Europe and America: Double Isolationism?

EUROPE AND AMERICA: DOUBLE ISOLATIONISM? James Chace A he recent acrimonious debate in Europe over the placement of U.S. intermediate -range nuclear missiles on European soil goes far deeper than the frequent squabbles that have characterized the Atlantic Alliance for over a generation. There are today serious differences over how Europe and the United States perceive their vital interests. In most cases in the past, the differences have been patched over, such as the crisis over Suez in 1956 when France and Britain intervened militarily to prevent Egypt from seizing the Suez Canal, and the United States lined up with the U.S.S.R. against our allies in the United Nations. Nonetheless, the Atlantic Alliance, as much as anything else, has ensured peace for over a third of a century. But now, for economic as well as strategic reasons, there is a serious possibility ofa double isolationism—Europe and the United States each going its own way—a scenario that the Soviet Union, at least in the long run, devoutly desires. Nowadays, Europeans—particularly those outside of France—are most visibly concerned over the danger of Europe becoming a nuclear battlefield. A pacifist movement, while generally most prominent on the Left, is no longer confined to that sector. Instead, it has grown in proportion, largely influenced by church groups, to incorporate broader segments of the population . It is likely to have an even greater impact in the future, even though the so-called zero option offered by President Reagan has, in the near term, halted the outpouring of protesters. His proposal, as it stands, would mean no U.S. intermediate-range missiles deployed in Westen Europe and the James Chace is Managing Editor of Foreign Affairs and the author of several books, the most recent of which is Solvency: The Pnce of Survival (New York: Random House, 1981). 6 SAIS REVIEW dismantling of the 250 Soviet SS-20s already in place, 175 of which, with 525 warheads, are targeted on Western Europe. The reason why the Europeans and the Americans will not easily compose their differences—even if the offer of the zero option is picked up by the Russians, a highly unlikely turn of events when theirs are already in place and ours are only scheduled for deployment beginning in late 1983—is because of a fundamental divergence on both sides of the Atlantic over the nature of the Soviet threat and how to deal with it. Only if Europe and the United States coordinate their strategy on relations with the Soviets is it likely that the drift toward European isolationism and American unilateralism—perhaps a more precise definition of current American trends—will be arrested. The second major cause of U.S.-European conflict is a fundamental quarrel between the continental Europeans and Washington over the management of the American economy because of its effect on the international economic environment. Moreover, this dispute over economic policies profoundly affects defense policies toward the U.S.S.R. and may well prevent a needed restructuring of the Atlantic Alliance. With the dollar as the key currency providing liquidity or world money to finance global trade, the focus in U.S.-European relations for some time now has been on the United States' attempts to control inflation. For most of the 1970s, the United States financed its external trade deficit by simply creating more credit—IOUs that became worth less and less to whoever held them as our deficits increased and we went on printing money to cover them. Since the value of the dollar did not reflect a strong and increasingly productive economy, this resulted in a weak dollar internationally. Nonetheless, despite rising inflation, the Carter administration went ahead with its program of domestic economic expansion, which contributed to the dramatic rise in the U.S. inflation rate—from 1 1.3 percent in 1979 to 18 percent in 1980. The weakness of the dollar on the foreign exchanges forced the United States to take Draconian measures at home to shore up its currency. The Federal Reserve Board then took the lead in trying to restrict the money supply: The result was high interest rates. While the allies...