The disarrayed alliance
Whatever else, the events of the past fortnight have established that the preservation of the Russo-American detente is the prime object of the foreign policies of President Nixon and Mr Brezhnev. This is to be welcomed only insofar as it obviously reduces the risk of nuclear war between the two super-powers. The reduction of this risk carries with it dangers of complacency. The people of the United States, sickened by the experience of South-east Asia and ready— indeed eager—to be persuaded that the rich and powerful states of Western Europe contribute far too little to their own defences, will be bound to seek a great reduction in American military presences and commitments abroad once they accept the fact of ddtente. The comforting belief will grow that whenever a potentially serious world crisis blows up, the threat of world/war can be avoided by a man-toman chat between the President of the United States and the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At the same time, it is unlikely that each of the chief states of Western Europe will draw the sensible conclusion that in the last resort each must be responsible for the defence of its own territory and that, for a start, each must urgently increase the number, and improve the sophistication of the equipment, of its infantry troops. Instead, basking in the warmth of the RussoAmerican detente, they will become richer and fatter and flabbier year by year until the day suddenly dawns when the European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation realise that they are at the mercy of the non-Russian members of the Warsaw Pact:' In particular, the member-states of the European Economic Community show no indication that the logic of their common market, of their projected monetary and economic union and of their desire to speak with a single European voice whose authority is commensurable with the voices of the United States and the Soviet Union, demands the formation of an integrated military force able to defend Western Europe from Eastern Europe.
Western Europe has never looked, or been, weaker than it is now and has been shown to be during the past two or three Weeks. None of the chief states has had any useful part to play in the Middle East crisis, nor have any of them any major part to play in the resolution of the post-fighting period. It is unavoidable that countries like Britain and France should no longer be able to throw their weight around the Middle East, and it may well be no bad thing either if the evidence of the last time they tried it is anything to go on. But the weakness of Western Europe was not demonstrated solely or even chiefly by its irrelevance to the Russo-American diplomacy and power-politics Which, in pretty crude and brutal manner, brought the fighting to a stop and laid down the broad conditions of an eventual settlement. The demonstration of the weakness — the dispensability — of Western European statesmen (and, by inference, of their states) was very publicly provided by the spectacle of the United States putting its troops throughout the world, including those in bases in Western European states, on a war alert Without seeking so much as a by-your-leave from the leaders of the states concerned. And far from apologising or sensibly explaining the need for such peremptory and potentially nangerous rattling of its nuclear armoury, the United States also rubbed in its opinion of Western Europe by complaining about the lack of support for American policies displayed in particular by the Federal Republic and the United Kingdom. What the United States did last week, by putting its Strategic Air Command bases in this country on war alert was to demonstrate its readiness to go to the brink, and if necessary beyond, without consultation with the Prime Minister. It has been lamely argued, after the event, that the United States would not in fact have proceeded beyond the particular form of alert used last week, without such consultation. But had the Soviet Union responded by escalating, there may not have been time for such consultations. As it was, the danger passed.
It is not, however, much consolation to perceive that on this particular occasion the danger passed. particularly since it is becoming pretty clear that the danger itself was not all that great. Moscow now suggests that the confrontation of last week was a phoney one, and on the evidence to hand most people will be inclined to agree. Certainly from President Nixon's point of view it was a most convenient confrontation, allowing him to attempt to pass himself off as the man who, when the chips are down, has in his own self-adulatory words, "got what it takes." His statement on television that last week's confrontation with the Soviet Union posed the most serious threat since the Cuban missile crisis did not ring true when he said it, and does not look true when considered calmly and in retrospect. It will, of course, be years before a dependable historical verdict on this can be reached; but on the face of it, the most dangerous threat to world peace last week was caused, rather than ended, by a panickylooking over-reaction by the United States to some very confused reports of possible small-scale Russian troop movements which do not, in fact, seem to have taken place. There is a direct conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union as to the necessity of the alert, President Nixon justifying it as the proper and responsible response to possibly sinister,Soviet intentions to establish Russian troops in numbers in the Middle East, and the Soviet Union instantly replying to the effect that the alert was "absurd and an attempt to intimidate the Soviet Union." It is an indication of the sorry state of affairs that has come to pass within the Atlantic alliance that, on the interpretation of last week's crisis, there is a disposition to prefer the Russian account to the American; and, in addition, there remains a strong suspicion that the American alert itself was the consequence less of Russian movements than of domestic American politics — that it was a response to Watergate rather than to the Kremlin. If not, why did Dr Kissinger go out of his way to explain to the world that the National Security Council's recommendation to call the alert was unanimous "as a result of a deliberation in which the President himself did not participate, and which he joined only after they had formed their judgement that the measures taken were in the essential national interest "?
Questions and doubts persist; so does danger. None of these things will or can ever be removed. But there is far too much questioning and doubting, uncertainty and danger at the moment. We have said, and still think, that it is Presdient Nixon's clear duty to go, and that if he declines, it is Congress's equally clear duty to get rid of him. At the same time, he may well neither go willingly nor be pushed, and this being so we had best settle ourselves to make do with the best President we have got. The disarray within the Atlantic alliance itself needs the most urgent attention. All the countries of Western Europe need to remember that they remain shielded by the nuclear power of the United States; and the United States needs to remember that it, likewise, is shielded by the land-mass and population of Western Europe. There is a genuine mutual dependence. It may not last forever. But it exists now; and this mutual dependence is the rock of western security. If that rock be permitted to crumble further, there will be no western security worth the name. The events of the past fortnight have shown how great the need is for new arrangements between Europe and America. What started out as the "year of Europe" has ended up as the year of disregarded Europe. If the new arrangements which Dr Kissinger talked about last spring were desirable then, the making of them has become now the imperative diplomatic duty of every western statesman — and of these statesmen, the British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary are best placed to give the necessary lead. We wait, without much hope, to hear Mr Heath or Sir Alec Douglas-Home speak out, loudly and clearly, defending, upholding and reconstructing the Atlantic alliance with voices and affections and convictions which are themselves Atlantic and with policies which reflect and serve the maritime trading and defence interests of this island.
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