Those who regard politics as a rational pursuit hoped that the final collapse of the Brussels negotiations for Britain’s entry into the Common Market would mean the abandonment not only of the Conservative government’s misconceived European venture but President Kennedy’s equally self-contradictory grand design of the Atlantic Community. My own reaction was that Mr Macmillan’s statement that Britain would not turn her back on Europe was no more than part of a carefully worked out plan to make an orderly retreat from a policy which had only exposed the country to unnecessary humiliation and confusion. On the face of it, it now looks as if Mr Macmillan meant precisely what he said. The consequence, it seems, is going to be another period of confusion.
Vulnerable
The British Government’s search for closer political and military links with the members of the European Economic Community other than President de Gaulle’s France has made it vulnerable to American pressure on the question of participating in the proposed mixed crew multi-lateral naval force of 25 surface vessels carrying 200 Polaris missiles. No British expert of any shade of opinion believes either in the practicality of mixed crew manning the ships or in the military need for the proposed force which would cost at least two billion dollars over the next ten years. This is the American estimate which the British experts regard as too low.
The whole plan was conceived by men known as the “whiz kids” of the American administration in panic which seized them when President de Gaulle, acting in defence of his country’s legitimate interests, not only blocked British membership of the Common Market but was able to conclude the treaty of mutual reconciliation and friendship with Dr Adenauer last winter. Without any concrete and reliable evidence, the whiz kids frightened themselves into the nightmarish prospect of Franco-German nuclear collaboration. They produced the mixed crew Polaris force plan as the rival and more glittering alternative for the Germans.
It is interesting to recall that this nightmare was originally the brainchild of the fevered imagination of communists, fellow travellers and confused left-wing socialists. I was personally given “details” of the alleged Franco-German collaboration in the nuclear field during my brief visit to Paris last year by people who claimed to be in the know of the secret goings on between Paris and Bonn. The same wholly unfounded story was repeated in left-wing British papers.
The logic on which this story was sold by people basically hostile to the regimes both in Paris and Bonn, though none too friendly towards the Western alliance as such, was that France could not afford the luxury of building a credible nuclear deterrent. She must share the burden with Germany. In fact, she was already doing so. The evidence was said to be the presence of sonic German technicians in one particular French establishment. One could only have laughed at this naivety if one was sure the same kind of false assumptions were not being made in supposedly more responsible circles.
Even the most ardent Gaullist cannot legitimately claim that the French President’s vision and policy do not suffer from certain contradictions. They obviously do. But no one has ever accused him of being so stupid that he could believe that Germany could be prevented from becoming the predominant power in western Europe once she had access to nuclear weapons. In the field of conventional forces she is already the most important NATO member after America. Her economic strength speaks for itself. Being the only aggrieved power in Europe on account of the forcible partition she has the psychological incentive, indeed compulsion, to accumulate strength. In short President de Gaulle’s vision of French leadership in Europe can make whatever sense it does only if Germany remains deprived of nuclear weapons.
In recent weeks the French Government has stated quite categorically that it has no intention of sharing nuclear secrets with Germany and that it never had such intentions. France imbued by intense nationalism obviously cannot pursue another course. The question of costs can well determine the size of the French deterrent; it cannot force Paris to share it with Germany. Germany herself could not take the risks involved in wanting to share French nuclear secrets unless her security against possible Soviet reprisals was guaranteed by America. It was inconceivable she would try to go it alone because Russia would not stand by idly for seven years and longer than it takes a nuclear force plan to get going.
Logic
In the wake of the breakdown at Brussels and the Franco-German treaty the whiz kids ignored the logic of the situation, misinterpreted President de Gaulle’s enigmatic silence on the question of nuclear partnership with Germany and dismissed German avowals of loyalty to the NATO alliance as some kind of perfidious trick. The British government went along with the American administration because it was equally keen for reasons of its own to see the Franco-German treaty nullified in fact even if it survived in form. It quickly endorsed the naval force proposal in principle, mixed crew, continuing American veto and all, because it depended on American influence in Bonn to frustrate Franco-German co-operation.
As the scheme was originally conceived, Polaris missiles were to be mounted on ordinary merchant ships. The argument was they would be indistinguishable from ordinary unarmed merchant ships and thus difficult to track. The Russians naturally objected and called it an act of piracy which it would undoubtedly have been. The force of the Russian objection was recognised by Washington and the plan was altered to provide for specially designed ships to carry the missiles. Russia is believed to possess 500 torpedo boats and can therefore start tracking them from the day they became operational and thus be in a position to destroy them in one blow. The argument as it is now advanced is not that they would add to the West’s strength as such but that they would increase Russia’s burden.
If the force was intended to exercise pressure on Russia to become more amenable on the question of disarmament, the above argument might have made some sense though in the past Russia has not yielded to such pressures. In point of fact it would only frustrate America’s own strategy of graduated deterrence. For one thing, it would mean that the goal of strong conventional forces would have to be abandoned. For another, it would give West Germany considerable influence in the nuclear strategy of the alliance and the Germans have consistently argued that nuclear weapons must be used as soon as a major conflict breaks out in Europe.
Control
The West Germans have accepted the American proposal only as an interim measure in the firm belief that in course of time the American veto on the use of this force would go. The Defence Minister, Herr von Hassel, has said so publicly. Either the Americans oblige or face the worst possible relations with Germany. The latter cannot be expected to pay for 40 per cent of the expenditure and indefinitely leave the control with the Americans.
Last year when the Americans were enthusiastically championing the cause of the Atlantic Community, they made little secret of their unwillingness to pool their own sovereignty. This concept was to be an instrument to ensure their continued leadership of Western Europe. The present project is similarly intended to perpetuate their near monopoly of nuclear weapons in the Western alliance. The political significance of this monopoly has been steadily watered down as European countries have regained confidence and political initiative on account of their phenomenal economic success and the reduction in the Soviet threat. As the communist world becomes polycentrist, there must be a revival of nationalism in Western Europe.
The Conservative British Government is aware of all these political and military considerations which argue strongly against participation in the American project. It is also aware that the case against the maintenance of the independent British deterrent would become overwhelmingly stronger if it agreed to participate in the multilateral naval force. But it is a prisoner of its own European policy. It is too scared of the possibility of Franco-German dominance over Europe. Old historical memories totally irrelevant in the context of present Soviet power haunt it.
The Times of India, 8 June 1963