America Abroad

By Strobe Talbott

Helmut Kohl has infuriated the Bush Administration by trying to save his political skin with a call on the superpowers to negotiate over short-range nuclear weapons. But however pusillanimous his motives may be, Kohl happens to be right in what he recommends. Tactical nuclear weapons have never made sense, especially concentrated in West Germany, the putative battlefield where World War III would begin. If American tactical missiles were ever fired in anger, they would raise mushroom clouds over German territory and probably kill more local civilians than foreign invaders. If, on the other hand, the missiles were not fired, they would become irresistible targets for devastating pre-emptive strikes by the enemy. Hence the bitter saying in Bonn, "The shorter the range, the deader the German."

Nuclear weapons deter their own use. Arguably that is all they are good for. But tactical nukes, because they frighten allies whom they are supposed to protect, are good for even less. In fact, these weapons are good for nothing except as bargaining leverage to remove similar Soviet missiles in Eastern Europe. Thus the current furor is surprising only in that it took so long, and so much pressure from the left, for a West German Chancellor to adopt Kohl's present position.

The U.S. has been holding the line against short-range-weapons talks out of fear that negotiations will lead to a supposedly terrible state of affairs in Europe known as "denuclearization" -- the removal of all nuclear weapons from the Continent. According to the NATO catechism, denuclearization would make Europe "safe" for a conventional war that the Warsaw Pact, with its much vaunted superiority in soldiers and tanks, might be tempted to start and could probably win. According to another article of the dark faith, a denuclearized Western Europe would be "Finlandized": France, Italy and Belgium, but above all the Federal Republic of Germany, would be sucked away from their traditional protector on the far side of the Atlantic and into the Soviet orbit. These countries would end up, like Finland, being allowed to manage their internal affairs as they saw fit but obliged to calibrate their foreign policies to the wishes of Moscow.

Because of where they live, most Europeans see more clearly than most Americans how implausible and irrelevant that danger is becoming. All they have to do is look at their neighbors on the other side of the Iron Curtain to realize that there is indeed such a thing as Finlandization, but it is happening in the East, not the West. Moreover, it is happening with the approval of Moscow, which is encouraging its comrades to turn toward Paris, Bonn, London and Rome not just for economic help but also for political institutions and values.

As for the threat of conventional war, Mikhail Gorbachev is already committed to unilateral reductions in troops, armor and artillery. He might go further in the talks with the West now taking place in Vienna, and further still if short-range nuclear weapons are on the table.

Once the Bush Administration stops cursing Kohl under its breath, it will probably do what he is asking. Some formula will be found to permit the talks that Kohl wants and Washington hates. Too bad the U.S. will have been dragged kicking and screaming into a decision that it should have reached on its own. The leader of the alliance will be in the anomalous and undignified position of following its allies to the negotiating table, and the American hand will be weaker as a result, both with the West Europeans and with the Soviets.