The American secretary of state has been churlish in criticising President Giscard d’Estaing for holding discussions with President Brezhnev in Warsaw recently. There is a world of difference between the recent US decisions on Afghanistan and Iran and the French president’s action in holding the summit meeting with the Soviet leader. For while the American moves affect the relations of the Western alliance as a whole with the Soviet Union and the Muslim world, the meeting in Warsaw was only exploratory. Major Western allies have for years questioned the US leadership’s qualification to be the sole interlocutor on their behalf with the Soviet Union. And the French have been particularly critical in this regard. But the Europeans were by and large willing to go along so long as they did not feel that Washington was embarked on a course of action which would jeopardize their interests and even security. They ceased to have that negative assurance in recent months when out of electoral considerations, President Carter blew out of all proportion the issue of hostages in Iran and insisted that the European allies and Japan join America in imposing economic sanctions on Iran. And their reservations turned into panic after the fiasco of the US rescue mission, when they discovered to their dismay that President Carter was capable of engaging in sheer adventurism. They are, therefore, wholly justified in insisting that Washington should have held consultations with them before it undertook so hazardous a venture as the rescue mission. Mr. Muskie cannot claim that the French president’s meeting with President Brezhnev involves any similar risk or even commits the Western alliance to a specific course of action.
The United States is still vital to the security of Western Europe and Japan. The West European and Japanese leaders themselves acknowledge this to be so. But it is no longer in a position to ensure their security as it once could. The Soviet Union has at least caught up with it in the nuclear field and superseded it in the conventional field. Two conclusions follow. First, Washington has to be much more careful, subtle and resilient in dealing with the Kremlin. It just cannot afford to break off contact with the latter, however grave the provocation. Secondly, it cannot feel entitled to commit its West European and Japanese allies to a specific course of action without prior consultations with them. It ignored both these considerations in formulating its response to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and it ignored the second on the issue of the hostages in Teheran. Most West European leaders have been alarmed by Washington’s actions. The West German chancellor, Mr. Schmidt, has been as critical of President Carter as President Giscard and as anxious to open a dialogue with the Kremlin. Even Mrs. Thatcher is not as solidly behind the US administration as she might have liked to pretend. Finally, even Mr. Muskie must know that on the specific issue of Afghanistan there is no alternative to probing Soviet intentions and trying to persuade Moscow to seek a political solution and not a military one.