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A push for conventional weapons

From the very beginning of the cold war, Western military planners have been preoccupied by a single goal in case of war: keeping columns of Soviet tanks and troops from reaching the heart of Europe. When the U.S. held a decisive nuclear edge, NATO threats to use battlefield nukes against the Warsaw Pact's numerically superior armies were a very effective deterrent. But the Soviets continued to strengthen both their nuclear and their conventional forces. As a result, Europeans began to be concerned that the U.S. would not use its nuclear arms to defend the Continent, for fear of provoking a Soviet counterattack against American cities. Last week, after 18 months of research, 27 prominent U.S. and European defense specialists issued the 260-page Report of the European Security Study, which attempts to rethink NATO strategy in the light of the Soviet buildup.* Their conclusion: the alliance must increase both the quality and the quantity of its conventional forces in Europe.

The notion that NATO should rely less on nuclear arms and more on conventional weapons is not new. NATO Commander Bernard W. Rogers has been conducting a virtual one-man crusade to encourage alliance members to strengthen their conventional forces. Among prominent Europeans who agree with Rogers: West German Defense Minister Manfred Worner. Last week U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Richard DeLauer gave the Reagan Administration's stamp of approval to the European Security Study's report. Said he: "We support it 100%."

The report acknowledges European fears that a nuclear exchange on the battlefield could not be limited and would quickly turn into a continent-wide holocaust. It suggests that a buildup of conventional forces is a credible alternative because it would provide NATO commanders with a greater range of options for checking a Soviet advance, thus making the use of nuclear weapons less likely. To repel the first invasion forces in a Warsaw Pact blitzkrieg across Central Europe, the committee of strategists urged NATO to acquire more sophisticated ground-and air-launched conventional missile systems that could be targeted at Soviet bloc artillery. The alliance should also develop new surveillance technology that would greatly decrease the chance of a surprise attack. It should then be prepared to cripple enemy airpower by a massive counterattack on Warsaw Pact airbases. To check the enemy's second wave, Western forces would have to destroy logistic chokepoints such as bridges and ammunition depots. These goals would be supplemented by efforts to disrupt Warsaw Pact communications electronically and to defend NATO command centers from comparable enemy efforts.

The report urges alliance members to exploit the latest technology in carrying out this strategy. The type of innovations the contributors have in mind: clusters of bombs that are drawn to a target by the heat that it emits, and new airborne surveillance systems that can instantaneously transmit information and even television pictures of troop movements to commanders in the field.

The authors stress the need to continue U.S.-Soviet arms talks, even if the report's recommendations are put into effect. They estimate the total bill for a strengthened conventional defense system at $20 billion over the next decade, plus or minus 50%. To pay for it, NATO's European members would have to increase defense spending, in real terms, by 4% annually. They are currently pledged to a 3% rise each year, and they are not likely to embrace the new figure soon.

*Among the authors: former Presidential Adviser McGeorge Bundy; Britain's Lord Carver, onetime chief of the defense staff; Oxford Professor Michael E. Howard. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.