Rx Rejected

Debating Kissinger's proposals

Anyone who proposes radically revamping a 35-year-old institution can expect to stir controversy, and that was exactly what Henry Kissinger did last week. In an article written for TIME, the former Secretary of State called for a thorough reshaping of the 16-member Atlantic Alliance to give the West Europeans more responsibility for their own defense.

He suggested a reversal of the tradition that the alliance's military commander is always an American and its civilian leader a European; he asked Europe to play a greater role in making decisions on arms control and ground defense. If the Europeans do not accept this responsibility, Kissinger wrote, the U.S. should withdraw up to half its 222,000 ground forces from the Continent.

The quickest response came from West Germany. Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Alois Mertes, who is close to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, rejected Kissinger's proposals, saying that "Europe cannot take on more responsibility than its power permits." NATO's military chief, he said, must be an American "because in the case of a crisis he would carry much greater weight with the [U.S.] President than any European." A U.S. commander, Mertes added, "strengthens the credibility of the alliance in Moscow as well."

In Washington, State Department Spokesman John Hughes agreed with Kissinger about "the centrality of the transatlantic defense relationship to Western security and world peace." But he went on to say that the alliance was healthy, its structure sound and its strategy "valid and viable." Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Richard Burt argued that NATO had met one of its most severe tests by beginning to deploy new missiles in Europe. Said he: "The performance over the past 18 months has demonstrated to anyone paying attention that the alliance is sound."

The British government declared that Kissinger's proposals were being "carefully considered," but privately officials said that he had "seriously underestimated the extent of the European military contribution to the alliance." The Continent, they argued, supplies approximately 90% of NATO's ground forces in Central Europe.

A halving of U.S. troops would be a disaster, they said, because it would cast doubt on U.S. readiness to defend Europe.

In France, Pierre Hassner of the National Foundation of Political Science disputed the practicality and timing of Kissinger's proposals, but he agreed that the problems posed are real. "Europeans have to take greater charge of their own defense," he said, "but that can come only gradually." Cesare Merlini, head of Italy's Institute for Foreign Affairs, welcomed the debate. Said he: "I don't like Kissinger's diagnosis, but I like the therapy."