Document created: 22 September 04
Air University Review, November-December 1971

Detente or Status Quo in Europe

Colonel John L. Sutton

The people of the Western world have long hoped for a détente, a relaxation of tensions, between Communist and non-Communist Europe. Some thought it had arrived in 1968; instead, Soviet forces arrived in Prague. Some think the cold war is history; others point to the twenty Soviet divisions that remain in East Germany. And everyone asks: Will the seventies mean confrontation or negotiation in Europe?

In a short and tightly written volume, two highly qualified experts examine the problem of European security for the seventies in terms of U.S. diplomatic options.* Authors Stanley and Whitt not only have formidable academic backgrounds but have also had extensive policy-making experience in the Department of Defense. In addition, both have served with the U.S. Mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—Minister Stanley as second-ranking man in the mission. Moreover, their work was prepared in consultation with an advisory committee that included many former U.S. ambassadors and military commanders in Europe.

The German Question

Detente Diplomacy takes the reader trough some preliminary history of European security before arriving at what are termed the main issues. The heart of the matter is determined to be the German question, with the Berlin problem a kind of core within it. The authors conclude rather rapidly that the long-stated U.S. objective of German unification is and has been an unrealistic one. No Western power could really have faced the prospect of a united Germany allied with Russia, with Communist power extending to the Rhine. Could the Russians accept the contrary prospect of a NATO at the border of Communist-dominated Poland? Further, since Germany is too large for an “Austrian neutrality” kind of solution, the authors say: “It is hard to reach any conclusion other than that there are no available solutions in the short term for the problem of Germany, other than minor variants on a status quo which neither side is willing or able to change by force.” (p. 45)

With regard to the specific problem of Berlin, the authors find it even less susceptible to an agreed change from the status quo. They do, however, examine possible solutions to both problems, even including the radical idea of a buffer state to be known as Middle Germany. This state would be created with land from both East and West Germany and would lie between the two—a hapless echo of the division of Charlemagne’s empire in the ninth century. (We are reminded, however, lest we think the plan fantastic, that unification by “triplication” was the method used in 1947 to create the Department of Defense and, incidentally, the United States Air Force.)

On the German question, Detente Diplomacy may not satisfy the more optimistic observers. But the authors are not persuaded by the widely held notion that détente is an irreversible process and cannot be successfully resisted by the Soviet Union. And they are less willing to press for movement for its own sake than are statesmen like Willy Brandt or scholars like Brzezinski. Stanley and Whitt believe that the risks of a true detente appear to be well above the post-Czechoslovakia tolerance level of the Soviet system. A détente becomes, then, almost by definition, a condition that is intolerable, or at least a challenge, to the Soviet system.

The delicate question is, How much contact with the West can the peoples of Eastern Europe absorb and still not endanger the Communist governments of that area and their alliances with the Soviet Union? The cases of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 are guideposts in determining the answer. Some observers suggest that the unsettling effect of a liberalization of the Communist world would concentrate Russia’s attention on its domestic affairs. Yet there are too many historical precedents of governments trying to settle problems at home by finding trouble elsewhere to make this a comfortable conclusion. Mr. Frederick Wyle, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Affairs, writing in The Round Table for April 1970, is apprehensive. “Substantially free popular contact and relations between East and West Germany, for example, is almost bound to endanger the survival of the Communist government in East Germany, and the resultant turmoil in East Germany and Berlin may lead to just the sort of dangerous confrontation that the Soviets wish to avoid.”¹

Stanley and Whitt share this apprehension. Their examination of the German problem  throws up a great many danger signs and warns that complacent projections of the future of Eastern Europe as an area of waning Soviet influence should be carefully re-examined. They go even further and recommend that the Western nations “have an interest in the stability and long term development of the ‘other political system’ and can pledge themselves not to change it by force or seek to undermine its internal security.” (p. 99) As our British friends might say, this seems a bit much. By its example alone, West Germany compromises the internal security of East Germany. Could we really ask the West Germans to guarantee Communism in East Germany by such a pledge?

Mutual Force Reductions

Unable to find room for substantial movement in the German question, the authors turn to mutual force reductions. No formula for agreement has been found to permit phased reductions of U.S. and Soviet forces in Europe, but Congressional pressures are building for some substantial withdrawal of the more than a quarter million American troops in Western Europe. Would a unilateral troop reduction by the U.S. bring about some corresponding move by the Soviets? The authors appear to doubt it. They believe the number of Soviet troops that would be removed from Eastern Europe is strictly limited. Not only do these forces represent the potential Soviet solution to another Hungarian or Czech crisis but since the deployments are excessive for internal security reasons alone Soviet planners evidently consider the possible hostility of satellite forces. An observation worth pondering is that Czechoslovakia was brought into the Soviet camp in 1948 with only covert Soviet help to the Czech Communist Party, whereas twenty years later more than a hundred thousand soldiers were needed to be sure of keeping it there. Despite the difficulties facing an agreement, the authors believe that the Soviets might be able to cut back their forces by about fifteen percent (five Soviet and five satellite divisions). This should be the extent to which we should set our sights, at least initially.

And what of a substantial cut in U.S. forces brought about by Congressional pressures? The authors show concern here. Starting with the premise that there is rough equality between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces of about a million men on each side,² they move gingerly into the question of burden-sharing among the NATO nations. They seem to say that the European nations are doing more to support NATO than many Americans believe. For example, they note that the United States incurs from one-third to one-half of NATO’S annual defense costs whereas its gross national product is nearly two-thirds that of all NATO nations; that West Europeans have provided the lion’s share of the $1 billion post-Czechoslovakia increase in NATO defense budgets; and that the United States now uses more of NATO’S commonly financed infrastructure than it pays for. These are excellent arguments and doubtless reflect the close experience which the authors have had in dealing with their opposite numbers in the NATO headquarters in Paris and Brussels. One wonders, however, if they will be very effective against such less sophisticated arguments as (a) Why does the U.S. devote a higher percentage of its national budget to defense than the European nations do? and (b) To echo Senator Mansfield, why can’t Europe, having been made “safe and comfortable” for twenty years, organize an effective defense against 200 million Russians who have 700 million Chinese at their backs?

Stanley and Whitt argue, moreover, that an American reduction of forces in Europe might very well lead to a corresponding reduction in West European force levels. The European nations, they suggest, would likely conclude from an American withdrawal either that an arrangement had been made privately between the U.S. and the Russians, leaving no valid cause for anxiety, or that America had devalued its interest in Europe, thus forcing European nations toward accommodation with the East. In either case there would be an incentive to relax West European defense efforts. In other words the authors argue in favor of the status quo by implying that a withdrawal of U.S. troops might trigger, not a Soviet force reduction, but a reduction of friendly forces. Still, can this type of argument deflect Congressional pressures for a significant reduction?

An East-West Conference

Soviet motives for an East-West security conference (proposed by the East European states in October 1969) are treated with skepticism. The two proposed agenda subjects, renunciation of force and expansion of trade, are not reassuring. As the authors point out, the Brezhnev doctrine of limited sovereignty within the Socialist commonwealth (the ex post facto justification for the invasion of Czechoslovakia) would pose a prickly item for the conference, and a security conference is hardly necessary for improving trade relations. It is thus more likely, suggest Stanley and Whitt, that such a conference would become a propaganda base for the Soviets and take on a circus character.

The authors have reason to be skeptical of conferences sponsored by the Communists: They can achieve a peaceful solution quietly when it represents no advantage for the Communist side; but a conference, even if it does not become a Communist diplomatic victory, can be a Communist propaganda triumph or at least a stalemate to be blamed on the other side. The past ten years of disarmament conferences—with one (the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Conference) lasting since 1962 and apparently destined to go on forever—have yielded very modest results. But the Communists have obviously relished these low-key propaganda forums, using them to extract concessions from the Western powers simply by wearing down their patience over the years. Stanley and Whitt are undoubtedly correct when they say (p. 88) that Communist propaganda machines had a field day with “general and complete disarmament” for nearly a decade, although they imply that by finally adopting the phrase ourselves we effectively nullified it for further use by the Soviets. While this last conclusion may be true, to adopt a propaganda slogan as U.S. policy is a tricky affair, and sooner or later one must answer the question of who is to be deceived, the Soviets, the U.S. public, or just who?

How Safe is the Status Quo?

The basic message of Detente Diplomacy is a sober caution to those who press impatiently for détente and who may recommend or pursue policies that outrun the realities of the moment. A final settlement in Europe, the authors emphasize, is an evolutionary process.

It would be difficult to fault the Stanley Whitt analysis on the basis of the European scene alone. Yet, to what extent is it viable when abstracted from the larger world diplomatic and military playing field where the Soviets arc increasingly active? There are indications that the Soviet government at home is politically and economically on the defensive, fearful of events in the East European states and unable or unwilling to quell dissent within its borders. On the other hand, this same Soviet government is undertaking aggressive strategic measures worldwide and enjoying a new confidence in its powers, possibly in about the same proportion that uncertainty has increased internally. With client states in Egypt and Cuba, with 1400 ICBM’S, with a naval presence in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and the Caribbean, the Soviet Union is an expanding world military power. We may be overly optimistic to speak of maintaining the status quo in Europe without taking into consideration the leverage that can be exerted from this new Soviet posture. The Soviets have or soon will have bargaining weights which have not been included in the set of European balances described by the authors but which undoubtedly can exert a profound effect upon the European stalemate. What, for example, might be the asking price for removal of a Soviet submarine base in Cuba? Berlin, perhaps?

The authors’ response to this criticism would probably be that they have isolated and examined the basic European problem and have not sought to clarify the U.S./Soviet balance worldwide. Yet the Stanley-Whitt analysis would be more persuasive if we were dealing with the Soviet Union in its traditional role as a continental Eurasian power. Alas, in the coming decade we must deal with the Soviet Union in the full realization of its newfound strength as a world military power.

Lexington, Kentucky

*Timothy W. Stanley and Darnell M. Whitt, Detente Diplomacy: United States and European Security in the 1970’s (New York: The Dunellen Company, for the Atlantic Council of the United States, 1970, $6.95), xiv and 170 pages.

Notes

1. Frederick S. Wyle, “Is European Security Negotiable?” reprinted in Survival, June 1970.

2. Highly placed U.S. civilian planners have stated that this rough balance of a million men on each side exists. For example, see the article by Frederick Wyle previously cited or a letter by the then Assistant Secretary of Defense Alain Enthoven in Survival, September 1968. 

Colonel John L. Sutton (Ph.D., University of Geneva), now teaching at the Johnstown branch of the University of Pittsburgh, was head of the AFROTC Department, University of Kentucky, until his recent retirement. A World War II fighter pilot, he served two tours at Hq USAF, in the Directorate of Plans and as an intelligence staff officer. Other assignments were SHAPE, U.S. Embassy in Germany, Hq USAFE, British Air Ministry, Institute for Strategic Studies in London, and as professor, U.S. Air Force Academy.