NATO's weakest link
Patrick Cosg rave
An important paper is about to go into circulation in Washington which will give rise to considerable concern about the future strategic posture of the Unites States around the world and which by implication, raises serious questions about both the future security of Great Britain and our future capacity to play our part in sustaining the Western Alliance. The authors of US Oversea Bases: problems of . projecting American military power abroad are Admiral Thomas. H. Moorer, a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Dr Alvin J. Cottrell, Director of Research at the Washington Centre for Strategic and International Studies. They have done their work in collaboration with Dr Henry Kissinger, who is now a consultant to the Centre, itself one of those typically American and typically high-powered institutions in which academic skill and experience of Political power are cross-fertilising agents in the preparation of influential analyses of world political and strategic trends. To read elle's way through some of the Centre's output, much of which is for limited circulation only, is to, as it were, eavesdrop on some of the most powerful minds in America in colloquy. It is not, at present, an encouraging experience. And, for anybody Who is British and concerned about our future security and our future posture in international affairs, it is a downright disheartening one. To put the Moorer-Cottrell paper into Perspective, particularly as far as our own country is concerned, it is necessary to make reference to an earlier paper from the Centre, written in January this year bY Dr Penelope Hartland-Thunberg, a gifted economist formerly employed by the CIA, who spends most of her time on e economics of defence problems. Her essay, 'The Political and Strategic Implications of Britain's Economic Problems', was written in January of this year and arose out of an intensive series of conversations with leading figures in the Administration and Congress, topped off bY an off the record symposium in New Y ork last December. The picture she draws of Britain's declining economic Power is a familiar one, and need not detain us long. Perhaps the most sig nificant facts about it are, first, the con tinuing regard in which we are held by our most important allies ('British dePlomatic prowess should not be under r,ated; their skill in these arts is finely 'toned') and, second, the pervasive gloom of her judgment about our future capacitY so to reinvigorate ourselves economically as to be able to play once more the central role in Western defence and diplomacy which tradition and necessity alike suggest is ours. Dr HartlandThunberg fears 'a ruthless slashing of external expenditure that would essentially represent a withdrawal from the international arena', particularly in the Mediterranean and from NATO. She believes that 'A sharp curtailment of external defence expenditures would have serious repercussions', which would lead, among other things, to a reduction even 'of the American commitment to Europe at a time when the Soviet Union is rearming to a frightening extent. Our present diplomatic activity in Southern Africa she regards essentially as ,a 'swansong' and she adds, The British no longer offer the strong support to US policies which we have come to expect, and we miss. it'. In chilling tones, she adds, 'Should they be forced to retreat even further, instead of being passive in regard to our initiatives, they might even become an adversary'. She is not impressed by the prospective advantages of our oil revenues, partly because so much of these is already committed, partly because, on our record, the likelihood is that we will fritter the advantage away.
It is important to remember that, particularly in his last couple of years as Secretary of State, Dr Kissinger came to take a gloomy view even of American will and capacity to sustain the level of global involvement which alone provides a barrier to the world-wide probing and thrusting of the Soviet Union. Already the United States, from being the dominant power in the Mediterranean, enjoys at best parity in that theatre; and she is in constant danger in the Indian Ocean. , Admiral Moorer and Dr coma now take the view that the constant contraction of United States overseas corn mitments of resources endangers the whole position of America as a world power. 'Even a cursory reading of present trends', they observe, 'suggests the evergrowing importance of the world's oceans as the media of the continuing strategic competition between the superpowers, as the conveyors and repositories of resources increasingly vital to the functioning of industrialised societies and as the arenas of potential new conflict. Yet, at the very time that these harbingers are becoming manifest, the United States contemplates progressive constrictions in the global infra-structure that has sustained US assets of forward deployment and strategic mobility: the world-wide network of US military bases and facilities'. It is a constant assumption that, psychologically and materially, a continued American overseas commitment is and will be dependent on the hearty co-operation of her allies. So depressed is Dr Hartland-Thunberg about the likely evolution of British policy, and so important does she consider the necessity to shore up Britain to be, that she foresees — with evidently authoritative support — that Congress will permit no further extensive credits to this country unless assurances are given about our future defence effort.
Let us take particularly the British commitments to NATO in Europe — in • the North Sea, the Mediterranean, and the continental land mass. Our significance in these areas lies not only in the weight of our physical contribution, but in the sensitive strategic and political position that we occupy. It should not be forgotten, of course, that the weight of the contribution has declined drastically: we have reduced our commitment in men and machines to below danger point (as Lord Carver said before his retirement). Perhaps more to the point, the internal balance of our forces is awry: we sustain our role in the Channel and the North Sea, not to mention the Mediterranean, with a Royal Navy at least one third of whose ships (according to the latest edition of Jane's Fighting Ships) are obsolete. In order to cover a decline in both man and machine power we have reor ganised our forces in Central Europe into divisions in such a way as both to weaken their effectiveness and make liaison with our allies more difficult. Finally, we ha.ve progressively reduced our amphibious and reinforcement capacity, so that it must now be doubted whether, say, we can fulfil our commitments to reinforce Scandinavia in the event of a Russian probe.
But, I repeat, this is not merely a question of materiel. The political struc-.
ture of NATO, with which the Americans are deeply concerned, is not only delicate, but, at the present, unbalanced. In order to maintain British interest, and in order to prevent the emerging dominance of a Franco-German axis, the Americans have supported us in the retention of commands to which our weakening contribution does not entitle us. It should be remembered that, while France has withdrawn from the overall NATO command, her contributions under the North Atlantic Treaty have diminished not one whit, and her armed forces have been kept in peak condition. The moment she decided to rejoin the high command structure she would have an almost overwhelming case for snatching the command of the Channel from the British Admiral who presently holds it and, since that Admiral also serves (under the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic, who is based in the United States) as Commander in Chief South Atlantic, there would be a strong case for taking that office away from us as well. Under the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe we are also responsible (through the British Commander in Chief North) for Norway, Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein. Today, however, our General Staff are uneasily aware that we no longer possess the capacity to move troops to that theatre even for an exercise and, to the extent that we do, we are dependent on the goodwill of the rail unions. Only the US Marines possess the technical ability to reinforce in the North — their airpower is commensurate with that of the whole RAF — and, in all logic, the command appointment should go to an American. Worse still, since the German contribution is now so much greater than our own, the Bonn government has an almost irresistible case for taking over the important appointment (in NATO jargon a Principal Subordinate Command) of Commander Northern Army Group. The Northern Army Group consists at present of four Corps, one British, one Dutch, one Belgian and one German. But the German Corps is the only one up to strength, the only one likely to deploy on time, and the only one with a full division in reserve. Finally, it seems unlikely — again given the steady deterioration of our contribution — that we can for very much longer successfully lay claim, as we do at present, to two of the principal air commands in the central NATO region. What concerns the Americans, of course, is not merely that we are no longer, in terms of what we are willing to contribute, entitled to all these high NATO offices, but that the politicians in our present government do not seem to care overmuch whether we continue to held them or not, while,a large section of the Labour Party is actively hostile even to our continued membership of NATO.
Cottrell and Moorer are, of course, more directly concerned with the attitudes and policies of Americans to overseas capacity than they are with the specific problems of any particular ally. Technically, their central proposition is that there is no substitute — not even in the form of the most advanced floating bases, controlled by the US Navy — for fixed bases; and in this respect they are most worried about the Western Pacific and the Mediterranean. But they have reason, too, to be concerned about the principal American bases in Britain, Holy Loch and Mildenhall — perhaps the most strategically important American airbase In the NATO theatre, and the likely focus of the air element in any US' response to a Russian challenge. These are the only substantial US facilities available since the withdrawal of troops from Ruislip. During the Middle Eastern war of 1973 the Americans were shocked to be refused the use of Mildenhall for flying supplies to Israel: this was not because they were irritated by the failure of the Heath government to support Israel in the same measure as they were doing. It was because the Mildenhall base was alerted as part of a world-wide response to a Soviet threat to intervene in the Middle East, and because the Americans understood, rightly or wrongly, that such usage as they required was allowed to them under the terms of their agreement with Britain. It is a matter of the most pressing concern to any American defence specialist that Mildenhall, with its super-sophisticated communications system and its favourable geographical position in East Anglia, might, in the future, not be fully available to the US air force in the event of crisis. The truth is, nonetheless, that relations between the two governments on the issue are at best uncertain. In the context of this argument, Holy Loch is of much less significance than Mildenhall: it is essentially a nuclear naval base, and nobody wants immediate or even early recourse to nuclear weapons in the event of a sudden crisis. It is, indeed, because of the ultimate nature of the nuclear weapon that a powerful, flexible and secure network of conventional overseas bases is essential to the alliance. If the United States were ever forced, in a single crisis or series of crises, to make the choice between surrender and the use of nuclear weapons the future of the world would be imperilled.
And no American strategist — and certainly neither Admiral Moorer, nor Dr Cottrell nor Dr Kissinger — is in any doubt about the large political component in any discussion about the use and abuse of bases. No agreement, however apparently watertight, can wholly cover the contingencies of dispute about when and whether a base or part of it may be activated. Only a virtually perfect, unhurried accord between allies can ensure maximum efficiency; and accord of this kind no longer exists between the United States and any of her European allies except Germany.
But it is vital to stress that problems in Europe, and problems centred on Britain, are only a part of the American concern. It is because they are only a tart that we should be considerably exercised by the erosion of American will and power. The world over the Americans now see that what Moorer and Cottrell call the "largely friendly world political and military environment" of the post-war years breaking up. Everywhere the very existence of bases is threatened by shifting political opinions. It may sometimes be — as in the case of the island base of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean — that the US must almost over-commit herself to a particular base in order to assuage doubts about her long-term devotion. It may be that — as in the case of Bahrain — a change in domestic politics will bring to an end the welcome the Americans have enjoyed. Even in the case of so loyal and dependent an ally as the Philippines, Moorer and Cottrell are concerned about future trends, and particularly about the prospects for the great bases of Subica Bay and Clark airbase. Nowhere, however, is the United States so committed to, and so tied in with, other countries as in the NATO area. Nowhere are the political problems more sensitive or more intractable. This, of course, reflects an American awareness of the strategic importance of Western Europe. It could well be, however, that if European problems become more and more difficult to resolve, and problems in the Western Pacific less so, that American leaders — beset in any event by an increasingly crit. ical public opinion — may prefer, on realistic grounds, to make their major effort in theatres other than the European. This would, of course, be fatal for us; but there is no sense in depending for ever on a continuance of US charity and US good sense.
From the moment when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour it has been a cardinal principle of British foreign policy to persuade or prevent the Americans from concentrating on the Pacific to the detriment of Europe. After the war, and particularly in the early 'fifties, this principle dominated Churchill's thinking about foreign policy. Most notably when Lord Home took a hand in the first Laos crisis, but generally throughout the time in office of every post-war British Foreign Secretary, the principle held good. It is only in very recent years — in this decade, in fact — that the principle has begun to be lost sight of, partly because so much of our energy has gone on fostering the economic integration of Western Europe, partly because our politicians have been either unable or unwilling to take the steps in politics and diplomacy that would sustain our intimacy with the US and most of all because our defence effort has everywhere been the victim of that sapPing of the will and growing parochialism of concern that has accompanied our enervating economic decline. I do not Want to suggest that the Americans are standing forth as Galahads while we take on the role of passive observers of our own fate. It is precisely because thinkers like Moorer and Cottrell are so deeply concerned about the weakening of the American will and the slackening of American strategic understanding that we Should be putting forth our best efforts to sustain the alliance. We should not be too depressed by the fact that we can no longer even think about matching the American output in men and arms: it is our political savvy, our moral commitment, and our appreciation of our 0. wn position as standing at a vital point in the complex chain that makes up the dispositions of the Western Alliance that are of concern. Who could have thought even a decade ago that a senior American strategic thinker could even contemplate, without being laughed out of court, the possibility that Britain might become an adversary? This has happened.
Of the many things we have to do by far the most important is the strengthening of the Navy in the Channel, the revival of our amphibious capacity, and the return of our forces in Central Europe to full establishment and more sensible deployment. To be sure, all this would be expensive. But every White Paper, and every political speech, that questions the need for looking to our defences is another paragraph in our death warrant. Moreover, gratifying though it is to hear the pundits of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies paying tribute to our political skill and resource, we should grasp that these are tributes constantly to be earned: to win with the Americans some of the arguments about Western strategy going on in the United States, we must earn our standing again and again: the imminent collapse of our authority in NATO will take that standing away from us, probably for ever. For gazing on that dread prospect with complacency we may one day pay with our lives.
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