Gateway to ideas; 19; #19 "The US and the Western Alliance" with Quincy Howe

Gateway to ideas. Uh. Huh. I am weak and. I am. I am. You are a. Gateway to ideas. A new series of conversations in which ideas are discussed in relation to reading. Today's program. The United States in the Western alliance is moderated by Quincy how the editor of Atlas magazine our subject today is the United States and the Western alliance. Our guests are professors Richard Lowe in the fall and William Fox Richard lone fall holds the chair of international relations at the Free University of Berlin. This year he is a visiting scholar at Columbia University's Research Institute and communist affairs. Mr. Lone fall's most recent book is world communism the disintegration of a secular faith published by Oxford University Press. William T R Fox is

professor of international relations at Columbia University and director of its Institute of War and Peace Studies. He's the author of many books including The Super Power us and with Mrs. Fox is now out on a new book to be entitled Naipaul and the range of American choice and maybe Mr. Fox you could start us going by telling a little about this new book. Nate how in the range of American choice. Well Mr. how NATO's something that's been changing over the last 15 years and as it has changed it's posed a lot of problems for United States foreign policy. And as the European countries have revived to become more prosperous and have wanted to resume their initiative in world politics our participation in NATO's has had more of an impact back on our political system of course because the United States is so big in relation to many of its NATO partners. It's a very real

problem for our NATO allies to figure out how they can get in on the American debate before our policy has hardened so. When we talk about I talk about NATO in the range of American choice I'm talking about the kind of options which our participation in NATO opens up for us and also closes for us because of the necessity of being an ally as well as having an ally I suppose from a land of professional on fall where you live and work. The German role in this situation is almost as vital as the American one are at any rate it has undergone great changes in line with what Mr. Fox was just saying about prosperity. Well how Certainly Germany Germany is the most exposed country of the alliance and the country where in fact the conflicts took place which gives the old original

push to the creation of the alliance in some sense it might be said that the creation of neato was a byproduct of the Berlin blockade in 1948 and more recently the New Berlin crisis started by couche off in 1958. It was the greatest test that Nate took as an alliance has undergone in more recent times. On the other hand it is true that the Western Germany from being an object of competition between east and west and a Western protection particularly under outstandingly American protection has lately become an important factor in its own right economically to some extent even militarily and even first of all is rather modest. The number of divisions which which Germany is contributing to the

western Orange is so much greater than the latter. Any of the other European allies that I think perhaps you understate the case when you say even a little militarily. Well I think the modesty is not so much personal but it is somewhat in that respect in the German atmosphere. The Germans do not like to emphasize this very much. They are more conscious of the economic swings than of their contribution to military slings Woodsy. But finally there is one the political will I think has come letus for a long time Germany Western Germany's a federal republic that was chiefly anxious to be a good ally to keep in to be one of the community. And it is only more lately if they have come up more seriously with

political and national aims of their own. This I think is due to one of the major changes that Nader has undergone in recent years and that is the weakening of belief in the West European political integration which is associated above all with the role of president the go. I think that is the growing rarely zation in western Germany that the goal not only has barred the door against Britain but is not going to have any form of political unity. That is that would affect French server and too much has led to a greater leap thinking also of German national

interests. German national identity and to a certain shift of qualities. This hasn't happened dramatically as there hasn't been a great debate but somehow one feels that under the harsh word of the government the problem of whether anything could be practically done to win you the unification neither is seen is more urgent and it's a problem of the West European merging as less urgent and it used to be under the No. In other words you might say that the simple drawing of Grand Designs doesn't seem to have as much meaning as the settlement of actual issues. The folks I would like very warmly to agree with this film and of course it wasn't very

urgent was it created to Russian Pasha. I wonder if this isn't a good time to go back and try to put NATO in a whole stream of American policy. I think you can see continuity in U.S. policy in the determination of this country not to have the continent of Europe dominated by any one power a Europe which was managed by one power would be large enough so that it would beyond be beyond the resources of the United States to live with comfortably in World War Two it seemed to us in America that Nazi Germany in combination with the other two members of the fascist trip was. Was threatening to just assume that dominant position after the war after the power of Hitler had been destroyed and his armies were prostrate. The Americans and the Russians looked out across a ruined

Germany and saw each other. And in this situation there was bound to be some form of unified response from the west. Now the particular form which it took was a product of a series of events really that began with the Prague coup in February 1948 which includes the Berlin blockade which includes the alarm that the West felt when the Russians exploded their first atomic weapon so that Europe including Germany would have to be protected by other than just atomic arms from then on and finally of course by the Korean aggression. They may tell the North Atlantic pact was signed before the Korean War but NATO as we know it an integrated military organization is a product of the period since the beginning of the Korean War when we in America and our friends in Britain France and Germany and the other NATO countries

began to take very seriously the Soviet threat. In fact they a main theme of the Robert Oz the book The One and titled NATO's the entangling alliance is a description no the transformation of a sort of old fashioned military guarantee which is just a piece of paper that says will come in to a rather elaborate set of arrangements which includes billions of dollars worth of investments in. Pipelines communication systems SHAPE headquarters which includes the travel back and forth across the North Atlantic the foreign ministers and defense ministers and heads of state and of the whole elaborate system of organization which in peacetime goes far beyond anything that I think who's really been known in other times of course there have been staff conversations in

peacetime and other times but the political collaboration is really I think been quite intense through the decade of the 50s now in the 60s as the strap of immediate war seems last and as. Uncle Sam is less obviously simply the banker for the West. Americans are discovering that we don't get this perfect consensus among all the governments of the West as to what ought to be done that seemed to come so easily in the hour of more immediate difficulty in the early 1950s so we now see the Western alliance having to too labor under conditions which are on the one hand less threatening that are on the other hand a little more difficult to operate from the point of view of an American president who might somehow or other think that he was the leader of the West. And that Professor Long Fall wasn't up to General de Gaulle perhaps the first major

statesman to what see and act on this easing of tensions that Mr. Fox has just touched upon. That is the question an open question Mr. Holm because I think the general who goes could the system of the present structure of the alliance begin in a time when tension was at its height and was not easing that people in. And the immediate reason I think was the fact of military technology. I mean the development of the intercontinental missiles by the Soviets. This fact meant that the potential balance of terror between the Soviet Union and the United States which up to then had been a valid other an even balance because of the enormous geographical advantage of the American ring of bases around the Soviet Union began

to become a more even balance. The United States for the first time became in principle is vulnerable to atomic and Soma nuclear weapons as a Soviet Union and the countries in between have been for some time and forms that moment on the threat of atomic or tell you action against any type of Soviet attack in Europe. You lost some of its credibility to not all thank God not all. Otherwise I don't know what would have happened. But it lost some and it caused general to go. In 1958 when you came to power to doubt the automatism of American nuclear participation in in the fall so it would be better to take out an insurance policy and have a French trigger. Exactly and this is really the beginning of what is sometimes called the crisis of

late. So it didn't start in a time of easing of changing but in a time when Soviet threats were very acute and the Soviets were virtually telling the West Europeans that there was a host to use for American good behavior. Well you were talking about books a moment ago. Professor Fox this summer is this more recent relaxation of tension would seem to be the background of this book by Rommel Steele although he called on the end of the an end of an alliance now. Maybe he's comes in a little bit later than the situation that Professor lone fall was describing but that he seems to attribute the present state of the world partly to a relaxation of tension and he rather explains to gold policy in the light of of that analysis would you agree with what Mr. Steele says there with his well I think I would. I think I would want to. And the goals interest in having the independent French atomic

striking power. It's somewhere in the same range of considerations that led the British to think they wanted to have an independent atomic striking power and this carries a sway back since the French since the British decision was really made under a Labor government before 1951 and the goals of atomic striking forces the result of plans which were laid during the Fourth Republic and which have matured only since he came so I think we have to conclude that at some time both Britain and France were going to feel that it was desirable to be able to speak with a little bit more authority inside the alliance. By having some evidence of having mastered the primary military technology of our time you mentioned the steel book I think that one of

the small books which is well oriented to a contemporary state of the alliance is the one by Alastair Bach and titled neato in the sixties. There is a second edition which does take account of some of the more recent developments and a buck and I think it has been particularly good emphasizing the restiveness of European allies who. Are less willing than formerly simply to wait for American decisions and then conform to them and this gets us back to a point which I mentioned at the very beginning that the American political process is one in which the other partners would like to see decisions at least held up until they've had a chance to speak. If you were agreeing with what he was saying for the long haul yes I would agree that there is of course a factor of traditional national

power politics that is independent from any particular changing international situation except that it gets stronger with the general feeling of the recovery of strength of some of the European countries. But I would say that in addition to the simple fact of Britain having maintained some. Independent I think not practically very independent no law no barrier and no help for it or symbolic importance to the Arabs of greater importance for domestic political self-respect and in that sense a rather expensive political toy as which is of course of you many people also take of the new French force the FRAP. But in addition to this conditional factor I do things it sees sense of greater doubt of the automatism of American protection that began in fifty eight

and then in the second wave. This question of the period of the count and the possibility to use it for independent polices have played a role. It's the interesting thing is that we seem to have arrived at a stage where both periods of danger and of the leg zation seem to push. Need to in the same direction of of greater desire for in the end. But political independence and battle of cause goes conceptions which you Mr mentioned before play an important role and I would agree is that the goal has developed some kind of vision or word could be done by an independent France or as a by a French led you up in a situation of detente. I say some

kind of with you because I'm not sure that it's very clear to me and I'm not even sure as it's very clear to him. Well. I wonder if perhaps we aren't saying that a sense of detente has created not just on our side of what used to be called the Iron Curtain but on the other side a sense that it's a little bit safer to play dirty tricks on one's major allies. When when a military technology is developing which seems to make reciprocal deterrence quite a stable sort of thing. But there is still around the edge this little credibility thing. These two things both work together to make one just a little more willing than formerly to be disrespectful. They are the central power in the grand alliance and this appears to be

true not just on our side but on their side so there is a little a little loosening of the blocks on both sides with in fact it would appear to us here in New York that the Russians are having more trouble with Peking than the Americans are with Paris. I think these are really two incompatible things of an incompatible incomparable order. Certainly Pete King is in a sense a major power and a potential problems or not yet an actual one in which I don't think any European power at this stage can be considered a potential world power and also the differences are much much harsher. Because they all become they all this effort to take ideological form between communist allies. One of the blessings often here to Alliance which is sometimes

considered but people lack is that we don't have a formal common ideology because these communist powers having to justify their every step by ideology of course get when they have major practical differences at once in ideological schism as we have seen but the comparables thing is one of I think what has happened in Eastern Europe compared to was it happening in the Western Europe. Yes Yugoslavia Yes loosening up is a losing up as has been lately the most striking symptom and I would agree is that. That this is partly made possible by the background of the nuclear stalemate between the major powers. This is of course the CSRs which has long been advanced by world Ross store under the title of the diffusion of power and repeated in his latest book

The view from the seventh floor. And it is also the theme of George Cannon's latest book on dealing with the communists. Our present long hall whereas China is perhaps potentially more important as a world power on the other side than any of the. Western European powers is our side that the countries of Eastern Europe taken individually are less important and the block letters Britain France and Germany you and Carmen wrote and the relative importance somewhere between China on the one hand and Roumania on the other. Almost certainly and there is of course a question which is one of the ideas of the go that what he envisages as an independent Western Europe would

have a great power of attraction was these smaller East European countries now that their tags to Soviet Union and the Soviet Unions or so it is loosening. I can see the strength of this idea and the importance of this vision. After all any European whatever his nationality and his politics mostly got the pleasant part. The injured partition line the heart of your spirit and gently alters was out of Germany and is approved as a permanent presence of entrenched Soviet and American troops on both sides of that line is an unnatural aunt. The state of affairs something a paradox of of modern history and anybody must somehow wish that their way could be found to to overcome that partition. What I can't see Indigos which is how he can imagine

he could get it as the new UPS it would be so strong as by its own policy so to speak. To get a little of both Russians and Americans it would seem to me much more logical for West European to hope with the help of the Americans to get the Russians to withdraw and to lie on it. That if the Russians would withdraw for good the Americans would be only too happy to withdraw themselves. It would indeed. We're finding it a great strain to keep 4 5 6 divisions in western Germany. I want to go back for a moment to preserve on Saul's comment that the Western Alliance has a rather an ideological base. The one of the interesting things after the war and one of the important transformations that came out of the Second World War seems to me a general

notion that somehow or other the Atlantic community boasts both sides of the North Atlantic formed an area which was a true zone of peace. It was a true zone of peace in the sense that general staffs really ceased to make contingent plans for war between the various parts. And the reason why I think this is interesting is because it seems clear to me that this sense that the Atlantic community was a Zone of Peace has preceded the establishment of institutions in the Atlantic community the formation of NATO's the formation of Integrated of integrated military organization and shaped west of Paris. All of the gimmickry and machinery that people are constantly inventing which are supposed to produce further solidarity seem to have seem to follow the solidarity rather than the preceded. So we have here we may be talking about the end of an alliance. When will people like Ronald

steel write books under that title. But we seem to have here a group which hangs together even though it argues about the form in which it ought to hang together and that I think is a fact of first rate importance in this fourth fifth of the 20th century uses seems to be a gradual broadening of something which started in the 19th century between the United States and Canada and the United States and Britain. Here's what my colleague because they tell you Columbia professor Bradner called the North Atlantic triangle. Yes so that is good I grew up. Automatic assumption that there could be no war among these countries and this has broadened to take in Western Europe as a result to some extent of two world wars and the alliances of two world wars and I do agree that this is a very vital fact. I would say however

that there was one country that in the two world wars was on the other side namely Germany and that as late as the end of the second book world nobody thought in terms of any possibility of a future. With regard to Germany but on the contrary there was a gentle and very not natural feeling of taking permanent security measures against Germany and the idea that Germany could form part of such a long term zone of peace. Zit seems to be a product of the alliance and of the interglacial measures in western in the atomic age perhaps Landseer comic age and not a basis of it but an outcome. So you know I think gentleman you reached a not only agreement but you have brought this whole discussion to a logical and clear conclusion and thank you both very much Professor law and all of us a fox.

You've been listening to gateway to ideas a new series of conversations in which ideas are discussed in relation to reading. Today's program the United States and the Western alliance has presented William T.R. Fox professor of international relations at Columbia University and director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies also participating was Richard Loe unthaw who holds the chair of international relations at the Free University of Berlin. The moderator was Quincy Howe editor of Atlas magazine to extend the dimensions of today's program for you a list of the books mentioned in the discussion as well as others relevant to the subject has been prepared. You can obtain a copy from your local library or by writing to gateway to ideas post office box 6 for 1 Time Square Station New York. Please enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope like a box 6 for 1 Time Square Station New York gateway to ideas is produced for a national educational radio under a grant from the National Home Library Foundation.

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