to the evaluation of intelligence could make an important contribution to a consensus on the contingencies for which the Alliance should be prepared. III. Military Posture The North Atlantic Treaty does not commit the allies to a particular strategy or its derivative, a particular set of force goals. The commitment is to regard and resist an armed attack on one as an attack on all. As a normal thing, therefore, the allies have regularly reviewed strategy and force requirements against current appraisals of the Soviet threat. Unfortunately, the very premises of allied policy have had to be reconsidered because of De Gaulle's eviction notice to U.S. and NATO military facilities in France, and his pull-out of French forces. from NATO's unified commands and coordinated military forces. NATO has certainly not been strengthened by the French actions, but the resulting difficulties are not insurmountable, given a determination by the fourteen allies to make the necessary adjustments. The fourteen have found a new site for SHAPE in Belgium and for AFCENT (Allied Forces, Center) in the Netherlands, and have decided to move the NATO Council and the Military Committee to Brussels. They are busy adapting communications, infrastructure and defense agencies to the new situation. The fourteen now meet as a Defense Planning Committee under the Council to conduct the military affairs of the Alliance. Quite apart from the sabot France has thrown into the NATO works, British and American balance-of-payment problems together with German budgetary difficulties have compelled a thorough study of the level of British and American forces in West Germany and the financing of their foreign exchange costs. Nuclear problems, including allied nuclear planning arrangements, have led to intensive discussions and among other things to the formation in NATO of two permanent groups for nuclear planning-a policy body called the Nuclear Defense Affairs Committee open to any NATO nation willing to participate in its work, and a Nuclear Planning Group of seven Defense Ministers, drawn from the full committee, to handle detailed work. Underway also is a new NATO-wide effort at joint force planning. Out of this process may emerge a consensus on strategy and force requirements suited to present and foreseeable needs. There is, however, always a danger that what starts as a review may end in reverses and loss of mutual confidence and strength. These matters need to be handled with the care appropriate to decisions that could endanger the hard-won European balance. The American military presence in Europe is still the hard nub of the Western deterrent. The chief purpose of the American troop commitment is political: to leave no doubt in Western Europe or in Moscow that the United States would be completely involved from the outset of any move against Western Europe. We want no uncertainty in the Kremlin about our intentions. It needs to be clear to the adversary that any act of aggression would be opposed by an effective American combat force, one capable of making a determined stand, so that the engagement would be from the start a Soviet American crisis, with all that implies, not just a European one. Thomas Schelling stated before the subcommittee: It is a sign of NATO's success that the nations of Europe can afford to spend so much of their attention on matters of nuclear authority within the Alliance, matters that have more to do with status than with security. But the central feature of NATO strategy is the presence of American troops in Europe *** We may lack strength, we may lack unity, we may lack adequate command arrangements, we may even lack the territory to provide any defense in depth, but what we still have and must keep is the physical presence of American troops in Europe in sufficient numbers to make clear that they are a real force, not a token force, and that, in case of military action, they are there to fight and not merely to sound an alarm * ** The American divisions that we have there, if they are flexible, adaptable, mobile, and properly located, can make a very enormous difference as to whether things get out of hand or, instead, can be controlled. The American troops, along with the European troops, are there as a kind of hostage whose destruction would trigger a nuc response. The Soviet Government cannot suppose that a large-s attack on Western Europe could be even briefly restricted to conv tional forces, and therefore, if a massive attack is to be made, it surely begin with a nuclear strike against Western Europe and No America, not a march of great armies across NATO's eastern bou aries. The primary function of NATO's conventional forces, with t vital American component, is to meet a local crisis as effectively they can, posing the continuous threat that if the crisis continues enlarges, the risks of escalation continue and enlarge with itparticular the risks of nuclear war. To perform this function NA forces capable of containing a sizable, though limited, attack required. Anything less would be a standing temptation to So probes of allied mettle, and such probes would force the allies retreat or to engage in brinkmanship, with all the risks either cou would involve. It is sometimes said that if most of the American divisions nov Europe were brought home, they could be moved back in a cr This course would involve serious risks. For example: it would useless against a sizable surprise attack from the East if only beca the required airfields would probably be unavailable; it would ne sarily make a large crisis out of a small one; it would require a dram and perhaps difficult political decision to put American troops b into Europe; it runs the danger that returning too few troops wo look irresolute, while returning too many would look belliger it might be too slow to prevent a crisis from getting out of contro The mishandling by the West of a single emergency could profoun alter the prospects for stability in Europe. And in an emergency must be able, without any delay, to put military forces into sr confrontations to hold ground, not give it, and thus to improve diplomatic position. The need is for forces on the ready which act without unnecessarily difficult political preparations. The ability of SACEUR to move conventional forces, with a strong American component, in several crises in Berlin was important to the successful management of those crises. General Norstad told the subcommittee: It is argued in some places that conventional forces were Indeed, NATO's conventional power is needed not only to respond to emergencies that Moscow would deliberately contrive, but also to deal with the unforeseeable contingencies that history sometimes contrives-border incidents, upheavals in satellite nations that splash over the line, and so forth. It is, of course, the combat capability of conventional forces that counts. With the advance of technology it may be possible to make some redeployment of combat garrisons and their logistic and support elements now on the Continent without reducing the capability needed to meet the problems of deterrence and initial front-line defense. In time new developments in strategic mobility-both air and sea-and in tactical mobility and firepower may further add to conventional capabilities thereby allowing some reduction in land forces, although the experience in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam is not altogether encouraging in this respect. A technological advance by one side has often been offset by an advance on the other side. Moreover, if numbers are reduced by piecemeal cuts in NATOassigned units, the problem of preserving the organizational integrity and effectiveness of these units becomes more difficult. At least for the time being, any sizable cutback of American and British troops in Europe almost surely implies a greater reliance on nuclear weapons and their incorporation in military operations at a very early phase of hostilities. It is not self-evident that this would best serve the interests of the United States and its allies. Futhermore, force requirements are designed not only to contribute to deterrence and defense but also to fortify the diplomatic bargaining position of the West vis-à-vis the East, in particular to contribute to a controlled program of arms reduction and to a genuine European settlement. A critical question is the effect of a one-sided reduction in allied combat capability on the chances for a reciprocal East-West reduction in forces and for winning eventual Soviet acceptance of a stable European settlement. It is hard to see how the West can improve the bargaining position it has worked so long and hard to construct by weakening it-unilaterally. As the allies continue their search for answers to these questions a number of guiding principles seem pertinent: One. These delicate and complex issues should be examined and decided by all the NATO allies who wish to cooperate. The destiny and commitment of all Alliance members are involved. To exclude any member from the making of decisions on these vital issues would |