Basic HTML Version
PAGE 14
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MAY 27, 1986
Atlantic have exchanged their roles.
Now it is Europe that
insists that the treaty's obligations do not extend to the
developing world.
And it is Europe that feels free to
dissociate itself from U.S. actions where indigenous upheavals
and
Soviet efforts
to outflank
the alliance produce
contemporary crises.
That process of dissociation has been accelerating for at least
15 years.
During the 1973 Israel-Arab War, Britain and West
Germany refused to grant the U.
s.
permission to use American
bases for reconnaissance--or blocked American arms shipments to
the Middle East from their territories•••• But there is one
fundamental difference. When the United States thwarted Europe
a generation ago, it was accelerating an inevitable process of
decolonization.
When Europe dissociates itself from the
United States today, it challenges a concept of global defense
therefore, indirectly, the psychological basis of America's
commitments even to the defense of Europe.
The practical
consequence is that a major portion of America's armed force is
tied up where governments will permit its use only against the
least likely threat, an all-out Soviet attack on the central
front•••• The United States as well as its allies would make a
mistake to paper over the cracks in the alliance that recent
events have made explicit.... Sources of the problem can be
seen in two facts: First, it is unnatural for a continent with
a population larger than tliato'f the Sovief"""1Tn1on--and a g'ro's's
national product 1-17T"l::.imes greater--to rely £or so much of
its defense on a distant ally. Second,�e prevalen�strategic
doctrine of�nuclear retaliation is inconsistent with the
realities of nuclear parity••••
A larger European role in the defense of Europe is long
overdue.
This wil�equlre""""n.ot only a more substantiaI'
material effort--where in fact progress is being made--but also
an explicit European identity within NATO.
If the Atlantic
relationship can encourage a European Economic Community where
competition with America is inevitable, it should welcome a
European Defense Community, in which all 1ncentives would be
for cooperation rather than dissociation•••• The conclusion, I
believe, is unavoidable:
Some American forces now in Europe
would contribute more to global defense if redeployed as
strategic reserves based in the United States, able to be moved
to world trouble spots••••
Philippines:
Blush Off the Bloom In the Philippines, the glow of the
"People Power" revolution is beginning to die out amid the grim economic
and political realities confronting the country.
The new government's
economic policy, if it indeed really has one, consists largely of blaming
the previous government for all the woes of the country. Yet, President
Corazon Aquino bases her hopes for winning back young people lost to the
Communist-dominated New People's Army on a brighter economic future. In
an article in the May 18 LOS ANGELES TIMES, correspondent Mark Fineman
analyzed the current mood in the Philippines.
His article was titled:
"In Manila, the Honeymoon Isn't Over, but Bridal Attendants Stir Concern."