New Challenges to NATO Strategy

By James Kelly

Four foreign policy experts question the "first-use" doctrine

It looked like a reunion of the best and the brightest, as four former architects of U.S. foreign policy sat together at a crowded press conference in Washington Last week. Spokesman for the group was Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968. Flanking him were McGeorge Bundy, National Security Adviser to John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson; George F. Kennan, former Ambassador to the Soviet Union and the grand old man of U.S. diplomacy; and Gerard Smith, chief negotiator of SALT I.

"My associates and I believe that incomparably the greatest threat to the future of our country--and all countries--is the threat of nuclear war," declared McNamara, articulating the quartet's cause: to persuade the U.S. and its NATO allies to pledge not to use nuclear weapons against a conventional Soviet attack in Europe.

Ever since NATO was founded in 1949, the U.S. has held open the "first-use" option of employing nuclear weapons to repel a conventional Soviet attack in Europe, because the Warsaw Pact countries enjoy a considerable advantage over the West in total numbers of ground troops and tanks. Indeed, jittery Western Europeans urged the Truman Administration to adopt the first-use policy, and it has lasted for more than three decades with the full agreement of the alliance.

In an article called "Nuclear Weapons and the Atlantic Alliance,'' which was published last week in the spring issue of Foreign Affairs, McNamara and his colleagues argue that this strategic doctrine is antiquated even dangerous, and should be discarded. Since both superpowers now have such huge arsenals, the four contend, it is unlikely that any nuclear fighting could be limited to Europe. It would escalate into "general nuclear war, which would bring ruin to all and victory to none." The authors argue, furthermore, that first use is no longer credible because the U.S. would then be ensuring its own destruction, and Western Europeans simply do not believe the U.S. would destroy itself to save the Continent. Thus the danger of all-out nuclear war has greatly strained the alliance, helped fuel the storm of protest against nuclear weapons in Western Europe, and given Moscow an opening to further split the West.

McNamara and his associates recognize that their proposal must be accompanied by a buildup of conventional forces on the Continent; they also question whether the alliance can summon the "necessary political will" to do so. Nonetheless, they argue, a shift in military policy would actually reduce the risk of Soviet cy would actually reduce the risk of Soviet aggression. While Moscow might be tempted today to seek a "quick and limited gain" that did not deserve a nuclear response, the Soviets would be less willing to take that gamble if confronted by a stronger conventional NATO defense. Although the authors stress that the U.S. should not pull its nuclear weapons out of Europe, they point out that the renunciation of a first-use doctrine might "open the path toward serious reduction of nuclear armaments on both sides."

Right or wrong, the proposal is eminently worth discussing since it raises important questions about longstanding defense policies. But the plan was greeted with something less than enthusiasm at the White House. Faced with growing sentiment for a bilateral and verifiable freeze on the development and deployment of nuclear weapons, the Reagan Ad ministration did not need another challenge to its nuclear strategic doctrine--especially from certified members of the foreign policy Establishment. The article's authors were discarding a doctrine that some of them had helped shape: McNamara included the first-use option in his "flexible response" strategy, and Bundy still believed in the option until last year. Indeed, all four now support a bilateral freeze of nuclear weapons.

When Secretary of State Alexander Haig learned about the article two weeks ago, he decided to launch, as one aide put it, "his own pre-emptive strike." The day before the McNamara press conference, Haig in a Washington speech derided the no-first-use policy as "tantamount to making Europe safe for conventional aggression." If NATO did renounce that option, the Secretary said, the alliance would have to match the conventional forces of the Warsaw Pact countries. To do that, the U.S. would have to "reintroduce the draft, triple the size of its armed forces and put its economy on a wartime footing." In scuttling the strategy of flexible response, the Secretary charged, the U.S. would be curbing its commitment to Europe.

The proposal made by McNamara and his colleagues has its flaws. It does not explicitly make the buildup of conventional forces in Europe a prerequisite for renouncing the first-use doctrine. Yet without such a buildup, Western Europe would be very vulnerable to Soviet military attack. Foreign policy experts for West Germany's two leading political parties denounced the no-first-use idea. Karsten Voigt of the governing Social Democrats termed it "not attractive to us," arguing that "for the people of West Germany, a long conventional war is just as horrible in its effect as a limited nuclear war." The four Americans contend, of course, that any such nuclear war would not be "limited." Alois Merles of the opposition Christian Democratic Party called the proposal "politically and psychologically, extraordinarily dangerous." France is not a member of NATO's military command and is unlikely to renounce the first-strike option for its nuclear force defrappe.

The Administration last week continued its campaign to defuse the nuclear-freeze movement and tone down Reagan's bellicose image. In his speech, Haig attacked the proposed freeze for perpetuating "an unstable and unequal military balance" and removing "all Soviet incentive to engage in meaningful arms control." Reagan announced that he would address the U.N. conference on arms control in New York City this June and pointedly proposed that Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev join him there for a meeting.

White House aides admit that Reagan is trying to move off the defensive on arms control. Observed one adviser: "I think the main thing we have to do is convince people that Reagan is serious about not getting us into war." Aides also claim that polls show the nuclear-freeze movement has not caught on as widely as they feared. But that assessment will receive a test from April 18 to 25, when antinuclear activists launch Ground Zero Week, a nationwide campaign of seminars, lectures, teach-ins and marches, pointing up the horrors of nuclear war.

--By James Kelly.

--Reported by Gregory H. Wierzynski/Washington

With reporting by Gregory H. Wierzynski

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