Basic HTML Version
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, AUGUST 30, 1985
PAGE 11
As we have reported before, there occasionally appears a significant arti
cle in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL advocating the gradual withdrawal of U.S.
military forces from Western Europe, dissolution of NATO and its replace
ment with a joint European military force. Yet another of these articles
appeared in the August 27 JOURNAL headlined "Toward a Post-NATO Europe."
It was written by Jay Winik, past executive director of the Coalition for a
Democratic Majority. Here are key excerpts:
When NATO was founded in 1949, it was basically a unilateral
American nuclear guarantee of European security in the guise of
an alliance•••• But with the advent of at least strategic parity,
the U.S. nuclear commitment to defend Europe has been reduced to
a pact of mutual suicide.
It has lost much of its credibili-
ty••••
The first step should be the gradual dissolution of the NATO
alliance and the creation of an all-European Defense Community.
Rather than be based on the negative goal of security, as NATO is
today, this compact would articulate the historic goal of the
emergence of� m � re politically vital E""urope....
-- ---
Concretely, the U.s. should consider phasing out its ground
troops over a period of 10-15 years, except for a symbolic force
in Berlin, and rescind its strategic nuclear guarantee.
This
will provide � Europeans with the necessary incentive to
?evelop . � credible deterrent,�� the� should assist them
in. While there can be no precise blueprint as to exactly what
1orm a new European Defense Community would take, it would have
to increase and reorganize its conventional forces as a minimum
condition.
It should also consider developing a joint European deterrent
that would build upon the mix of short- and long-range theater
and submarine .
nuclear weapons currently in the NATO � rsenal, the
control of which would be turned over from the Americans exclu-
sively to the Europeans=-:-..
---- ---- ---
In the final analysis, as Zbigniew Brzezinski has argued, only
the Europeans can restore Europe, and American policy should give
this goal concrete direction.
A Europe that assumes a larger
role in its defense, aided by the Americans, will of necessity be
politically more responsible and capable of evolving into�world
power in its� right••••
Additionally, as a symbol of a rejuvenated Europe, this new
alliance could support� larger goal;!..$_� united European cul
tural community, the heir to the continent
I
s more than 1,000
years of common cultural and religious ideals.
In the nuclear
age, the division of Europe cannot be undone by force. But as
University of London Prof. Hugh Seton-Watson noted shortly before
his death last year, the fact that Eastern Europeans cannot now
belong to an all-European economic or political community in no
way diminishes how a culturally united Europe could fulfill many
of the deeply felt aspirations of those living under the Soviet
yoke.