No Bid for NATO
ACCORDING to the Mail's lead story on TuesdaY1 .the reason that General Norstad has warned the NATO powers that he is considering handing in his resignation this autumn is not, as stated, on account of ill-health but because 'he is making a final, major bid to jolt the Allies into a reali,r tion that the quarrels in NATO are reaching danger point.' This interpretation is almost cer tainly correct; and in his article this week Colonel Lort-Phillips reveals just how feeble NATO has become.
It can, admittedly, be argued that the organi, tion ought to be regarded as an expression of 3 will to resist any aggressor, rather than as 55 assurance that the resistance will be effective. TO some extent this is truc: the West has been sheltering behind the Bomb; and whatever its limitations, the Bomb has been, and remains, more important than any weight of conventional armament. Still, a military alliance devoid 01 military strength-- like a law which cannot be enforced--is bad: the weakness of NATO is reproach to the West even if it is not a danger. And for this Britain must take much of the blame. In its desire to end conscription the Government here has not only refused to admit the validitY of NATO requirements; it has also put itself in a position where it cannot without hypocrisy criticise the deficiencies or defections of the government of any other member country.
Probably, as Colonel Lort-Phillips argue' NATO has served its purpose, and should be allowed to disappear; or perhaps the nature of the organisation should be changed. But there can be no excuse for pretending that it shield, or even a trip-wire, if it has become-A° nobody more than to the men sA ho are in charge of it—an elaborate pretence.
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