DEAD ON ARRIVAL?
T now looks as though there is some danger of I any new plan for 'interdependence' having to be marked 'DOA' at the December NATO meet- ing in Paris. President Eisenhower's regrettable illness and the differences of opinion between France and its allies are sombre enough auguries for a conference, the success of which must largely depend on a readiness to push Atlantic co-opera- tion a stage farther. The danger implied by the President's non-attendance in Paris is that no sub- stitute delegate will have sufficient authority either to speak for America or to bring pressure to bear on the conference, and that, consequently, no decisions will be taken at all, as has happened before at 'summit' meetings.
France and Algeria are more positive potential causes of failure. Not all Mr. Macmillan's elo- quent optimism, not all the phrases of the Anglo- French communiqué, can conceal the fundamen- tal rift which has arisen in the alliance and 'which the sending of arms to Tunisia revealed rather than brought about. The fact is that France's failure to find a viable policy in Algeria harms the interests of NATO. Algeria not merely threatens to drive the other North African Moslem States into the arms of Egypt. It also uses up French troops and resources which should be available in Europe and is rapidly leading the French economy into a condition where it will be unable to support the introduction of the Com- mon Market without collapsing. The communiqué after the Anglo-French talks spoke of France continuing 'to discharge her special responsibili- ties in North Africa,' but for this some kind of political policy is necessary.
Otherwise, Britain and America will have to salvage what they can from the shipwreck of the 'vertical concept' of NATO. After all, if America has supplied arms to M. Bourguiba it has also supplied them to M. Gaillard. Quite a large pro- portion of the weapons used by French forces in Algeria must come from America, and it is foolish to deny the vital importance of a settlement in Algeria for the West as a whole. The pressure on the French Government to reach such a settle- ment will be considerable. As the present visit of the Sultan of Morocco to America indicates, Washington clearly favours a North African con- ference with mediation by Morocco and Tunisia along the lines of their recent proposal.
Behind French intransigence over Algeria lies an exacerbation of nationalist feeling which should be recognised and with which Britain at least should sympathise. The position of a declin- ing power is not an easy one, and much of the irritation at the Anglo-American action in Tunisia was caused by a feeling that Britain was engaged in safeguarding its 'special position' with America at France's expense. As a writer in Le Monde put it, all NATO members are equal, but some are more equal than others. Moreover, the moralising tone adopted by some British politicians and newspapers in regard to France must be exces- sively irritating to those who remember that it was the British Government last year which was en- couraging the idea that the only way to deal with Islamic nationalism was the mailed fist.
These are matters which depend on national psychology, but it would be a mistake to ignore the effect they might have on the solidarity of NATO. To counter their disruptive influence the Anglo-French communique suggests two possible approaches. First, there is the reference to 'in- creased pooling of resources and knowledge' with- in the alliance, 'especially in the field of research development and production.' This evidently means no advance on the Washington proposals for a rationalisation of arms—even nuclear arms —production within NATO. This plan is all right as far as it goes, but contains nothing very reassuring, to French susceptibilities. Indeed, it might even have the contrary effect, when the details come to be considered. If any rationalisa- tion is to be carried out, then one thing is quite clear : for the French to manufacture their own atom bomb is a waste of their and everybody else's time. Yet any attempt to point this out will certainly be resented in Paris. It is doubly wound- ing for a nation committed to a policy of prestige to be told that its resources are insufficient even for that.
More promising is the second point made in the communiqué to the effect that the Ministers 'agreed on the political importance of finding solu- tions to the technical problems now involved' in the Free Trade Area negotiations. Despite the objections put forward by Sir Robert Boothby in the Spectator last week, it does seem that, as far as European economic integration is concerned, it is at the moment the Free Trade Area and Com- mon Market or nothing. Any attempt to return to the Strasbourg plan, which was turned down by the Treasury in 1953, would simply mean beginning everything again from the beginni0 and, in the present state of French politics, it very doubtful whether new negotiations would even get as far as the present ones. Fortunately' there are some signs that both British and Freud' statesmen realise that the Free Trade Area is the lastshance of a closer association between Britain and Europe, and that the future of Anglo-French relations depends more on this than on any NAT° plan for rationalisation of military effort.
The weakness of NATO still is that it is pf relY a military alliance. Before the illness of President Eisenhower there was a faint hope that some bind of political move might be made at the Decembci meeting, but now we are likely to be left Oil with proposals for 'increased pooling of resot reei and knowledge' and even these look distil eitY shadowy. The Free Trade Area and Comnlee Market remain the only negotiations which hale any political sense and which are directed toward` the most urgent task facing the North AtIg Powers: the economic and political integration of countries that have become too 'small to manage effectively by themselves. And these ela0 have a deep significance for NATO, despite the fact that they do not cover all its members. These steps towards a more united Europe are the one centripetal force operating against the numerous centrifugal forces pulling the alliance apart. No alliance can indefinitely be based on fear of the USSR alone, and the breakdown of the Free Trade Area negotiations would mean the complete destruction of the positive side of NATO. A steP^ forward here would be worth any amount progress in Paris next month.
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