Seize the Moment (14 page)

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None of those conditions is valid today. Yet U.S. policies are to a great extent still premised on them. The deployment of over 300,000 U.S. troops in Western Europe, the expenditure of $180 billion per year on European defense, the reluctance to provoke Moscow by developing security ties with Eastern Europe, and the advocacy of European economic integration even at the price of accepting protectionism all were policies well suited to coping with the challenges of the past. But today they are as obsolete as a Model T Ford.

As we revise our policy toward Europe, we must address five new realities:

Security vacuum in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
The termination of the Warsaw Pact in March 1991 and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in August 1991 have left half of Europe without even a shadow of a security structure. These changes, though overwhelmingly positive, have created two new challenges. The first is the vacuum of
power created in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The fact that during the postwar period virtually all European states were members of NATO or the Warsaw Pact created a certain geopolitical stability. While acute tensions divided the two sides, the lines between the blocs were clearly drawn, thereby decreasing the risks of adventurism and reducing the chances of a miscalculation leading to war. Today, however, Eastern Europe faces a period of unprecedented instability without any functioning security organization.

This would not matter if the East European states and the western former republics of the Soviet Union were strategically insignificant or had strong, stable governments. But neither is the case. Eastern Central Europe has been the focal point of the continent's political struggles for two hundred years. Both world wars were triggered in the region, and the four partitions of Poland between Germany and Russia attest to its geopolitical importance. The new East European democracies are weakened by ethnic divisions, hobbled by economic chaos, and unpracticed in the art of self-government. Moreover, compared to the newly independent republics of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe is a pillar of geopolitical stability.

The second challenge strikes at the heart of NATO and the U.S. presence in Europe. Many believe that with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the Soviet Union, no compelling reason exists for the deployment of U.S. troops in Europe. Even though informal agreements will reduce U.S. forces to approximately 150,000, pressure will grow from West Europeans to phase out our forces totally and particularly our nuclear weapons. Among Americans across the political spectrum, budgetary pressures will focus increasing attention on slashing the amount spent annually
on European defense, especially as our NATO allies trim back their own military expenditures. Without a renewed mission, the most successful alliance in history will become a footnote in history.

Fragile new democracies in Eastern Europe.
Since their liberation from Soviet domination, the people of Eastern Europe have learned a chastening lesson: tearing down a corrupt old regime has always been easier than building a just new order. As Tocqueville observed, democratic government does not ensure good government. While no one would suggest turning back the clock, the central issue in Europe today is whether the new East European democracies will have enough time to implement reform before their economic problems overwhelm them.

The euphoria of revolution has been dampened by the hard realities of government. The economic and political transformation these countries must attempt is unprecedented. Handicapped with suffocating bureaucracies, worthless currencies, obsolete technology, globally uncompetitive goods, inefficient state-owned industries, and unproductive workers, even radical reforms will not remake their economies with the wave of a wand. Moreover, despite already low standards of living, conditions will inevitably get worse before they get better. Politically, the lack of tested leaders, established parties, and democratic traditions combined with potential ethnic rivalries and deepening economic chaos create fertile ground for demagogues. No democratic regime in history has ever weathered a storm of such overwhelming magnitude.

Unified but drifting Germany.
Unification has put Germany at the pinnacle of its potential political and economic power in Europe. With 78 million people, it is the most populous country in Europe. If workers in east Germany
were to match the productivity of those in the west—which is inevitable over time—the united country's GNP would today total at least $1.5 trillion, almost double its closest European rival. Though their size will be reduced, the current unified German armed forces number 590,000 troops, twice the size of Britain's and the largest military establishment in Central Europe except Moscow's. With its geopolitical weight, Germany potentially can dominate not only European economic institutions but also its political and security structures.

None of these facts has been lost on Germany's neighbors. The fall of the Berlin Wall did not sound the death knell of traditional anxieties about Germany. France and Britain were profoundly ambivalent about unification. Other members of the European Community voiced concerns about Germany's inevitable preeminence in the region. Poland, embroiled by Bonn in an unnecessary dispute over ratification of their common postwar border, feared German revanchism. East European governments implored U.S. firms to invest on their territory in order to avoid German economic domination. For many Europeans, the unification of Germany harkens back to a time fifty years ago when Germans rode through European capitals not in Mercedes limousines but in Tiger tanks, expanding influence not through economic cooperation but through military domination and terror.

While Germany's power will inevitably grow, the key question is how it will be used. Germany is not a potential rogue state or threat to its neighbors. The changes wrought by forty years of democracy and close association with Western institutions have transformed its society. But Germany must undergo a profound adjustment. During the cold war, free Germany lacked the power and confidence to chart an
independent foreign policy and felt compelled to maintain a tight alliance with the West. With the waning of the cold war, that has changed. While still limited by the legacies of World War II, Germany is now tentatively staking out its new European and global roles. Our challenge lies in helping the Germans define constructive ways to use their new power.

There are two key concerns. The first centers on the reemergence of Germany's geopolitical tradition of keeping one foot in the East and one in the West. The cooperation between Imperial Germany and Tsarist Russia, the covert rearming of Germany after World War I, Germany's role in the industrialization of Soviet Russia under the Rapallo Treaty, and the division of Eastern Europe between Hitler and Stalin marked the darkest chapters of that tradition.

In the Gorbachev era, signs of an emerging special German-Soviet relationship were troubling. German leaders fell victim to the myth that close economic ties would inevitably lead to amicable political relations. In October 1990, Chancellor Kohl stated in a major speech, “The extensive development of German-Soviet relations plays a key role in pan-European responsibility. It must be borne in mind that the united Germany lies at the heart of a no longer divided but merging Europe. This bridging function will obviously yield tangible economic benefits for us and our partners.”

Although he played a courageous and historic role in achieving German unity, Kohl's policy of pandering to Gorbachev was wrong. Germany has given or promised to give $35 billion in government aid to the Kremlin in the period from 1989 to the August 1991 coup. This was at a time when Moscow's ability to service its foreign debt had become doubtful at best and when Gorbachev not only continued to challenge Western interests but had also entered a tight alliance
with Communist hard-liners. Unless targeted to help legitimate nationalist and democratic forces in the republics rather than the discredited structures of the center, German aid could prop up a dying system and seriously undermine Western interests.

The second concern about Germany focuses on its blatantly irresponsible technology-export policies. Because of its constricted political role during the cold war, Germany threw its national energies into the economic sphere, particularly world trade. This evolved into a practice of selling anything to anyone who had the money, regardless of the potential political or military consequences. German firms designed and built the plant in Rabta, Libya, that has given Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi the capability to build chemical weapons. They were the principal contractors for Saddam Hussein's network of hardened command bunkers. Apart from Jordan, more firms from Germany sought to break the U.N.-sanctioned blockade of Iraq than from any other country. In the area of technology transfers, rising German power needs to be matched with a greater sense of strategic responsibility.

Gradually unifying but protectionist Western Europe.
After World War II, many observers remarked that the best Europeans were Americans. U.S. enthusiasm for achieving West European unity, expressed through the Marshall Plan and its advocacy of the European Economic Community, exceeded that of all our major allies except Italy. The breakthrough came with the signing of the Single European Act by the original twelve EC members in 1986. Economic integration is to take place in 1992, with a common currency to be introduced in the late 1990s. By shifting so many economic policy issues to Brussels, the influence of European political institutions has grown. And the desire to carve out a world
role for Europe has increasingly led to coordination of foreign and defense policies.

A united Europe has not only advantages but also disadvantages for the United States. We clearly benefit from the rise of a stronger and more cohesive political unit to balance Russia, thereby permitting a reduction in our military role in Europe. We will also gain from having more active partners in Europe to grapple with regional crises around the world. But unfortunately, a united Europe, with a greater GNP than that of the United States, is becoming a “fortress Europe.”

The closer post-1992 Europe comes, the more protectionist the European Community becomes. European companies received an average of $115 billion a year in state subsidies during the 1980s, a practice that shows no signs of abating. Today, the annual subsidy for state-owned steel companies is $225 million. If a ship is built with subsidized steel, the builder can get an additional 13 percent in shipbuilding subsidies from the community. Airbus, the European aerospace consortium, receives an estimated $20 billion in subsidies, while Air France raked in $400 million and the Belgian airline Sabena requested $1 billion. Unless the European Community starts to open its domestic markets, it is inevitable that the rest of the world will close theirs.

Some observers have questioned whether European economic integration has become incompatible with U.S. interests. On the whole, the strategic benefits continue to outweigh the economic costs of rising protectionism. But as European security concerns are reduced and as economic issues assume greater relative importance, the United States can no longer automatically support unity at any price.

Collapse of Soviet communism.
The August 1991 revolution has created an unprecedented opportunity to base peace
not on the balance of military power but on the foundation of common Western values.

Since the end of World War II, all Communist Soviet leaders consistently pursued four objectives in Europe. They wanted the United States out of Europe. They wanted a denuclearized Europe. They wanted NATO dissolved. And they wanted a neutral Germany. It is ironic that despite the Soviet defeat in the cold war, Gorbachev came closer to achieving these objectives than at any point during the cold war. While Americans love checkers, Gorbachev knew chess and played to win. In the new Europe, he played for position, thinking ahead ten moves in the hope of boxing us into moves that would inevitably have led to a Soviet checkmate.

In the Gorbachev period, the Soviet Union tried to seduce Germany into a middle ground between East and West and hoped that the United States—unsure of its security mission in a Europe that no longer recognizes a Soviet threat—would lack the domestic support for spending tens of billions of dollars on Europe's defense. A gradual U.S. disengagement would have opened the path for the Soviet Union—the strongest conventional power and the only nuclear superpower in Europe—to dominate the continent. Moscow would not have attacked the countries of Western Europe militarily but would have exercised a silent veto over their security policies and could have used its military dominance to extract economic assistance from them as tribute.

Today, the question is how much has changed. In the past, Russian and Soviet tsars sought to borrow ideas from Europe in order to try to acquire the power to dominate Europe. The new Soviet revolution represents a historic opportunity to break with that imperial tradition. The new governments in Moscow and the former Soviet republics can now borrow from Europe's free-market and democratic traditions in
order to become part of Europe philosophically, as well as geographically.

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With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the traditional rationale for the U.S. role in Europe has been dealt a fatal blow. In 1971, the Mansfield amendment—which would have halved the U.S. military presence in Europe—was defeated by only one vote in the Senate. It is only a matter of time before a modern-day Mansfield amendment calling for a total withdrawal is introduced in Congress. Some on the American left argue that our new emphasis should be on domestic issues and that our victory in the cold war allows us to shake off old commitments. Others on the American right argue that a Europe fully recovered from World War II should not need the assistance of the United States and should pay the bills for its own defense. Many Europeans, tired of NATO low-altitude training flights and exhausted by forty years of brinkmanship, simply want the Americans to pack up and go home.