Air University Review, September-October 1982
Dr. Jeffrey Record
A free and independent Western Europe is unquestionably vital to the well-being of the United States. To be sure, the United States could survive the conquest of Western Europe by the Soviet Union. The price of survival, however, would be high. The Soviet Union would gain control of the world’s largest industrial plant; U.S. trade with Europe would virtually cease; democratic institutions even in our own country probably would be forced to give way to those of a garrison state; and American culture would be denied a critical stimulus. In short, America’s future is inseparable from Europe’s future.
It is thus disturbing to encounter on Capitol Hill, for the first time in over a decade, serious talk of pulling U.S. troops out of Europe. A number of senators and congressmen, including House Minority Leader John J. Rhodes and Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ted Stevens, have publicly discussed withdrawing some or all of the 337,000 American soldiers, sailors, and airmen now stationed in Europe.
Although some see withdrawals as a means of reducing defense spending (a dubious proposition unless forces returning to the United States are disbanded), the real foundation of interest in another Mansfield Amendment* is a mounting irritation with the political and military behavior of our NATO allies. It is argued that our allies are refusing to bear their fair share of the alliance’s military burdens at a time when the United States is embarked on a major revival of its own military power; that our allies have allowed the lure of expanded economic intercourse with the Soviet bloc to color their political dealings with Moscow; and that our allies, confronting growing antinuclear and pacifist movements at home, are inexorably headed down the road to Finlandization.
*In May 1971, the Mansfield Amendment (for Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana) proposing a 50 percent reduction in the U.S. combat troops in Europe, then numbering about 300,000, was defeated in the U.S. Senate by a vote of 61-36.
Seemingly lost on those who would abruptly alter America’s commitment to Europe’s defense is that any discussion of issues related to burden-sharing within NATO must start with the recognition that no member of the alliance, including the United States, can come to any such discussion with clean hands. No member of the alliance has done enough for the common defense—although some have done more than others—and we, no less than our European allies, have much to answer for. Can it be that we are dismayed over our allies’ refusal to follow our lead within the alliance when we ourselves have failed during the past half-decade to provide firm, constant leadership? Can we criticize our allies’ investment in the Trans-Siberian gas pipeline while we continue to subsidize the most inefficient sector of the Soviet economy through massive grain sales to Moscow? Can we pressure our NATO partners to get tough on the new Polish regime while we do little more than burn candles in windows? Can we condemn the antinuclear movement in Europe while ignoring our own and while engaging in loose talk about limited nuclear war? Can we censure our allies’ unwillingness to make the necessary social and economic sacrifices for the common defense while we continue to rely on an all-volunteer military that cannot perform adequately even in peacetime without the helping hand of massive unemployment?
There is no doubt that we have spent proportionately more on defense than other members of the alliance. Our defense expenditure per capita and as a percentage of gross national product is the highest in NATO; and the Reagan administration’s Fiscal Year 1983 Five-Year Defense Plan calls for annual real increases in defense spending dwarfing those of our allies.
This trans-Atlantic disparity in defense expenditure is, however, attributable in no small measure to the fact that we are a superpower with global military obligations and that we bear—and willingly so—virtually the entire burden of strategic and theater nuclear deterrence. Most of our allies have no defense commitments outside the NATO treaty area, and only two possess nuclear forces of their own. In the case of Germany, the focus of most U.S. military forces deployed in Europe, we are dealing with an ally whose active-duty force levels are limited by treaty.
It can, moreover, be convincingly argued that many of our European allies get more for their money than we do. It is difficult to imagine a weapon design and procurement process more time-consuming, inefficient, and wasteful than our own, and in fact years ago Germany fielded main battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, mobile air-defense guns, and multiple-rocket launchers that are qualitatively comparable or superior to those we are still working on. Even more significant is the disparity in manpower costs. Manpower costs gobble up about half the U.S. defense budget, constraining investment in research and development, procurement, and readiness. In contrast, our NATO allies, most of whom rely on conscription, spend proportionately less on recruiting and retaining personnel.
None of this is to suggest that our European military partners cannot and should not do more for the common defense. They can, they should, and they must. It is to point out, however, that we enjoy no moral or political high ground vis-à-vis our NATO allies with respect to burden-sharing. And it is for this reason that any congressional initiative designed to hold present U.S. force levels in Europe hostage to changes in allied political and military behavior should be resolutely resisted. Attempts to punish our allies for doing or not doing things that we ourselves are doing and not doing will fail to induce desired change. They will fail precisely because they stink of hypocrisy and because no allied government in the 1980s is going to submit to anything that smacks of an ultimatum from Washington.
Does this mean that the present size and character of the U.S. military presence in Europe cannot or should not be altered? Does this mean that we should forever maintain 337,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen in the European theater for fear of incurring the wrath of our allies? Does this mean that we should refrain from criticizing the behavior of allies in cases where their behavior merits criticism? Certainly not. It simply means that abrupt, punitive U.S. troop withdrawals from Europe risk the destruction of NATO itself. The only beneficiary of a new Mansfield Amendment would be the Soviet Union.
There are other genuinely compelling arguments for undertaking significant changes over time in the U.S. military presence in Europe, including a substantial reduction in the number of American ground troops now deployed in Germany. The first is that we face new demands on our military power outside Europe, demands that are expanding at a pace much faster than our ability to meet them. These new demands derive from our growing dependence on fossil fuels and other critical raw materials in increasingly unstable areas of the world where the United States does not, as in Europe, enjoy politically secure military access ashore and the help of militarily competent local allies and client states.
Present U.S. general purpose force levels were tolerable in an era in which we possessed pronounced nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union and regarded overt Warsaw Pact aggression in Europe as the principal threat to the security of the free world. Our nuclear superiority has vanished and with it the utility of NATO’s present heavy reliance on theater and strategic nuclear weapons as a means of deterring nonnuclear Soviet aggression. The strategy of flexible response, the essence of which is a willingness to resort to nuclear fire first in the event of conventional failure, has been irreparably subverted by the combination of strategic parity and emerging Soviet theater nuclear superiority. The incredibility of nuclear responses to conventional Soviet aggression has placed a premium on rebuilding Western conventional defenses.
Moreover, events in Southwest Asia during the past decade have conclusively demonstrated that vital Western security interests can be as readily compromised outside Europe as they can along the inter-German border. Belated recognition of this strategic reality led to the proclamation of the Carter Doctrine, which imposed new and exceedingly difficult obligations on U.S. forces already overtaxed by standing commitments in Europe and the Far East. The gap between resources and responsibilities is evident in the Rapid Deployment Force, which, although earmarked exclusively for contingencies in Southwest Asia, relies almost entirely on air, naval, and ground units that are simultaneously slated for Europe and the Far East. Unless we are prepared to undertake a massive expansion in our military power, we will not be in a position to meet our military obligations in Europe, the Far East, and Southwest Asia.
In this regard, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger’s announced long-term goal of being "able to meet the demands of a worldwide war, including concurrent reinforcement of Europe, deployment to Southwest Asia . . . and support in other potential areas of conflict" is grossly at odds even with the increases in U.S. military power proposed in the FY 1983 Five-Year Defense Plan.
The Reagan administration’s planned increases in U.S. naval and tactical air power are, to be sure, both welcome and long overdue. It is not at all clear, however, that the administration’s ambitious strategy of horizontal escalation can be satisfied even by the creation of a 600-ship/ 15-carrier battle-group navy and the expansion of active and reserve land-based tactical air power from 36- to 44-wing equivalents. In any event, it is highly doubtful whether the all-volunteer force (AVF) could provide personnel sufficient in quantity and quality to man a 600-ship navy and expanded tactical air forces. The AVF is barely capable of manning the present force structure, and severe shortfalls in critical skills persist. The recent upsurge in recruiting and retention rates is attributable as much to high unemployment as it is to recent increases in pay and benefits. And the worst is yet to come, given the certain relative and absolute decline of the military-aged contingent within the American population well into the 1990s. Finally, it is questionable whether the administration’s proposed force increases are fiscally feasible, especially against a backdrop of record-breaking federal deficits, mind-boggling Pentagon cost-overruns, and mounting political opposition to financing defense budget hikes at the expense of domestic economic and social welfare programs.
In short, barring a return to conscription and a comprehensive restructuring of the American economy for the purposes of war, U.S. force planners will be compelled to rely on forces unable to meet the demands of a worldwide war, including concurrent reinforcement of Europe and deployment to Southwest Asia. The strategic risk inherent in reliance on forces allocated to both Gulf and non-Gulf contingencies would be especially profound in circumstances involving a U.S.-Soviet confrontation. By virtue of interior lines of communication, larger forces, and greater proximity to both Europe and the Gulf, the Soviet Union could feint in one area, thus diverting rapidly deployable U.S. forces from the real focus of attack. Whatever the wisdom of a multifront, worldwide war strategy, it cannot be had cheap, either economically or socially, especially against an adversary possessing a mass conscript army and willing to devote at least 13 percent of its gross national product to defense.
The abyss separating the administration’s military ambitions and programs was publicly conceded by Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Fred C. Ikle in February 1982. In a prepared statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary Ikle stated that
Even an increase in U.S. military investments as high as 14 percent per year [in real terms], continued throughout the decade, would not close the gap in accumulated military assets between the U.S. and the Soviet Union until the early 1990s. That is a bleak outlook, implying either a further deterioration in our security or a need for a defense increase considerably steeper than what the Administration now proposes.
Ikle’s assessment was reinforced by Army Chief of Staff General Edward C. Meyer, who also testified before the Committee. In response to Senator Sam Nunn’s expressed concern over the expanding gap between the administration’s strategy and proposed force levels, General Meyer stated "We are accepting tremendous risks with the size of forces that we have to do what we have pledged to do."
An alternative to massive rearmament, of course, would be to restructure some of our pre-Afghanistan defense commitments with the aim of releasing military forces allocated to those commitments for Southwest Asian contingencies. This brings us to the second argument for undertaking significant alterations in our military presence in Europe: most of our NATO allies, notably those with forces assigned to the defense of the Central Region, are capable of assuming far greater responsibility for that defense than they are now bearing. Indeed, Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands can—and ultimately should— assume full responsibility for the conventional forward ground defense of NATO Center. Full allied assumption of that task would release enormous American military resources: over one-half of the 337,000 U.S. military personnel deployed in the European area are ground troops dedicated to the forward conventional defense of Germany.
That our NATO Center allies possess the money and manpower to assume that responsibility is indisputable. Let us look at some comparative numbers. The United States currently devotes 5.9 percent of its gross national product to defense, a share slated to rise to more than 7.4 percent by the middle l980s. In contrast is the 3.7, 3.4, and 3.3 percent allocated, respectively, by Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium, the three NATO members lying astride the North German Plain, long regarded as the main corridor of a potential Soviet invasion.
We also maintain more active-duty men under arms as percentage of national population than most of our NATO Center allies. America’s soldier/citizen ratio of 1:107 is considerably better, for example, than Germany’s 1:125, the Netherlands’ 1:138, and Great Britain’s 1:163. If only Germany, the Netherlands, and Great Britain were to match the U.S. soldier/citizen ratio, NATO would be endowed with more than 310,000 additional active-duty military personnel, a number far exceeding the strength of the U.S. Army in Europe. Such an increase in military manpower is certainly obtainable, given the demographic resources of Western Europe. NATO Europe’s substantial national reserve forces, if adequately equipped, could provide a substitute for active-duty U.S. forces withheld in the United States as reinforcements for Europe. Germany and the Low Countries alone maintain mobilizable ground force reserves totaling more than 1,000,000 men, a figure surpassing the active-duty end strength of the whole U.S. Army.
Let me be clear about what I am proposing for the United States and NATO and what I am not proposing. I am proposing:
• a restructuring of the U.S. commitment to Europe’s defense, not the termination of that commitment;
• withdrawals of selected U.S. forces from Europe conducted in small increments over a period of 15-20 years, not an abrupt pullout of all U.S. forces; and
• a program to be undertaken in full consultation with our European allies and a willingness to assist them in adjusting to that program, not a unilateral venture that would further compromise American leadership of the alliance.
Indeed, the United States should make every effort to encourage and assist its NATO partners in assuming full responsibility for Europe’s forward defense on the ground in a manner that would ensure smooth and timely substitution of European forces for withdrawing U.S. units.
What I am proposing, in effect, is the eventual application of the Nixon Doctrine to Europe, whereby our allies would assume full responsibility for their own defense on the ground amidst the continued presence of robust American naval, air, and, of course, theater nuclear forces. Indeed, it can be persuasively argued that the Nixon Doctrine is far more applicable to Europe today than it ever was in Southeast Asia. Unlike our clients in Southeast Asia, our European allies possess both the political stability and the economic and military resources to defend themselves on the ground. That it is in their long-term interest to assume that responsibility—thereby permitting the United States to mount a credible defense of Western interests outside Europe—ought to be self-evident in their utter dependence on Persian Gulf oil.
The retention in Europe of existing U.S. naval, tactical air, and theater nuclear forces, to which over 150,000 personnel are assigned, would make it impossible for the Soviet Union to avoid early and heavy combat with Americans in the event of war, especially since the preemptive destruction of NATO air bases and nuclear storage sites is accorded the highest priority by Soviet force planners. Thus the claim that a withdrawal of U.S. ground forces is tantamount to an abdication of the U.S. commitment to Europe’s defense would be valid only on acceptance of the preposterous assumption that an American president would simply walk away from a situation in which tens of thousands of U.S. military men and their dependents were being killed or wounded.
In sum, the United States would abandon neither its membership in NATO nor its commitment to Europe’s defense. Only the character of that commitment would be altered. If attended by adequate compensatory allied measures, withdrawal of U.S. ground forces could stimulate a more effective division of labor within NATO. America’s comparative military advantage has always resided in naval and air power, and the qualitative superiority of U.S. warships and combat aircraft remains unchallenged within the alliance. In contrast, the continental military traditions of Germany are still reflected in the Bundeswehr’s primary focus on the land battle. The quality of the German Army and its weapons remains second to none in Western Europe; and it is worth remembering that throughout World War II, even after Anglo-American forces achieved virtually absolute supremacy in the air, German ground forces continued to inflict significantly larger casualties upon allied armies than they themselves sustained.
A division of military labor along the lines already suggested, which ought to be welcomed by those allied political leaders who have expressed serious reservations about the quality of the U.S. all-volunteer army, could encompass U.S. procurement of European ground force weapons and equipment in exchange for European acquisition of U.S. tactical aircraft.
The profound changes that have taken place during the past fifteen years in the global military environment demand profound changes in the structure and distribution of Western military power. As leader of the free world, the United States cannot escape the necessity for fundamental changes in its own military posture, nor can it avoid responsibility for leading its allies and friends in new military directions.
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis
Contributor
Jeffrey Record (B.A., Occidental College; M.A., Ph.D., Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies) is Senior Fellow, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has served as Legislative Assistant for Military Affairs to Senator Sam Nunn; Research Scientist, American University Foreign Area Studies; and Research Associate, Defense Analysis Staff, Brookings Institution. Dr. Record has published numerous books and articles, including NATO’s Theater Nuclear Force Modernization: The Real Issues (l981), Sizing Up the Soviet Army (1975), etc. His most recent publication, with coauthor Robert J. Hanks, is U.S. Strategy at the Crossroads: Two Views (1982).
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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