Seize the Moment

by Richard Nixon

  While Germany’s power will inevitably grow, the key question is how it will be used. Germany is not a potential rogue state or threat to its neighbors. The changes wrought by forty years of democracy and close association with Western institutions have transformed its society. But Germany must undergo a profound adjustment. During the cold war, free Germany lacked the power and confidence to chart an independent foreign policy and felt compelled to maintain a tight alliance with the West. With the waning of the cold war, that has changed. While still limited by the legacies of World War II, Germany is now tentatively staking out its new European and global roles. Our challenge lies in helping the Germans define constructive ways to use their new power.

  There are two key concerns. The first centers on the reemergence of Germany’s geopolitical tradition of keeping one foot in the East and one in the West. The cooperation between Imperial Germany and Tsarist Russia, the covert rearming of Germany after World War I, Germany’s role in the industrialization of Soviet Russia under the Rapallo Treaty, and the division of Eastern Europe between Hitler and Stalin marked the darkest chapters of that tradition.

  In the Gorbachev era, signs of an emerging special German-Soviet relationship were troubling. German leaders fell victim to the myth that close economic ties would inevitably lead to amicable political relations. In October 1990, Chancellor Kohl stated in a major speech, “The extensive development of German-Soviet relations plays a key role in pan-European responsibility. It must be borne in mind that the united Germany lies at the heart of a no longer divided but merging Europe. This bridging function will obviously yield tangible economic benefits for us and our partners.”

  Although he played a courageous and historic role in achieving German unity, Kohl’s policy of pandering to Gorbachev was wrong. Germany has given or promised to give $35 billion in government aid to the Kremlin in the period from 1989 to the August 1991 coup. This was at a time when Moscow’s ability to service its foreign debt had become doubtful at best and when Gorbachev not only continued to challenge Western interests but had also entered a tight alliance with Communist hard-liners. Unless targeted to help legitimate nationalist and democratic forces in the republics rather than the discredited structures of the center, German aid could prop up a dying system and seriously undermine Western interests.

  The second concern about Germany focuses on its blatantly irresponsible technology-export policies. Because of its constricted political role during the cold war, Germany threw its national energies into the economic sphere, particularly world trade. This evolved into a practice of selling anything to anyone who had the money, regardless of the potential political or military consequences. German firms designed and built the plant in Rabta, Libya, that has given Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi the capability to build chemical weapons. They were the principal contractors for Saddam Hussein’s network of hardened command bunkers. Apart from Jordan, more firms from Germany sought to break the U.N.-sanctioned blockade of Iraq than from any other country. In the area of technology transfers, rising German power needs to be matched with a greater sense of strategic responsibility.

  Gradually unifying but protectionist Western Europe. After World War II, many observers remarked that the best Europeans were Americans. U.S. enthusiasm for achieving West European unity, expressed through the Marshall Plan and its advocacy of the European Economic Community, exceeded that of all our major allies except Italy. The breakthrough came with the signing of the Single European Act by the original twelve EC members in 1986. Economic integration is to take place in 1992, with a common currency to be introduced in the late 1990s. By shifting so many economic policy issues to Brussels, the influence of European political institutions has grown. And the desire to carve out a world role for Europe has increasingly led to coordination of foreign and defense policies.

  A united Europe has not only advantages but also disadvantages for the United States. We clearly benefit from the rise of a stronger and more cohesive political unit to balance Russia, thereby permitting a reduction in our military role in Europe. We will also gain from having more active partners in Europe to grapple with regional crises around the world. But unfortunately, a united Europe, with a greater GNP than that of the United States, is becoming a “fortress Europe.”

  The closer post-1992 Europe comes, the more protectionist the European Community becomes. European companies received an average of $115 billion a year in state subsidies during the 1980s, a practice that shows no signs of abating. Today, the annual subsidy for state-owned steel companies is $225 million. If a ship is built with subsidized steel, the builder can get an additional 13 percent in shipbuilding subsidies from the community. Airbus, the European aerospace consortium, receives an estimated $20 billion in subsidies, while Air France raked in $400 million and the Belgian airline Sabena requested $1 billion. Unless the European Community starts to open its domestic markets, it is inevitable that the rest of the world will close theirs.

  Some observers have questioned whether European economic integration has become incompatible with U.S. interests. On the whole, the strategic benefits continue to outweigh the economic costs of rising protectionism. But as European security concerns are reduced and as economic issues assume greater relative importance, the United States can no longer automatically support unity at any price.

  Collapse of Soviet communism. The August 1991 revolution has created an unprecedented opportunity to base peace not on the balance of military power but on the foundation of common Western values.

  Since the end of World War II, all Communist Soviet leaders consistently pursued four objectives in Europe. They wanted the United States out of Europe. They wanted a denuclearized Europe. They wanted NATO dissolved. And they wanted a neutral Germany. It is ironic that despite the Soviet defeat in the cold war, Gorbachev came closer to achieving these objectives than at any point during the cold war. While Americans love checkers, Gorbachev knew chess and played to win. In the new Europe, he played for position, thinking ahead ten moves in the hope of boxing us into moves that would inevitably have led to a Soviet checkmate.

  In the Gorbachev period, the Soviet Union tried to seduce Germany into a middle ground between East and West and hoped that the United States—unsure of its security mission in a Europe that no longer recognizes a Soviet threat—would lack the domestic support for spending tens of billions of dollars on Europe’s defense. A gradual U.S. disengagement would have opened the path for the Soviet Union—the strongest conventional power and the only nuclear superpower in Europe—to dominate the continent. Moscow would not have attacked the countries of Western Europe militarily but would have exercised a silent veto over their security policies and could have used its military dominance to extract economic assistance from them as tribute.

  Today, the question is how much has changed. In the past, Russian and Soviet tsars sought to borrow ideas from Europe in order to try to acquire the power to dominate Europe. The new Soviet revolution represents a historic opportunity to break with that imperial tradition. The new governments in Moscow and the former Soviet republics can now borrow from Europe’s free-market and democratic traditions in order to become part of Europe philosophically, as well as geographically.

  • • •

  With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the traditional rationale for the U.S. role in Europe has been dealt a fatal blow. In 1971, the Mansfield amendment—which would have halved the U.S. military presence in Europe—was defeated by only one vote in the Senate. It is only a matter of time before a modern-day Mansfield amendment calling for a total withdrawal is introduced in Congress. Some on the American left argue that our new emphasis should be on domestic issues and that our victory in the cold war allows us to shake off old commitments. Others on the American right argue that a Europe fully recovered from World War II should not need the assistance of the United States and should pay the bills for its own defense. Many Europeans, tired of NATO low-altitude training flights and exhausted by
forty years of brinkmanship, simply want the Americans to pack up and go home.

  All of these arguments are flawed. First, two world wars have proved that the United States ignores events in Europe at its own peril. Had we been engaged in Europe, rather than sulking in isolation after World War I, we could have tipped the balance of power against the aggressors, possibly deterring rather than fighting World War II. Despite the waning of the cold war, the United States has major political and economic interests in Europe. Our commitment to Europe is based not on philanthropy but on interests. The U.S. role in NATO is not only needed on its merits but also gives us significant indirect leverage in addressing such issues as the Persian Gulf crisis and trade disputes. Without a military presence in Europe, we will have no voice in Europe.

  In a historical perspective, Europe has been an even less stable place than the Middle East. The rigid stability of a Europe divided into two cold war camps has been the exception for a continent buffeted by centuries of war and instability. With the end of the cold war, Europe will not descend into fratricidal war, but the possibility for conflict and armed clashes will persist and even increase. Yugoslavia’s civil war is a case in point. It is astonishing that the return of open warfare in Europe has not set off alarm bells in every European capital. The intermingling of scores of ethnic groups and the myriad competing territorial claims throughout the continent create endless possibilities for conflict and particularly as the relationships among the newly independent Soviet republics are sorted out. We have a profound stake in preventing the return of armed conflict to Europe. If we abandon our major role in Europe, we will relegate ourselves to the position of supporting cast, effectively writing ourselves out of any significant part in Europe’s new geopolitical script.

  Second, though more self-reliant, Europeans still need a security relationship with the United States. The two major reasons for the creation of NATO forty-four years ago were to deter Soviet aggression and to provide a secure home for the Germans. Those reasons are still valid today. While the threat of aggression by the newly independent former Soviet republics is now minimal, the idea that four centuries of Russian and Soviet expansionist tradition will instantly evaporate might be comforting but cannot be counted upon. The former Soviet Union still has thousands of strategic nuclear warheads targeted on the United States, the most powerful conventional army in Europe, and a modern blue-water navy. Yeltsin has already made some welcome changes in Moscow’s foreign policy. But Russia is a major world power, and the Russians are a proud people. We should not automatically assume that a democratic Russia will be an international pussycat.

  Europe needs a security structure. A NATO with a major U.S. leadership role has played an indispensable role not only in shielding Western Europe during the cold war but also as an example to the nations of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Today, no alternative security structure exists. Until a viable substitute evolves and proves itself, we would be making an irrevocable error in dismantling NATO or disengaging from NATO. In a period of massive instability in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, we should be exploring ways to preserve NATO rather than looking for ways to eliminate it.

  Some observers argue that a post-1992 superstate can unify the cacophony of European views and speak with one voice in addressing all these concerns. But that vision has become a pipe dream. Concrete national differences over policy, not petty parochial disputes over procedure, have kept Europeans divided. And they will continue to do so. In the Persian Gulf crisis, our European allies scattered like a flock of quail. A few, particularly Britain and France, fought side by side with our troops in the Kuwaiti deserts. But most, especially Germany, stuck their heads in the sand. In Yugoslavia’s internal crisis, mediators from the European Community responded like Keystone Kops. During the initial phases of the crisis, European powers split over whether to support the Communist Serbian and central government or the democratic secessionist republics of Slovenia and Croatia. The community sent teams to act as ceasefire observers but did not marshal its massive political and economic leverage to demand a nonviolent resolution based on democratic self-determination. In its first major political play in the post-cold-war period, Europe fumbled the ball.

  No single locus of decision-making exists among our European allies. Aristotle was profoundly perceptive when he wrote that government by the many or government by the few cannot act as efficiently as government by one. In foreign policy, a single point of executive authority is indispensable for decisive action. The premise of those who foresaw the emergence of a European superstate was that Germany would become its natural leader. But the Germans, hamstrung by pacifist tendencies during the Gulf crisis and preoccupied with the costs of unification, forfeited the role. In the meantime, the rest of Europe no longer views German leadership as the answer. Britain and France—who performed decisively in the Gulf—do not wish to defer to Berlin. And the rise of a unified Germany, which dwarfs all other European countries in size, has prompted fears that German leadership will inevitably mean German domination.

  The question is not whether but how the United States should maintain its presence in Europe. If we seek to build a common transatlantic home, we must find ways to include those nations in Eastern Europe and among the newly independent republics of the Soviet Union who accept our democratic values. We must also define common purposes and missions with our traditional allies that will give direction to our partnership. While much will depend on the direction of change in the former Soviet republics, a common transatlantic home should be built on five pillars:

  1. NATO guarantees for Eastern Europe. Soon after their liberation, the East European democracies began casting about for new security arrangements. At first, they sought to elevate the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) into a new all-European collective security arrangement. Then, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary discussed the formation of a trilateral partnership of their own. Later, all three began floating the idea of creating some kind of “associate status” with the NATO alliance. While NATO has welcomed observers from the new democracies at its headquarters, no concrete security commitment has been expressed or implied. A common transatlantic home requires us to be more responsive to East European security needs.

  Collective security through the CSCE is a nonstarter. It has thirty-five diverse members even before the newly independent republics of the Soviet Union are added to its ranks. Its rules requiring unanimity for action create insurmountable hurdles for collective defense. It would recreate the days of the League of Nations, when aggressors could veto collective actions designed to stop them. Moreover, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe is just that: a conference, a diplomatic process, not a real bricks-and-mortar institution. It cannot provide tangible security arrangements, such as the integrated military structure of NATO. Unless institutionalized and bolstered with well-trained and well-equipped forces, the CSCE can never contribute more than added confidence-building measures and a forum for discussion. In a major crisis, it will never be capable of doing more than adopting nonenforceable, wrist-slapping resolutions.

  While we should encourage the creation of a trilateral security organization linking Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, we must not delude ourselves into thinking that alone such action suffices. It is tempting to assume that the defeat of communism will leave peace in its wake and allow all the nations of Europe to focus on economic development. With the profound political instability and dire economic situation in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the region could still become a geopolitical demolition derby. In any wrenching economic crisis, the potential exists for the rise of demagogues, who might play not only on the pain of the transition to the free market but also on virulent nationalism. In Yugoslavia, Serbian Communists have traded on ultranationalism both to keep power and to launch a civil war. While current Russian leaders have combined their nationalism with democracy, we cannot exclude the possibility that o
thers might later emerge who might vent its darker side. If concern still exists about Germany, which has had a democratic government for forty years, there will be even more reason for concern about Russia, which has had a democratic government for less than one year. To put the East Europeans up against Russia would be like fielding an Ivy League football team against the Washington Redskins.

  As Europe’s only time-tested security structure, NATO should seek to find ways to fill the security vacuum in Eastern Europe, particularly over the next decade when the uncertainty centering on instability within the former Soviet Union will run the highest. This does not mean that NATO members should immediately extend its full Article 5 commitment—“an armed attack on one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack on all of them”—to the new democracies. But it does mean that we should think in more subtle terms than an all-or-nothing guarantee. NATO, after all, functions at various levels, including political consultation, military cooperation, and participation in its integrated military command. Because they share our values and because the current vacuum creates an incentive for adventurism, the East European democracies must be brought into NATO’s security sphere without granting them immediate full partnership.

  In the short term, while Soviet troops complete their pull-out from Eastern Europe, NATO should foster political ties with Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, the only former satellites that have become full-fledged democracies. The United States and its Western European allies should unambiguously declare that NATO has a critical interest in the survival and security of these new democracies. With the collapse of Soviet communism, there is no reason to withhold such a commitment. While the June 1991 NATO statement of concern for Eastern Europe’s security was an excellent beginning, we must go further, putting down a marker that no potential aggressor could ignore. By linking our commitment to democratic rule in East European countries, it will give added incentive to these nations to avoid a reversion to authoritarianism.