Towards military
integration?
In the last few years we have seen an intensification of efforts at military cooperation in Western Europe through the resurrection of the Western European Union (WEU), Franco-German military cooperation, rearmament of the Spanish state, etc. These efforts are sometimes interpreted as the desire to secure a substitute for the United States in Europe, since US disengagement is now thought possible with the Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) treaty and the new phase of rapprochement between Washington and Moscow.
These cooperative efforts have been assessed in various ways by the political currents of the left and the workers' movement.
The majority of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) believe that political integration for the security of Wester Europe would help stabilize the situation in Europe and strengthen the European participation in the Atlantic Alliance. Hans-Jochen Vogel and Huntzinger of the French Socialist Party agreed on this issue at the 25th session on defence this year in Munich. Consequently, they would accept the military initiatives flowing from the integration agreements. Many of the Greens, the German Communist Party (PKD) and a part of the social-democratic left see in the integration of Western Europe the possibility of building an alternative peaceful policy, based on Gorbachov's vision "of an
122 International Marxist Review alliance for peace in the community of Europe."
This interpretation greatly overestimates the disarmament dynamic that, it is hoped, will be triggered by the INF treaty and which should lead to the next step in a policy of détente. On closer observation, to expect the rearmament efforts in Western Europe to supplant US domination in Nato is an erroneous interpretation. A turning point in US arms policy? The discussion about West European rearmament cannot be dissociated from US military policy or from the strategic debate inside Nato.
The 1980s have brought about two basic changes that are now leading to a new formulation of strategy for Nato:
• The US insistence on a "fairer sharing of the burden" inside Nato, although not in itself new, has nevertheless now sharply intensified, particularly as its continuing economic decline leads it think that it is not in any position to play a solo role in policing the world.
During the last few years the United States has been partially successful in this effort: several member countries of Nato have resumed logistic and military operations in the Persian Gulf; the German Federal Republic (FRG) has extended its naval activity in the North Sea and the Mediterranean and has helped to "unburden" the United States by increasing its military aid to Turkey and to Portugal.
However, the United States has not been able to get its Nato allies to accept its demand for a 4 percent increase in the military budget. The United States has, in fact, met some reverses such as the removal of its air bases from the Spanish state and very possibly from Greece in the near future.
• The United States has not so far succeeded in going beyond strategic nuclear parity with the Soviet Union, which has prevailed since the middle of the 1970s, to achieve a qualitative superiority.
The first Reagan administration did not succeed in its goal of forcing the pace of the arms race in a way that would have drained the Soviet Union while at the same time creating a new economic boom in the United States.
From the point of view of military technology, the cornerstone of the new US supremacy was to be the notorious SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative). But even US military experts have questioned whether this project is indeed realizable. Recently, the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) reported to the US Congress in a 900-page study that it was probable that "the SDI would fail
Towards military integration? 123 catastrophically...if it were used for the first time (and probably the last time) in a real war." The automatic command software for the different arms systems is too complex and the possible defense mechanisms against it too numerous.
After the publication of this study, US Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci asserted that the US government had in the meantime decided upon "a more realistic alternative": as a first step, a limited, ground-based defense using traditional technology [missiles] would be recommended to defend military bases. This would not allow for "engaging in an atomic war and winning it." In terms of the original political-military objectives, this retreat constitutes an even more serious reversal than the dismantling of the medium-range missiles in Western Europe.
This setback and the current economic situation in the United States, which has made it the most heavily indebted country in the world, are the basic causes of the turnaround in military policy that is presently taking shape in the United States. The signs of this can be seen in the US Defense Dept. study, "Discriminate deterrence," which was presented to the US president by the Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy.
This study deals with the overall strategy of the United States until the year 2010. Leading military experts such as Fred Ikle, Albert Wohlstetter, Samuel Huntington and Henry Kissinger collaborated on it. In essence the study proposes that it should be possible to retaliate against an attack by Warsaw Pact nations even with conventional weapons.
This study has not become official policy of the United States. It is significant, however, that the INF treaty contains US proposals for a post-INF Nato policy that emphasizes Nato's responsibility for intervening in Third World countries (Carlucci claims the Caribbean—as well as the Middle East-as a southern flank of Nato) and that includes a qualitative improvement of conventional weapons.
This aims especially at the production of so-called "intelligent" conventional weapons and explains why the United States is so violently opposed to the transmission of high-tech "know-how" to the Soviet Union. The Nato proposals also stress that as part of an advanced strategy large numbers of allied troops should be stationed close to the East/West German boundary.
This notion, as well as the INF Treaty, have been interpreted by a part of Nato as a US "retreat" from Europe. Some of the left (social-democratic, Green and communist) put forward a similar argument when they interpret the evolution of military policy in the United States as "disengagement" and the West European efforts at military integration as an attempt to establish a substitute for US protection.
124 International Marxist Review
There is no question of such a withdrawal at this time. No one can possibly seriously envisage that the United States would sit by passively while sociopolitical changes occurred in Western Europe (no matter whether brought about by peaceful or military actions), or that there is any alternative to a US military presence in Europe.
It is not conceivable that the 326,000 US soldiers, the 4,000 nuclear warheads, the air-force squadrons based around the Mediterranean that constitute a complete platform for offensive action can be replaced. It is still less conceivable that a single European country could by itself create a substitute. And it is difficult to conceive of the Nato member states being able to agree on a division of labour to create a substitute force.
In some Nato circles, the problem of the INF treaty resides precisely in the fact that it is a further step away from the strategy of nuclear deterrence, which had been considered by bourgeois and social-democratic circles alike to be a strategy to prevent war, without a compensatory build up of conventional arms beforehand.
The debates in Nato revolve around how to face up to this problem. One of the suggested solutions-to which West German Foreign Minister Genscher, among others, subscribes—is to make use of Gorbachov's offer of a conventional disarmament process in which the Soviet Union would be obligated to a unilateral dismantling of its armored weapons while Nato's air superiority would remain intact. In fact, Nato's plans even call for increasing air strength.
Another solution to the problem presented to Nato would consist in a reinforcement of conventional weapons and the de facto rejection of the Soviet offer. Both strategies aim at maintaining and strengthening Nato's already existing conventional superiority.
The strategy emphasizing conventional weapons, however, includes the modernization of short-range nuclear missiles agreed to by Nato at its meeting in Montebello in 1983. This example precisely illustrates that as the ability or willingness of the US to assume the unshared or unlimited risk of a confrontation in Europe diminishes, and as it seeks to find a way out in a sharing of the burden and a more flexible military strategy, the national interests of its allies are pushing to the fore. The modernization of nuclear missiles of less than a 500-kilometer range was recommended by the United States and Britain, since this type of missile is included in the concept of conventional war. But since the removal of the Pershing II missiles this modernization has been vehemently rejected by leaders of the FRG because it would especially affect German territory, both the FRG and the GDR (German Democratic Republic).
Towards military integration? 125
It is precisely the most nationalistic-oriented conservatives around Alfred Dregger, who, for this reason, are the most violently opposed to the withdrawal of the Pershings II and la, which are capable of reaching Soviet territory.
Appropriating the arguments of the peace movement itself, Dregger says:
This country | FRG] with its great population density can be destroyed by atomic weap ons but it cannot be defended atomically.... We refuse to consider that the loss of medium-range missiles can be compensated for by substituting short-range missiles....The dismantling of medium-range missiles does not make superfluous the withdrawal of short-range missiles, but makes it all the more urgent.
Dregger's long-term objective on this issue is a solution to the division of Germany-naturally from a capitalist perspective.
The crucial dilemma is that there is no alternative to US military hegemony, but because of the decline of its economic dominance, its military hegemony is subject to certain restrictions. One possible solution would be the creation of a Western European military superpower. But the obstacles in the path of such a solution today are greater then the chances of realizing it.
The principal obstacle is precisely that Europe consists of national states. Doctrines of military security, programs for military provisioning and other such questions are still dictated primarily by national interests and not by those of the alliance. This impediment would only be removed if there were a supra-national government of Western Europe. Nuclear deterrence
An example of this dilemma can be found in the debate over the question: Could the dismantling of the US nuclear potential in Europe be compensated for by Western Europe's own nuclear deterrent? Under the present circumstances that would only be possible if France took over from the United States the role of the "protective nuclear power," at least vis-a-vis the FRG.
The other alternative, to make West Germany an atomic power, would not be acceptable either inside the country or to the other Nato allies, although the Federal Republic has taken great pains to ensure for itself the technical ability to make atomic weapons at any time. In recent years France has greatly increased its atomic weaponry, including missiles with nuclear warheads that it proposes installing along the boundary between the two Germanys. But there is a dispute among the French as to whether these weapons should be tactical or pre-strategic, that is, should they be used as combat weapons, or only for deterrence. The FRG would only accept the second alternative.
This discussion in France also reflects the weakening of the prevailing view
126 International Marxist Review that French atomic weapons should only serve as deterrents, and thus that any attack against French troops would be countered by massive atomic reprisals.
To the extent that the idea spreads in France that "the security of France begins at the Elbe," the flexible utilization of nuclear weapons is also being discussed. Should these ideas get a firm foothold, France would only be catching up with an idea espoused twenty years ago in Nato and violently rejected at that time by France: the acceptance of the Harmel report, which would replace the doctrine of massive reprisal with the conviction that under conditions of nuclear parity with the Soviet Union, laws of war would not really cease to operate but its consequences would become much more catastrophic.
Even aside from the fact that the basing of French atomic weapons on German soil would run into the same sort of domestic political snags as those encountered with the installing of US missiles, at least two major obstacles would still stand in the way: the military non-integration of France into Nato to which the French leadership still clings in spite of all its talk about the "Atlantic opening"; and, second, the question of the joint decision-making on the use of French nuclear weapons demanded by the FRG. For the West German government, Franco-German cooperation is a way of leading France back into Nato. France, on the other hand, is hanging onto its special role and hopes to establish an alternative pole of attraction to US hegemony in Europe. Western European military alliance
The most important progress toward the military integration of Western Europe so far has occurred on the institutional level with the reviving of the Western European Union and the creation of a Franco-German defense council. But the Franco-German brigade, which was launched at Boblingen on October 1, has only limited military value.
It cannot work under the Nato high command. On the German side, it is soldiers of the territorial army that will be assigned to this brigade since they are no longer under Nato command. But, because of this, the brigade's missions will be limited to training and to security. In case of war, according to the agreement between Nato and France, the brigade is to be regarded as a Nato reserve force.
It is evident that some progress has been made with the inclusion of the Spanish state into Nato and cooperation in armaments. This is true of certain projects involving the purchase of equipment such as PAH2 and in space navigation, etc.
The efforts made by the European Commission to standardize European weaponry have hit a particular snag in the protective vigilance of each of the nations over the autonomy of its arms sector. In the FRG, for example, a partnership of Daimler Benz with Messerschmitt-Boelkow-Blohm (MBB— the most powerful corporation devoted entirely to arms in the FRG) would create a gigantic civilian-military complex through which Daimler Benz would become the largest arms manufacturer in the FRG and would at the same time be able to compete on a basis of full equality with the most power-
Another arena in which the European Nato states are now attempting to replace American military forces with their own is the Mediterranean. Four
Nato states-Spain, Turkey, Greece and Italy-have during the last ten years strengthened their navies in order to be able to themselves control the Mediterranean. But with the development of long-range precision weapons this goal has receded into the distance. Their limited economic means do not permit their acquiring the air support that would ensure their security.
Added to this is the fact that not only these countries, but also the smaller
Nato states— the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg—view the Franco-
Along these lines a debate has begun in Italy over the direction its armaments program should take in the future: whether it should be directed toward a regional security system for the Mediterranean that would ensure the defense of Nato's southern flank or whether it should move toward participation in a weapons program that would be principally deployed against the East. This latter orientation is intended to prevent a Franco-German supremacy within the WEU and is in agreement with the attitudes of the other West European
In Britain, on the other hand, the dominant opinion holds that it is not necessary to set up these individual structures in Nato that would undermine
Thus the diverse political interests of the national states become translated
Efforts to build a Western European military superpower are evident. It is with this in mind that the discussion is continuing about transforming the
Franco-German brigade into a Europa Korps, with Spanish, Italian and British participation, which would be stationed inside the WEU. This would have the advantage of being equally able to intervene outside Nato limits. But these projects are just as difficult to realize as they were twenty years ago, if not ful French and British consortiums.
German collaboration with considerable suspicion.
Nato states.
Atlantic solidarity.
more so.
Towards military integration? 127 into divergent and contradictory military-political options.
The conventional arming of the Wester European states is a long way from reaching the level demanded by the United States, that is, 4 percent of the annual GNP. The only Nato states that increased their defense budgets in 1988
The armies in fact have decreased in numbers. In the FRG there has been a public discussion over the fact that the Bundeswehr is not going to be able to maintain its current strength of 450,000 men. A reduction to 350,000 is anticipated. The Belgian army wants to pull back its contingent in the FRG by 30,000 men, and the British army on the Rhine is likely to be reduced to
56,000. And the United States is thinking of withdrawing 100,000 men from
All these obstacles show clearly that the efforts of the bourgeois forces in
Western Europe to become militarily more independent of the United States are severely restricted. Although the various governments decide on purchasing programs that gobble up millions, they cannot talk about huge accelerated rearmament programs comparable in percentages of their GNP to those of the
The Western European bourgeoisie is not looking principally to rearmament to help them out of their crisis. They are counting on the internal markets of the European Community and on an increase in outlets in countries such as the Soviet Union or the semi-industrialized countries of the Third
The weakening of US supremacy is leading to a situation in which each country is seeking a solution by reinforcing its own arms. This is the reason why revolutionary Marxists should combat the false notion that "Europe's taking charge of its own interests" and the separation from the United States correspond to a strengthening of the peace. It is the contrary that is true under
We ought to expand the peace movement's subversive idea that Western
Europe's defense by nuclear weapons can lead only to death. Nor can Europe depend on conventional arms for its defense since these have attained such powers of destruction. The only possibility of avoiding suicide is to destroy capitalist competition and the nation-state. It is for this reason that we remain relentless adversaries of all conventional rearmament and of the military inte-
Europe.
Reagan administration.
World.
capitalist conditions.
gration of Western Europe.
128 International Marxist Review were Italy, Luxembourg, Norway and Turkey.