate the use of force on their own behalf alone; and that alliances will either disappear or found themselves upon obligations which exclude the contingency of nuclear war. NATO must either federate or disintegrate. Such a conclusion would be a facile one. The alternatives are less clear-cut than this, the im- pact of nuclear weapons on the fabric of world Politics less profound, and its ultimate nature more obscure. But the logic of the argument is implicit both in the position of General de Gaulle and in the proposals that have now been adopted by the United States Administration. Under the shadow of increasing Soviet nuclear Power in the late 1950s, Western Europeans ex- pressed the feeling, sometimes as a fear, some- times as a hope, that the alliance would disintegrate as far as the commitment to nuclear war was concerned. The view of the left, that the United States might engage in nuclear war Over some issue in which European interests were not at stake, was in this respect at one with the anxieties of the right, that she might show herself unwilling to do so over a matter in which they were. Thus the British and the French were able to provide themselves with a strategic rationale for the national nuclear-weapons pro- grammes they were determined to have. As British and French nuclear power took shape it provoked in the United States the same feelings of embarrassment about the commit- ment to collective action that America's nuclear capacity had caused in Europe. The United States, takes, too, must be concerned that a nuclear force ree under the control of an ally is one for \'„,vhieh she has no safety-catch. The United States has not responded to this situation by seeking to limit her commitment to the defence of zurope although in the long run, should her be efforts fail, such a development cannot °e excluded. She has instead sought to remove the source of the danger by opposing herself to the growth within the alliance of 'independent national deterrents.' Although a speech by Mr. cGeorge Bundy in September last year sug- gaested that the United States might be tolerant of joint European nuclear force, it has become clear that she is opposed to that also. The feature of her allies' nuclear programmes that causes her most alarm is not their national character, but their independence of United States control.

Until the crises of last December and January the alternative to independent nuclear forces which the Kennedy Administration appeared to uphold was a United States nuclear monopoly. Denying the logic which General de Gaulle had invoked, it maintained that NATO did not have 'sto become either more or less than an alliance, but could go on as before. Its spokesmen pro- duced a series of arguments justifying this position: that European countries could not pro- duce weapons that were effective; that they did not need them, since the United States guarantee was still valid; that the supreme interest of the allies , was that war should be 'centrally con- trolled'; and that the efforts of Britain and France must lead to an indefinite proliferation of nuclear powers. These arguments are im- portant; some of them, perhaps, are true; but they serve to disguise the fact that the United States and her allies are divided by different in- terests, and not merely by conflicting views of their common interests. Since last December the United States has become less sanguine about the possibility of restoring its nuclear monopoly and has changed its position. Now apparently ac- cepting the logic of the Gaullist view of alliances, it seeks to demonstrate that NATO must not disintegrate as regards the control of nuclear weapons but instead, integrate. Earlier propo- sals for a NATO nuclear force, some of which date from the Eisenhower Administration, and which have hitherto languished in the back- ground of American policy, have now been brought to the fore; and the Kennedy Adminis- tration, which in 1961 and 1962 declared merely that it would be willing to consider proposals from its allies for such a force, has been ac- tively pressing plans of its own upon them.

The first proposal before the Ottawa Con- ference is of British origin and concerns the nuclear forces in Europe that already exist. The United Kingdom V-bomber force, those United States Polaris submarines that have already been assigned to NATO, and the tactical air forces of certain other NATO countries, which are already equipped with nuclear weapons under American custody, would be assigned as part of a NATO nuclear force and targeted in ac- cordance with NATO plans. If NATO continues to contain a minority of independent nuclear powers and a majority of non-nuclear ones, this proposal may make it easier for them to tolerate one another. But it does not alter the basic elements of the present situation. Through such a device the United States, Britain and, were she to join them, France, might reassure one another and the non-nuclear powers about their intentions, and agree on a rational plan of action for the contingency in which they would be at war together; but no retreat would be implied from the principle of independent control.

The second proposal is of American origin and concerns the nuclear forces that will exist in Europe towards the end of the decade. The NATO nuclear forces envisaged for this period are of two sorts: a 'multinational' force, con- sisting of the British Polaris submarine fleet, an at least equivalent United States Polaris force, and, should she be willing, a contribution from France; and a 'multilateral' force, of missile- firing surface ships, manned by crews of mixed nationality. The provisions for control of these forces are obscure. But, according to some re- ports, the 'multinational' and 'multilateral' com- ponents would be linked to a single chain of command, in which operational control would be vested in a NATO officer, such as SACEUR, and the political authority to use the force in a committee of the participating States, reaching decisions by unanimous vote. It is this proposal which purports to provide an alternative to the existing plurality of nuclear powers within the -alliance.

While in the 'multilateral' component of the force the principle of independent control is clearly extinguished, in the 'multinational' com- ponent it would appear, at first sight, to be pre- served: while the British Polaris force is still organised as a national force, there is still the phy- sical possibility of withdrawal. It is this aspect of the 'multinational' force upon which the British Government sets most store; and it may be ex- pected to continue emphasising the difference between the 'multinational' and the 'multilateral' forces, against United States pressure to assimilate the former to the latter. But it is the United States which, as the supplier of Polaris missiles, has the upper hand in this contest; and as in the late 1960s Britain loses the bargaining power which her independently produced bomber force now gives her, the present status of the British deterrent can hardly survive. Given the present direction of United States policy, both components in the NATO nuclear force imply the ultimate extinction of national control.

The question that must be asked is whether the idea of a NATO nuclear force meets the purposes which led Britain and France to national programmes, and which might lead Germany or other countries in the alliance to embark upon them in the future. It is difficult to see that this is so. Given the capacity of the

Horns of Selfland

Busk. By Rupert Croft-Cooke. (W. H. Allen, 35s.) Oscar Wilde : The Aftermath. By H. Mont- gomery Hyde. (Methuen, 30s.) Oscar Wilde. Famous Trials Series. 'By H. Montgomery Hyde. (Penguin Books, 4s.) ALFRED DOUGLAS, a friend once said in modi- fied praise, was good gone bad, not bad gone rotten. The remark referred to his poetry, but it applies also to his life. Douglas's poems in the Nineties are written in a language that is clean and clear, and their youthful romanticism is under surprisingly strict control. A good many lines from them stay in the memory—like his desire to 'Thrust one naked phrase/Like a lean knife between the ribs of Time.' But soon after the Nineties ended, Douglas's talent collapsed. He wrote little more verse, and that little was much inferior to the poetry of his youth. Good had gone bad, poetically and emotionally. One of the sonnets he wrote in 1924 in Wormwood Scrubs, where he had been sent after libelling Winston Churchill by suggesting that he had conspired with Sir Ernest Cassel and others to publish a false report about the Battle of Jutland, begins:

The leprous spawn of scattered Israel

Spreads its contagion in your English blood.

Homosexuals, rich Jews, modern poets : in middle and old age Douglas hated by categories, and these are only at the head of a long list. The lunatic spleen with which he pursued his self- destructive ends is strongly reminiscent of that shown by his father's pursuit of Oscar Wilde.

Yet when this has been said—and there is a chorus to say it every time a new book con- cerning Wilde comes out—it should be said also that Douglas in his youth had a generous mind and the rashest sort of courage. Of the three principals in the Wilde affair—Wilde, the self- pitying homosexual martyr; Robert Ross, the lickspittle toady preparing for his role as literary executor; and Douglas—it is Wilde and Ross who seem twisting and sly, Douglas who up to the time of Wilde's death emerges as direct, honest and naive. Mr. Rupert Croft- Cooke's biography makes Douglas's faithfulness to Wilde abundantly clear. Nobody reading it can doubt that Douglas was during these years utterly devoted to Wilde, or that he behaved generously after Wilde came out of prison, or (with a little less certainty) that Ross never sent either manuscript or typescript of the letter

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known as De Prof undis to Douglas, as he was instructed to do.

Mr. Montgomery Hyde's view, in his book about Wilde's imprisonment, that Ross sent Douglas a typed copy of the letter and that Douglas tore it up after reading a few pages, involves enormous improbabilities. Whether or not Wilde was 'initiated into homosexual prac- tices' by Ross, as Mr. Hyde suggests, it is obvious that Ross was jealous of Douglas and that this jealousy was the spring of his actions. In writing of Douglas's later life, Mr. Croft- Cooke often tries to palliate the inexcusable, and he writes inadequately about a good many things (for instance, about the breakdown of Douglas's marriage), but almost everything that he says about Douglas's relationship with Wilde seems to be true, and well said. If the associa- tion between the two hastened the downfall of Wilde, it ruined the whole life of Douglas. The epigraph chosen for this biography is a brilliantly perceptive paragraph of Shaw's in which he refers to 'the young disciple whose for- tunes were poisoned and ruined through their attachment.' It is possible, at least, that Douglas might have developed as a poet if he had not met Wilde, and certain that he would have been a better, more humane, less paranoiac human being. He made and kept friends—John Betje- man, my brother A. J., Mr. Croft-Cooke himself—until the end.

becoming affected by imprisonment were turned down on the ground that his petition was `ex- pressed in too lucid orderly and polished a style to cause apprehension on that point.'

Mr. Hyde's book, which is by implication strongly anti-Douglas, is a useful addition to Wildeana, one complementing his admirable account of the trials, which is now available as a Penguin. Re-reading the story of the trials, it is obvious that Wilde's downfall was inevit- able. To bring working-class adolescent male prostitutes into famous hotels and restaurants wculd be unwise even today, and seventy years ago was courting disaster. Wilde designed his own ruin, and Douglas was no more than an unlucky accessory in the working out of his fate.

JULIAN SYMONS

Characters and Cant

Going :o the River. By Constantine FitzGibbon. (Cassell, 21s.)

The Campaign. By Gillian Freeman. (Longmans, 18s.)

Death is a Lizard. By John Williams. (Hutchin- son, 18s.) IN his new novel, Constantine FitzGibbon lives up to his reputation as a highly professional writer. His organisation of the historical material