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From: david@fisher.UUCP (David Rubin)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: EuroMissiles and Belgium
Message-ID: <512@fisher.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 30-Jan-85 09:07:23 EST
Article-I.D.: fisher.512
Posted: Wed Jan 30 09:07:23 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 31-Jan-85 01:44:23 EST
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> = Mike Kelly

>David Rubin has offered a good critique of my original posting on
>Euromissiles.  Of course, I agree that not every popularly-willed
>policy should be immediately implemented.  I do think, though, that
>it is unfair to claim European opposition to the missiles is a
>short-lived public sentiment.  It is deep and broad.  

It is broad, but how deep it is remains to be seen.  Much depends on
how much European leaders lead.

>The basic problem is the lack of a European security community.  NATO
>is pretty clearly dominated by the U.S.  For various economic and 
>political reasons, the Europeans have been forced to rely on it.   I
>think that consensus is breaking down, and the fight over the missiles
>is evidence of that.   How many NATO countries do you think would agree
>to a *new* plan for installation of missiles?  Very few, I would guess.

NATO is dominated by the US in approximate proportion to the US's
contribution to the collective defense.  Of course, if the Europeans
were willing to spend the money and make the political commitments
necessary, both North America and Western Europe would be better off,
as the Europeans would need only consult their own interests and
Americans could save large quantities of money and manpower.  In
addition, if the Europeans were able to defend themselves, and the US
still loomed as an interested power, a Soviet attack on Europe would
become impossible rather than merely improbable.

>I think there is a deeper issue here, as well.  We are told that there
>must be NATO missiles in West Europe because there are Soviet missiles in
>East Europe.  This ignores the British and French missiles already
>in West Europe.   These new missiles are *American* missiles stationed in
>Europe.  Why does *America* need missiles in Europe?   I think it has a
>lot more to do with the Third World than it does with Western Europe.  The
>missiles basically allow the U.S. the leeway to intervene in places of 
>its own choosing (Central America has been `in' recently) while holding
>the Soviets at arms length.  The missiles are sort of a guarantee that
>intervention won't escalate to a conventional world war.  The British and
>French missiles are intended to defend those countries, and can't handily
>be brandished by an American President.  

The deployment of Soviet intermediate range nuclear missiles,
obviously dedicated toward use against Western Europe, raised the fear
among European leaders in the late 1970's that the Soviets might be
able to launch a nuclear strike against Western Europe without fearing
American retaliation (i.e, the old (and pointed) question: would the
US sacrifice Chicago in order to avenge Hamburg?).  Under such
circumstances, the Anglo-French nuclear capability would not even
approach that of the Soviet Union, allowing the Soviet Union to 
threaten a war which it would be sure to win.  The missiles are meant
as a signal that a Soviet nuclear attack on Western Europe would be 
met by American missiles, and that the Soviet Union will thus not be
able to consider ONLY the British and French arsenals when calculating
the danger of nuclear warfare in Europe.  It is precisely because they
ARE American missiles that they were requested in the first place.
This is what is meant by linkage.  Mike is quite right that the 
missiles do not serve American security (at least not directly);
rather, they serve a political purpose by reassuring the Europeans
(at least those who will be responsible for future decisions) that 
they will (can) not be abandoned by the US in the event of a Soviet
strike in Europe.

As for the US "brandishing" the intermediate range missiles in the
event of a crisis in US-USSR relations, that would be politically
impossible.  Under such circumstances, the missiles would no longer
serve European interests, and would have to be withdrawn.  It seems
highly unlikely to me that Jimmy Carter twisted Helmut Schmidt's arm
to get him to request missiles meant primarily to enable US
intervention in the Third World, as

	(1) Carter showed relatively little interest in US
	    intervention there, and
	(2) Schmidt was given to proclaiming that Carter didn't twist
	    ENOUGH arms (in fact, Schmidt has stated that the only
	    time Carter, in his view, strongly pressured the allies
	    was at the Venice summit of 1979, where the NATO allies
	    agreed to a 5% annual real increase in defense spending.
	    This agreement has since been repeatedly breached; it is
	    ironic that the Reagan defense buildup may leave NATO
	    weaker because of his amazing proclivity towards
	    frightening allied electorates).

>For those interested, this thesis is presented much more cogently by
>Randall Forsberg in the Winter, 1984, issue of World Policy.   Her article
>is titled "The Freeze and Beyond: Confining the Military to Defense as a
>Route to Disarmament."

>Mike Kelly

					David Rubin
			{allegra|astrovax|princeton}!fisher!david