The New Détente and Military-Strategic Trends in Europe

THE NEW DETENTE AND MILITARY-STRATEGIC TRENDS IN EUROPE Hugh De Santis Re ..dations between the United States and the Soviet Union are entering a new phase in their historic metamorphosis from confrontation to accommodation . During the past two years the leaders of the two superpowers have set out to resolve a host of arms control, regional, and human rights issues that seemed intractable only a few years ago. The intermediate -range nuclear force (INF) treaty is both a symbol and the first concrete result of this transformation, which, no matter how the current or the next administration chooses to characterize it, is détente by any other name. Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev deserves much of the credit or the blame, depending on one's perspective, for this change in superpower relations. Disingenuously or not, he has recast the Soviets from intransigent nay-sayers into consummate yes-men. His persistence, as the long lyric goes, has worn down the resistance of that inveterate cold warrior Ronald Reagan, who has publicly extolled Gorbachev as a man of peace with whom he, like British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, can also do business. And so he has. Any future business that Reagan's successor and Gorbachev undertake , especially in the arms control area, will have consequences for European security, both because of the impact on the defense postures of each alliance system and the stimulus such progress will provide East and West Europeans to exploit the new superpower accommodation in furtherance of their own interests. Not surprisingly, European leaders have welcomed the pragmatic turn in U.S. -Soviet relations. But the renewal Hugh De Santis is adjunct professor in the government department at Georgetown University and a consultant on national security affairs. 211 212 SAIS REVIEW of détente may also have insalubrious effects on the cohesion of both alliances and thus on European political and military stability. The confluence of improved superpower relations and the growing assertiveness of the European states is likely to assume greater significance as the new détente gathers momentum. In this respect, the importance of the INF treaty does not rest on the removal of some 2,000 nuclear weapons from Europe, which is itself hardly insignificant, but rather on what effect the treaty and what comes after it have on NATO and the Warsaw Pact. An examination of the state of the alliances in the wake of the INF agreements suggests that the European members of both alliances , while intent on reducing military tensions on the Continent and on removing the political barriers that divide them, confront several and, in many cases, similar problems. The new détente could also foster greater interest in alternative security concepts— an issue that has generated increasing interest in NATO and, more recently, in the Warsaw Pact, which has endorsed Gorbachev's much publicized advocacy of "reasonable sufficiency." The post-INF environment and the incipient détente it has engendered is also likely to intensify discussions about military integration in Western Europe. The ostensible Soviet interest in minimum deterrence and Gorbachev's relaxation of control in Eastern Europe also have implications for system integration in the Warsaw Pact. While few would question the desirability of a more independent, self-sustaining Europe, the combination of more Eurocentric arrangements and the military retrenchment of the superpowers may disrupt the postwar security system in Europe and, therefore, be neither in U.S. nor in Soviet interests. Managing change in a new period of détente will consequently present a major challenge to the leadership capabilities of both the United States and the Soviet Union. The State of the Alliances Despite frequent and oft-publicized differences between the United States and its European allies, NATO is in better political and military shape than its critics would lead one to believe. Recurrent rumblings of impending collapse aside, it continues to perform its essential security function effectively.1 By the same token, the Warsaw Pact, which has become a subject of scholarly attention since the advent of strategic parity between the superpowers, is not the model of cohesion and discipline that 1 See. for example. David Calleo. Beyond Hegemony: The Future ofthe Western Alliance (New...