This New House

By Jill Smolowe

Old truths are collapsing as quickly as the Berlin Wall, while Europe rushes to meet its bright and shining future. The Soviet Union can no longer lay claim to the loyalties of its East European neighbors. The U.S. can no longer assume that its West European allies will look to Washington for leadership. And the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for 40 years the crucible of security arrangements for the West, can no longer count on being the vessel in which Europe's future will be forged. All of these crumbling assumptions have left Washington grasping to define what role it can -- and should -- play in a newly emergent Europe.

The frenzy of diplomatic activity last week underscored how energetically Washington is trying to ensure a strong U.S. hand in the design and maintenance of Europe's new security order. Over three days, Secretary of State James Baker met with his NATO and European Community counterparts in Brussels, then conferred with German leaders and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in Bonn. The next day he proceeded to the Foreign Ministry to discuss the future of Germany at the so-called Two-Plus-Four talks, the six-nation group composed of West and East Germany and the four Allied powers of World War II (the U.S., the Soviet Union, France and Britain).

The high-ranking consultations were designed both to ease Soviet concerns about the merging of Germany and to explore the creation of a fresh European security order. For Americans, there was the added challenge of defending the primacy of NATO, the main institution that channels U.S. political influence into the councils of Europe. As Baker made his rounds, President Bush articulated his vision succinctly: "NATO will continue to be vital to America's place in Europe."

Bush acknowledged the changes that have swept across Europe over the past year by calling for a NATO summit in early summer to explore the "future political mission of the alliance." He also paid tribute to the 35-member Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe for seeking to sort out the complications created by eased East-West tensions. But Bush made clear that as far as the U.S. is concerned, NATO should be retrofitted, not demolished and replaced with a new security structure.

What Bush left unsaid is that if NATO collapsed, America's relevance -- and influence -- in Europe would be substantially diminished. "We do want to remain a European power, but the question is how do you do that when the only institutional voice of the U.S. right now is NATO?" asks a senior Administration official. "That's why we're talking about NATO, because it gives validity to the U.S. presence in Europe."

Bush's assertion of NATO's pre-eminence is coupled with an awareness that the alliance must demonstrate flexibility as the cold war winds down and security arrangements are reconsidered. Thus Bush announced last week that the U.S. would not develop and install a new generation of short-range nuclear missiles and nuclear artillery in Western Europe. He also offered to advance mutual-reduction talks with Moscow over the fate of the 700 aging Lance missiles already deployed by the U.S. and opposing missiles on the Soviet side, but only after the signing of a conventional-forces treaty that would result in dramatic troop and weapons cutbacks by the U.S. and the Soviet Union in Central Europe.

While Bush's concessions lend to the appearance that the U.S. is participating in great European events, they in fact do little more than make a virtue out of a necessity. The now canceled missiles would have had a 280- mile range, allowing them to carry only far enough to hit Czechoslovakia or within the borders of a rapidly unifying Germany. And neither Germany shares Bush's enthusiasm for the retention of the present Lance missiles, with a 78- mile range. Bush's stepped-up campaign for a conventional-forces treaty, limiting the Soviet Union to 195,000 troops beyond its borders and the U.S. to 225,000 troops in Western and Central Europe, may be stalled by disagreements with Moscow over aircraft levels.

Bush recognizes that the rapid pace of events will later lead to even deeper troop cuts on both sides. Soviet forces are not capable of launching a surprise invasion of Western Europe now that their allies in the Warsaw Pact have declared independence and the U.S.S.R.'s military effectiveness has disintegrated. The Soviet army is significantly weakened by ethnic strife and insubordination in the ranks. (At the NATO meeting in Brussels last week, a senior defense expert disclosed that the Soviet army mobilized an entire division in its Moscow barracks last February as a signal to the Kremlin against further military cuts.) Warning time in advance of a hypothetical Soviet land attack across Europe could be as much as six months to a year, according to some intelligence estimates. In short, the need for large standing forces in Europe has been significantly reduced.

A far thornier issue is Bush's demand that a united Germany be a full- fledged member of NATO. The issue dominated the opening round of the Two- Plus-Four talks. Washington's position is endorsed by European governments on both sides of the old divide. They feel that the new Germany must be "embedded" in a joint security system -- NATO, at least for now -- just as it is in the European Community. The Europeans count on America's strategic nuclear umbrella to keep the Germans from reversing their treaty promises not to develop nuclear weapons.

U.S. policymakers are convinced that the Soviets will eventually come to regard German membership in NATO as the best way to guarantee a stable and secure Europe. As yet, however, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has continued to hold out for either a neutral Germany or one belonging to both security alliances. Bush's grave concern is that the Soviets may promote unacceptable conditions. They might call for German unification without NATO membership or membership in NATO but modified to forbid the placement of any NATO nuclear weapons on German soil. The latter proposal could become a hot issue in the West German elections scheduled for December, offering a powerful campaign weapon to the opposition Social Democrats, whose calls for a nuclear- free country strike a resonant chord in both Germanys.

Moscow's current intransigence over German membership in NATO makes Gorbachev the odd man out. After meeting with Gorbachev in Moscow last week, East German Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere said that, despite Moscow's objections, his country would be interested in joining NATO, albeit one with a changed "structure and strategy." De Maiziere did not spell out what changes he had in mind, but West Germany is confident the East Germans will follow Bonn's lead.

NATO has already embraced a plan put forward last February by West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, under which NATO would not station troops on East German soil and a reduced number of Soviet troops could remain in East Germany. Hence the Bonn government remains strongly committed to a & unified Germany's membership in NATO. Says West German Defense Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg: "The alliance between the North American and West European countries continues to be an indispensable guarantee for a stable change."

Even as West Europeans affirm their commitment to NATO, however, they are exploring new political and security arrangements that could render the alliance an also-ran at best and obsolete at worst. Two weeks ago, at a special summit of the European Community in Dublin, Community leaders voted to consider a Franco-German proposal for full "political union" by 1993, including a common defense policy. The proposal raised the distant prospect of a challenge to NATO as the new Europe's primary defense forum.

The Community's progress toward a common market by 1992 has made Washington keenly aware that if it is to continue playing a vital role in Europe, it must strengthen its ties to the E.C. There have been some procedural adjustments that signal Washington's increasing regard for the Community's importance. Bush has inaugurated a policy of receiving the E.C. president twice a year, and plans are in place for the E.C. and the U.S. to hold two summits a year to provide a forum for European-American dialogue.

More adjustments can be anticipated if Washington hopes to change its profile within the Community as a perennial outsider. Baker has suggested a treaty with the Community to establish "a significantly strengthened set of institutional and consultative links," a loose formulation that he has not yet begun to clarify. No less vital is the need for a mechanism to handle disputes so that, as former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs Rozanne Ridgway warns, "We don't get bogged down in mutual recriminations over American beef hormones and French wine."

The U.S. must also redefine its relationship with the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the assembly that first met in Helsinki in 1975 to seal formally postwar borders and advance the cause of human rights. The CSCE is the sole international organization to bind the whole of Europe. It doesn't have so much as an office, a desk or a secretary. But its membership includes all members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

As a result, the CSCE is very much the flavor of the month in Europe, particularly in Bonn. Genscher asserts, "The architecture of all Europe is taking shape in the CSCE." He has put forward eight proposals to energize the organization, including regular conferences of the foreign ministers and a pan-European institution for the protection of human rights. The West Germans see the CSCE as a vehicle to provide the Soviets with a feeling of continuity and security as the Warsaw Pact falls apart. "Gorbachev has absorbed such monumental defeats," says a Genscher aide, "that we've got to give him some compensation."

The U.S. is willing to boost the organization's fortunes, provided it does not become a substitute for NATO. The CSCE hopes to convene a summit later this year, probably in Paris, to give final approval to the unification of Germany within borders accepted by all. But the U.S., which is a member, is stalling a summit until the Conventional Forces in Europe talks are concluded, and the CSCE meeting can serve as the forum for the signing of a treaty. "The CFE talks are the mechanism for the Soviet withdrawal of military forces from East Europe," says a senior Pentagon official. "There can be no higher priority."

The final shape of Europe's new house is far from clear. The one certainty is that European voices will increasingly dominate the Atlantic-security debate. There is an interim consensus that NATO still has a role to play. "The argument over NATO is not over its existence but over its adaptability," says a senior State Department official. Still, with parliaments and voters demanding a reduction in military outlays, it seems inevitable that many U.S. troops will leave Europe, and the specifics of European security will increasingly be in European hands. Democrat Sam Nunn of Georgia, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is urging the U.S. to scale back its forces in Europe to between 75,000 and 100,000 within five years.

When it was first formed in 1949, the Atlantic alliance was a treaty rather than an organization, and Washington officials insisted that no American troops would have to be stationed on European soil. One year later, the North Atlantic Treaty became the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and U.S forces in Europe were increased. Today Washington's challenge is to ensure that NATO does not revert once again to a group that looks good only on paper.

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With reporting by William Mader/Bonn, J.F.O. McAllister with Baker and Bruce van Voorst/Washington