France's bombe surprise
Sam White
Paris Well, have the French got the neutron 'bomb or haven't they? Put this way, the 'opportunities for teasing answers are end less and well-nigh irresistible, as was demonstrated last week when there was first a high-level leak that the French had tested successfully a neutron bomb device and then a declaration by the Minister of Defence before the Foreign Affairs Commission of the National Assembly that the report was just `newspaper talk'. Earlier the Foreign Minister had been more evasive and more explicit: perhaps they had and perhaps they hadn't. It all depended on what you meant by `a device' and what you meant by testing. All of which drove the Communist members of the Commission into a frenzy of fury and frustration in which • the two ministers basked as though they were sunbathing. After all, why should they tell? Is not uncertainty both as to its use tactically and strategically and as to its capacity an essential ingredient of the 'inevitably modest atomic deterrent such as 'the French? And is it not wise to make the fullest political and diplomatic use of it when occasion offers? And of course the 'occasion could not have been better, coming two weeks after President Carter's .announcement that the US would suspend its neutron bomb programme in the face of Soviet hostility and two weeks before President Giscard was to address the United Nations on disarmament.
Both the leak and the ambiguous denials were nicely timed. We probably get nearer the facts of the matter when we examine a statement made by the French Defence Minister, M. Bourges, in the course of a recent visit to Moscow. Asked there if France intended to develop the neutron bomb, Bourges replied that France did not Intend to debar itself from any form of nuclear research nor from any form of development of its atomic armament and that he did not see any greater moral evil in a neutron bomb than in any other tactical nuclear weapon. This was a fairly clear Indication that France had the capacity to develop a neutron bomb —as indeed no one has ever doubted — and as it had in it a tactical weapon par excellence, it would not
hesitate to do so. The fury of the Soviet reaction to the American neutron bomb programme and the fact that M. Bourges made his statement in Moscow in the course of an official reception added considerable spice to his declaration. The neutron bomb is not only a supreme tactical weapon but a supreme anti-tank weapon. Here again it does not so much knock out the tanks as kill their crews, some in the immediate vicinity instantly, others in a matter of two or three days.
One of the problems connected with its use is therefore the macabre one of whether the tank crews doomed to die will press on to their objectives while knowing that their balls will drop off in a matter of the next day or two, or give up in panic. Another and more serious one is whether the enemy, knowing or suspecting that the weapon may be used against it, will not make a preemptive tactical atomic strike against the defenders' entire military infrastructure, including the tactical nuclear forces.
The real problem, however, is not there. The real problem lies in two totally different conceptions concerning the defence of Europe —the American and the French one. The Americans would like to delay the use of tactical nuclear weapons for as long as possible in the event of attack, while the French wish to resort to them immediately. For the French, a conventional war, even if it finally escalates to a nuclear one, is a war lost already, while to the Americans only a `graduated response' — to use the famous phrase — can avert a suicidal nuclear exchange between the two super-powers. That is why Carter's decision on the neutron bomb sent a shiver down West German spines and left the French relatively indifferent.
For this is a weapon which only makes sense in a European context, not in an intercontinental one. The Carter decision therefore meant that Washington was not prepared in the face of Russian threats to reinforce Europe's defence with the latest in nuclear tactical weapons. For the French all this was old hat. They had already decided on a nuclear response if France were threatened, thereby forcing America's hand by so doing. It was the famous 'trip wire' theory in reverse: instead of a conventional one, as provided by NATO, it
would be an atomic one as provided bY France. This was the theory, and it remains the theory. It explains why France pulled out of the integrated command structure of NATO and it explains why, while remaining a member of the Atlantic alliance, it would make no sense for it to re-enter NATO.
This leads naturally to the question of hoW French defence policy has changed since de Gaulle's day, if at all. The answer is that the tone has changed and the acrimony has gone out of the debate but basically it has not changed by so much as a millimetre.
Oddly enough, and I say oddly enough because both concepts were bitterly con
tested at the time, a general consensus has
been built up around both the independent deterrent and the pull-out from NATO. It is
now inconceivable for France to go back on these two major decisions taken by de Gaulle.
True, both Gaullists and Comniun• ists find it expedient to accuse Giscard now and then of intending to go back on them or actually doing so, but the charges add up to nothing more than propaganda exercises. True, too, that there is increasing collaboration, with NATO, but this cot. laboration already existed in de Gaulle's day. True, finally, that the doctrine of .`toul azimut' — defence in all directions has been quietly dropped, but this was never more than a political expedient which suited de Gaulle at the time and which had no effect on the country's strategic di positions. It originated with de Gaulle's pioneering efforts at detente and received a temporary strengthening with fears that through NATO's links with' SEATO, Europe might be dragged into a spreading Vietnamese war. Two years ago a great debate broke out over a speech by General Wry, Chief of the General Staff, advocating a forward defence of France by moving French tactical nuclear weapons on to West German soil. This seemed at first sight to be an abandonment of the `sanctuary' theorY according to which such weapons would only be used if France itself was attacked. The debate however fizzled out because the French have no intention of moving the14r Pluton weapons out of the country an" there does not even appear to be a con" tractual arrangement to move them in the event of war. The old dream which scull romantic Gaullists nurtured — but not, think, the General — that France might replace the United States as the illor,a credible protector of West Germany is fact dead as the dodo. It has long hea" replaced and this was the case even in de Gaulle's day with the realistic view that for Bonn it is either American protection °I. neutralism. This is at the root of the apParai ent contradiction —more apparent then re —of the whole French position on defence. While proclaiming its independence fill° NATO, Paris vies with Bonn in its desperate desire to keep the US in Europe.
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