Beyond American Hegemony: The Future Of The Western Alliance 0465006558, 9780465006557

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Beyond American Hegemony

BEYOND AMERICAN HEGEMONY The Future o f the Western Alliance

DAVID P. CALLEO A Twentieth Century Fund Book

Basic Books, Inc., Publishers

N ew York

The Twentieth Century Fund is an independent research foundation which undertakes policy studies of economic, political, and social institutions and issues. The Fund was founded in 1919 and endowed by Edward A. Filene. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY FUND

Morris B. Abram H. Brandt Ayers Peter A. A. Berle José A. Cabranes Joseph A. Califano, Jr. Alexander M. Capron Edward E. David, Jr. Brewster C. Denny, Chairman Charles V. Hamilton August Heckscher, Emeritus Matina S. Horner James A. Leach M. J.

Georges-Henri Martin, Emeritus Lawrence K. Miller, Emeritus P. Michael Pitfield Don K. Price, Emeritus Richard Ravitch Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Albert Shanker Harvey I. Sloane, M.D. Theodore C. Sorensen James Tobin David B. Truman, Emeritus Shirley Williams :, Director

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Calleo, David P., 1934Beyond American hegemony. “A Twentieth Century Fund book/' Includes index. 1. North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 2. Europe— Defenses. I. Title. UA646.3.C24 1987 355'.031'091821 87-47506 ISBN 0-465-00655-8

Copyright © 1987 by The Twentieth Century Fund Printed in the United States of America Designed by Vincent Torre 87 88 89 90 RRD 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Gertrude Crowe Calleo

Happy he With such a mother! —Tennyson, The Princess

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

xi

PART I The NATO Question in Context

1. 2.

NATO and American Foreign Policy The Atlantic Alliance and the Global System

3 13

PART II The Alliance's Evolving Problems

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

The Founding Cycle: NATO from 1948 to 1960 The Second Cycle: From Kennedy to Ford, 1961-1976 The Carter-Reagan Turnaround, 1977-1983 The Atlantic Alliance and the World Economy America’s Budgetary Dilemma: Fiscal Deficits and Geopolitical Strategies

27 44 65 82 109

PART III Prospects fo r Devolution

8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

The Pax Americana and the Pax Britannica Military Arrangements Managing the European Coalition: The Franco-German Minuet The Russian Role The American Interest in a Plural World

NOTES INDEX

129 150 172 196 215

221 281

FOREWORD

SIGNS ABOUND that the post-W orld W ar II era, which was marked by American domination of both its wartime allies and its former enemies—with the exception of course of the Soviet Union and its satellites— has ended. Witness the fashionable and facile predictions that the end of American hegemony will be followed by a continuing American decline, similar to the decline of British power in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet the differences between the United Kingdom then and the United States now are far greater than the parallels. T o begin with, we are geographically a continental country and not a small island. And though we may have lost our supremacy in various industrial sectors, just as the British did earlier, we remain far ahead of all other countries in much of the technology that characterizes the so-called post-industrial society. This is not to say that the United States can do without a substantial industrial base. Nor is there any assurance that the United States can maintain its superpower status and at the same time be in debt to the rest of the world. (The Soviet Union, though, can hardly claim to be gaining on us.fE ven if we use the leverage that a big debtor can sometimes exercise, it is difficult to conceive of a superpower that is dependent on other nations for financial support. Yet it does not follow that the loss of our position as world hegemon necessarily means a breakdown in the international system that has been built up in the postwar period. Will there be a vacuum to be filled now that the United States is no longer the dominant economic power in the world? If so, who will fill it? And does the loss of overwhelming economic prowess mean that our military might will also be weakened? W hat kind of foreign policy should we have in a period of transition? W hat can be done to adjust our current institutional arrangements to new conditions? These are among the questions considered by David Calleo of the School of Ad­ vanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, an especially thoughtful student of American foreign policy. In this book for the Twentieth Century Fund, Calleo looks first at the Atlantic Alliance, the frequently attacked but nevertheless enduring pillar of American leadership in the postwar period, and then proceeds to a wide-ranging and provocative analysis of our foreign policy— its strengths, its weaknesses, its pretensions, and its practicability. He argues for maintaining an American presence in Europe, but he suggests that we can do so only if there is also a new pluralism in world affairs, one that encourages and permits sharing the burdens with our major allies.

X

Foreword

T he Fund is grateful to David Calleo for his challenging book. Unlike some of the pessimists now being heard, he makes a convincing case that fresh and imag­ inative new approaches can lead to a stronger and even more resilient alliance. These changes will take leadership and political will, here and abroad, but as Calleo’s masterful critique of current policy makes clear, we are inviting trouble if those qualities are not exercised in formulating a new set of policies to take us into the next century.

M. J. R o ssan t, Director T he Twentieth Century Fund April 1987

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A BOOK covering so many subjects, each with its own particular expert knowledge, needs a good deal of help from others. Fortunately, a series of willing and talented researchers have been available from among my students at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Dana Allin has seen the book through its final stages over the past year and a half. Others have helped along the way— Proctor Reid and John Paul Shutte, and also Thomas Rogers, in the early stages in Paris; Witek Radwanski, while a student at our Center in Bologna, made important contributions to chapters 2 and 11 ; Malcolm DeBevoise, Catherine Farry, Alexander Hittle, Christopher Johnson, David Rowe, and Stephen Soper helped put everything together in Washington. I have also had wise counsel and expert criticism from a series of colleagues, friends, and acquaintances. Among those who reviewed parts of the manuscript at various stages were Benoît d’Aboville, Hedley Bull, Steven Canby, Harold van Buren Cleveland, Henry Ergas, Robert Grey, W arren Nelson, Dimitri Simes, Robert Skidelsky, Ronald Steel, Susan Strange, and W arren Zimmerman. A grant from the German Marshall Fund made it possible to organize a series of meetings at the Johns Hopkins Center in Bologna, which brought forth a series of helpful critiques from my friends and colleagues John Harper, Giorgio La Malfa, and Douglas Stuart. In Paris, my friend Dominique Möisi presided over a meeting on the Franco-German chapter at the Institut français des relations internationales. I also had the benefit of a series of conversations with Jonathan Alford and a number of his colleagues at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Parts of chapter 2 were presented at a conference at the Royal Institute of Inter­ national Affairs. Several of my SAIS colleagues in Washington have commented on various parts of the manuscript. I should particularly like to thank Michael Harrison, whose own book on French military policy stands as a major study in postwar alliance relations. I am also grateful to my wife, Avis, for her expert advice and gentle encouragement. T he great bulk of financial support for the project has come from the Twentieth Century Fund. I have very much enjoyed working with its director, Murray Rossant, who, along with Theodore Draper, has given careful commentary and unobtrusive good advice on the various drafts, as well as constant encouragement. While the book was being written, I was also a N A TO Fellow and received a

xii

Acknowledgments

Fulbright grant, the latter for a study of comparative budgetary policies that found its way into chapters 6 and 7. I hope my advisers will find some satisfaction from what has resulted. Obviously, their good counsel was not always taken, and they cannot be held responsible for the views I have finally adopted.

PART I The NATO Question in Context

1

NATO and American Foreign Policy

SINCE 1949, the Atlantic Alliance has been the nucleus of the postwar international system. Bound together in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, North America and Western Europe have given the postwar world its vital center of military stability and politico-economic order. T h e world around N A TO , however, has changed dramatically, while the alliance itself has been relatively staticj Militarily, it remains as it was in the beginning—an American nuclear protectorate for Europe. This book deals with two fundamental questions: Can the Atlantic Alliance remain viable in its present form? And, if not, is there an alternative form that could be viable? T he issues involved are complex and multifaceted, and they have been studied, at least piecemeal, many times. If pursued in earnest, they do not easily lend themselves to categorical affirmations. Nevertheless, this work reaches certain strong conclusions, and it is useful to state them briefly at the outset. T he N A TO alliance today is essentially an American protectorate for Europe. As such, it is increasingly unviable. T he reasons spring not so much from particular mistakes as from a fundamental global trend of recent decades. Since the middle of the century, when N A T O ’s present arrangements took form, the world’s distri­ bution of resources and power has evolved in a more plural direction. Economic

4

The NATO Question in Context

wealth, military power, and political initiative are far more evenly distributed around the world than they were in the years immediately following World W ar II. While still immensely powerful, the United States is nevertheless markedly weaker in relation to its own allies, the Soviets, and the rest of the world. As a result, attempts to perpetuate America’s old role increasingly damage the international system and the United States itself. Thus, even if the fundamental common interests of the United States and W estern Europe dictate a continuation of the Atlantic Alliance, as I believe they do, the old hegemonic arrangements cannot continue without becoming self-destructive. T he trend that condemns the present arrangements also presents their alternative. A more plural world offers the United States and Europe new opportunities and advantages; it creates the opportunity to preserve N A TO by reshaping its internal character. T he transformation will require a reasonable degree of political leadership on both sides of the Atlantic— above all, from the United States, France, Germany, and Britain. Before such leadership is likely to come forth, however, publics and their leaders must understand more fully why change is both essential and possible:' This book hopes to jog the lagging evolution of such understanding. T he first half considers whether N A TO can remain viable in its present form; the second addresses possible alternatives. T he analysis begins by scanning the broad case for and against change and by attempting to place the N A TO question in its proper context. This chapter sketches the arguments and relates them to the fundamental issues of American foreign policy. Chapter 2 discusses the broader global context. T he case for the status quo is a powerful one. Every decade the alliance has managed to meet serious challenges without making fundamental changes. N A T O ’s long success, in spite of the serious differences that have always existed between Europe and America, naturally engenders a certain complacency about its future. In the military sphere, Europeans have worried about the reliability and dangers of American deterrence for Europe. Americans have worried about the dangers that their European commitment might pose to themselves and have fretted over the inadequacies of Europe’s own contribution to deterrence. Beyond military issues, the transatlantic allies have had broader diplomatic and geopolitical differences. Disputes over how to manage relations with the Soviets have surfaced periodically. W hile America’s Soviet policy has regularly oscillated between confrontation and détente, W estern European governments have had a more tenacious interest in a relaxed modus vivendi, particularly within Europe itself. Moreover, since the alliance's earliest days, important differences over Third World policies have led to bitter disputes. Many of these political and military differences are so serious and deep-seated that, if ever pressed to their logical conclusions for policy, the Atlantic Alliance

NATO and American Foreign Policy

5

would have trouble surviving. Fortunately, W estern diplomats have grown skillful at papering over their national disagreements. T he decade from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s illustrates both the typical and recurring transatlantic differences and the processes by which they have been contained. Starting in the mid-1970s, the Americans moved away from détente toward rearmament and confrontation with the Soviets. The Europeans were willing to follow, but only selectively. Even though by and large they welcomed America’s rearmament, they refused to accelerate their own. As America turned from diplo­ macy toward hostility to the Russians, Europeans were diffident about cutting back their own diplomatic and cultural ties with the East. They refused to help enforce a sort of economic quarantine on the Soviet Union, not even as punishment for its behavior in Eastern Europe, let alone in the world at large. Europeans believed that détente in Europe should be insulated from Soviet-American confrontations elsewhere. American policy was therefore not at all to their taste. Not only did it injure various European economic interests, but it threatened, they believed, a perceptible if fitful amelioration of conditions in Eastern Europe. Forcing the Soviets back to greater autarchy would impose terrible hardship on Eastern Europe while reinforcing the Eastern siege mentality that opposes any movement, however desperately needed, toward a more open, flexible, and efficient politico-economic system.1 American policy was based on a sharply different view—both of the Soviets and of Western Europe’s proper role in the alliance. T he Carter and Reagan admin­ istrations believed that because N A TO was America’s major military investment and the Europeans were America’s major allies, Europe should not be a safe zone for détente (as the Europeans seemed to wish), but a pressure point where the Soviets could be punished for bad behavior elsewhere. Since the Soviets had come to depend on European trade and investment, America’s allies should use their economic leverage in the common task of containing Soviet power globally. Behind these views lay the assumption that heavy rearmament and economic pressure would threaten the Soviet regime’s stability enough to force it to moderate the arms race and sharply curtail its ambitions for world power. Détente, in other words, could wait until the Soviet Union had first been thoroughly chastened by the strain of competition with an aroused and determined W est.2 By the mid-1980s, U.S. policy appeared to be moving into a more conciliatory phase. Public fear of nuclear war had threatened to become a major political force both in Europe and America. T he large American budget deficit implied cutbacks in future defense spending. Accordingly, by 1985, the Reagan administration, having long denounced earlier arms talks, entered an unprecedentedly broad and comprehensive arms negotiation. This policy switch, however, is merely the latest in a series of cyclical fluctuations

6

The NATO Question in Context

that have characterized America’s Soviet diplomacy and security policy since World W ar II.* Moreover, experience suggests that a new series of transatlantic tensions is likely to follow this conciliatory turn. Europeans are no less wary of the detente phases of American policy than of the confrontational. W hen Soviet-American detente is in vogue, Europeans shift their concern from whether the United States is too provocative to whether it is strong and determined enough to maintain a military balance. They also worry that Americans and Russians are moving toward a superpower condom iniurff at Europe’s expense. In short, European reactions almost inevitably counterbalance American oscillations. Ultimately, Europe helps drive American policy back to its opposite phase. Such swings in policy are firmly rooted in the American political system itself. American policy has never been sufficiently committed to confrontation or détente to follow either to its logical conclusion. On the one hand, American political opinion has never been willing to sustain the cost of all-out rearmament and con­ frontation for very long. Sooner or later, even the most anti-Soviet administrations have returned to arms control, summit meetings, and all the other paraphernalia of superpower detente. O n the other hand, the system has proved equally unwilling to pay the political price of accommodation. Rather than accept the Soviet Union as a geopolitical equal and a global comanager, the United States periodically re­ turns to rearmament. Hence, American policy alternates between a hostility that stops short of genuine confrontation and a détente that stops short of genuine accommodation. This assessment suggests a rather complacent model for Soviet-AmericanEuropean relations. Many professional analysts accept such a model, which explains why they remain relatively unperturbed by transatlantic quarrels. T he oscillating pattern of Soviet-American and American-European conflicts appears to have its own self-limiting stability, not only because the stabilizing limits have been dem­ onstrated so many times, but also because the pattern seems to be in everyone’s real interest. Periodic American alternation between détente and rearmament can be seen as the carrot-and-stick required for reasonable superpower relations. Os­ cillation also seems to keep transatlantic relations in balance. T he shifts help prevent the allies either from drifting too close to the Soviets’ embrace or from taking America’s protection too much for granted. A more consistent American policy would, sooner or later, force a break with some or all of Western Europe. This complacent view of N A T O ’s disputes implies confidence that Europe and America will continue to have enough tolerance and resilience to react responsibly to the other, and that there is, on all sides, a general satisfaction with things as they are. For Europe, such satisfaction might seem doubtful because the status quo is à bipolar world that has divided Europe into American and Soviet spheres. Nevertheless, Western Europe is widely believed to be no less satisfied than America. Europe fears the Soviets and needs an alliance to contain them. Better

NATO and American Foreign Policy

7

a divided Europe than a Europe dominated by Russia. Beyond the perceived Soviet threat, Europe needs both the Americans and the Russians to solve its own German problem. If there were no bipolar division of Europe, it is said, the old problem of continental hegemony would almost certainly revive from within. If Germany were reunited and Russia were out of Eastern Europe, W estern Europe’s postwar comity would very likely vanish, to be replaced by the old French, German, and British competition, the principal cause of this century’s two world wars. From this perspective, the Atlantic Alliance is unlikely to break down because no major government, including the Soviet Union, desires such an outcome. T o remain viable, the present Atlantic-European system needs only to be reasonably well-managed. America’s oscillating policy must be kept from flying out of its proper orbit— from becoming too weak or too confrontational. Similarly, the W est­ ern Europeans must not become so preoccupied with developing their Eastern ties that they neglect their military balance, their American connection, or their own solidarity. A close Atlantic Alliance ensures prudent management. Each side of the Atlantic helps limit the excesses of the other. Europe moderates America’s enthu­ siasm for either détente or confrontation. American caution tempers European zeal for Eastern accommodation but also underwrites European détente by fore­ closing Soviet ambitions for domination. NA TO thus embodies a kind of transatlantic constitution. American and European elements generally help stabilize their own relations as well as those of East and West. Even from this complacent perspective, however, the present order has obvious imperfections. T he arms race wastes enormous resources, distorts economic, social, and political institutions, and poses a perpetual risk of nuclear war— high costs that everyone pays to some degree. Some countries, Poland for example, pay a partic­ ularly heavy price for stability. But to a great many professional observers, Soviet, American, or European, the present bipolar order, particularly within N A TO , is the best arrangement that can be imagined without presupposing utopian or apoc­ alyptic changes.4 Has the complacent view of N A TO , which has prevailed for a long time, become any less valid today? W hat changes threaten the stability of a system that seems so universally beneficial? T o answer in a single sentence: While the issues that bedevil N A TO are mostly familiar, the context within which they must be managed has changed for the worse.5 This changing context forms the subject of the next several chapters. N A T O ’s military problems are not new, but they seem to have grown more serious, primarily as the result of changes in the overall strategic balance between the superpowers. Whereas strategic parity was merely hypothetical in the 1950s and 1960s, by the late 1970s it had grown real. W ith the United States now as vulnerable as the Soviet Union, the difficulties of extended deterrence are obviously much more complex.

8

The NATO Question in Context

Long-standing diplomatic and political problems in N A TO also seem to have advanced to a more serious stage in the 1980s, again because of important changes in the global context. T he diverging paths that America and Europe favor in their political and economic relations with the Soviet Union have always posed a po­ tentially serious problem for the alliance. But during the prolonged détente of the 1970s this division intensified as Europe’s direct relationships with the Eastern bloc grew more varied and extensive than America’s. T he French, the Italians, and above all, the Germans became deeply committed to rebuilding some sort of panEuropean network of special relationships with Eastern Europe and even with the Soviet Union. In effect, European détente policy has become linear. American détente policy, however, remains incurably cyclical. Transatlantic reconciliation over Soviet policy can therefore be expected to grow more difficult in the future, as illustrated by the bitter disputes of the early 1980s over W estern Europe’s trade with the East. T he 1970s also saw European-American differences take on greater significance as the global context itself changed rapidly. Third World countries grew more important, and Europeans took an independent approach to dealing with them. Particularly after the oil crises, Europe’s independent line reflected not only distaste for particular American policies, but also the fear that the United States could no longer protect Europe’s own global interests and was less and less inclined to try. American power seemed to be serving a narrower definition of its own national interest, less identified with the welfare of its allies or the health of the global system in general.6 America’s economic policies increasingly lead Europeans to the same conclusion. Economic differences between Europe and America have always existed, but in the 1970s they coincided with a growing economic malaise.7 W ith Europe’s longrange economic prospects becoming more troubled each day, differences with America grow ever more central. If the broad economic deterioration continues, domestic imperatives for economic relief will almost certainly combine with familiar political and military dissatisfactions. This combination is likely to be profoundly unsettling for American-European-Soviet relations. A wide spectrum of public opinion, in America as well as abroad, places heavy responsibility for international economic decline on America’s own economic pol­ icies, in particular its monetary policy. Already a major source of discord in the 1960s, monetary difficulties worsened throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s when an unstable dollar unquestionably burdened the international economy. Many Europeans, like many Americans, interpret the dollar’s gyrations as a symptom of economic mismanagement in the United States— the sign of a fundamental dis­ equilibrium in the American economy that American policy appears to exacerbate rather than control.8 For many Americans, however, European criticism of American economic policy

NATO and American Foreign Policy

9

has a hollow ring. T he American fiscal and monetary policies that Europeans deplore are not unrelated to the American military protection to which Europeans still cling. T he most obvious link is America's persistent budgetary deficit, widely thought to be in itself a major source of the world's economic disorder. But America's fiscal deficit can easily be explained by noting its comparatively large military ex­ penditures— mandated, in turn, not only by the continuing strategic and global rivalry with the Soviet Union but also by the requirements of America's hegemonic obligations within N A TO .9 Such obvious military-economic linkage reveals, incidentally, the shortcomings of a too-specialized view of transatlantic relations. T he Atlantic Alliance is not merely a set of political and military connections between Europe and America; it is also the centerpiece of a global economic system ^The viability of any set of military arrangements depends not only on their military efficiency but also on their economic consequences. T o address military and political problems while ignoring critical related economic ailments is analogous to a doctor setting a broken bone while his patient lies dying of a snakebite. These phenomena— the qualitative change in the military balance, the unequal progress of detente, the growing power of the Third World, and the economic malaise— constitute significant alterations in the postwar global framework. As a result, N A T O ’s disputes of the 1980s are qualitatively different from those of the past, whatever the superficial similarities. At the very least, these systemic changes suggest that the complacent view of N A TO needs serious reexamination. In many respects, the global changes that exacerbate N A T O ’s particular diffi­ culties may be summarized in terms of one fundamental change: the decline of American power in relation to the rest of the world. Militarily and economically, the United States has lost the ample edge it held at the end of the Second World War. One result has been a “Great Debate” in the mind of the American body politic over what to do about this decline, a debate that has been going on, often only half-consciously, since the late 1960s. T he question of N A T O ’s viability is, in effect, a special part of that debate. W hat seems remarkable is not that such a debate has occurred, but rather how incomplete and provincial it has been. Logically, two broad courses suggest them­ selves: reaffirmation or devolution. T he former calls for rejuvenating and reasserting America’s role as the world’s preponderant leader; the latter, for consciously trans­ forming the global system into a more plural structure. Thus far, however, the debate has essentially been between what may be called rival formulas for reaffirm­ ation. T he focus has been so narrow because the broader issue has seldom been properly posed. Since the Vietnam debacle, it has been fashionable to read the changes in the transatlantic and global system not so much as a relative decline of American power, but as a decline of the United States itself. After Vietnam, it is argued, an America

10

The NATO Question in Context

obsessed with guilt and self-doubt rejected patriotic discipline, allowed its military prowess to decay, retreated from its world obligations, and grew bemused by the possibilities of superpower détente .vT