Which European force?
Like distressed gentlefolk fallen on hard times we respond to every setback in the present by retreating further into the past. The Foreign Office's latest thoughts about a European army takes us back to the early 1950s. Then it included the French and ex- cluded the British : now, it is suggested, the roles should be reversed. The thinking be- hind this scheme is almost endearingly obvious. It is intended to fulfil two of the longest-standing ambitions or our diplo- mats : to throw mud in the eye of General de Gaulle, and to get the Germans to ante up permanently for the Rhine Army.
These, of course, are two reasons why it will not work. The Germans are not going to pay more for the Rhine Army because they do not really mind whether it goes or stays. And they are not going to help us to throw mud in the General's eye because he is their nearest substitute for a foreign policy. A third reason why it will not work is that the nuclear deterrent is, once more, excluded.
The SPECTATOR has consistently argued that the British government should demonstrate its genuine commitment to Europe by offer- ing to coordinate its nuclear deterrent with France under the aegis of a European-style `McNamara committee,' and to appeal over the head of General de Gaulle to his partners only if he turns us down. The Foreign Office's scheme is almost precisely the reverse. It is intended at once to isolate the French and to preserve the 'Atlantic' nature of our own de- terrent. If it were accepted, it would commit us indefinitely to the present cost of BAOR without any hope of political recompense.
But what is at present an idea which would be highly damaging if 'it were not so im- practicable does nevertheless contain the germ of a worthwhile initiative. Mr _Jenkins has to devise for his party a sweetener for his economies in public spending at home. A large cut in government spending' overseas is the only possibility which would make sense at once to the Labour party and to our creditors. But the only area where cuts could be fairly rapidly effected are in Germany and on the purchase of us aircraft. Both are desirable.
The trouble about further reductions in the size of the Rhine Army is that they would look like a conscious retreat from Europe. This objection might be largely overcome if, while reducing the strength of our garrisons to levels which the Germans could be ex- pected to underwrite, we offered simul- laneously to commit those that remained to a mutually financed European defence force in which as many Common Market countries as wished to were invited to participate, and to proceed with the first stages in the Euro- peanisation of our own nuclear deterrent, with or without the French.
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