A Vision of a Europe United

The world for which NATO and the Warsaw Pact were created has disappeared. The Warsaw Pact has disappeared, too, except on paper. These great events were sparked by the courageous and astonishing acts of men and women who created a reality to which leaders had to respond.

The suddenness of the events of 1989 has left leaders reeling everywhere, but midway into 1990 the bureaucrats and politicians seem to be firmly in control of the historic transformation now under way. So far neither the popular movements that precipitated the fall of communism in Eastern Europe nor the peace movement in the United States has been able to put a post-Cold War vision of a united Europe onto the political agenda.

The result is that the "new thinking" in the West bears a striking resemblance to "old thinking. " Because of a widespread concern about the power of a reunited Germany and the extremely weak bargaining position of Mikhail Gorbachev, or any Soviet leader, the position of the United States is that a reunited Germany should be gathered into NATO. For practical purposes there would be one military alliance in Europe, one that was organized to oppose a threat that was always exaggerated but has now virtually disappeared. (The prospect of fighting a war across more than a thousand miles of hostile Polish and German territory would give even the most rabid general pause.)

Politicians such as President Bush have an interest in "playing safe," in deprecating the "vision thing," in accommodating the radically new world now unfolding into a comfortably familiar bureaucratic worldview. The nationalist governments of Britain and France have their own interest in resisting the vision of a European-wide security system, and the German and Soviet governments have an interest in going along with the emerging official consensus so as not to alarm any of the other countries.

The result is that we may miss a historic opportunity to end the division in Europe, to bring about substantial disarmament on the continent that has been the prime locale of two world wars, and to launch a post-Cold War security system that could transform world politics. No one can argue against the virtues of caution and prudence when crucial decisions are to be made. But without vision people and nations perish.

THE VISION OF A EUROPE united, demobilized, and engaged with the rest of the world in addressing the global problems of environmental destruction and dehumanizing poverty was a spark for the reform movement in Eastern Europe. That vision, eloquently articulated by such leaders as Czechoslovakian Vaclav Havel, is in great danger of disappearing.

In Washington, there are two main arguments for retaining NATO as the basis of the new security system. One is that without it the American people will not support a continuing engagement with Europe. The second is that NATO can "contain" Germany and "reassure" its neighbors.

The first argument assumes that we are still living in 1945. To be sure, the American people do not want to station large numbers of troops in Europe, especially when the NATO allies can afford their own and the threat is minimal. But the United States has a continuing security interest in Europe, and public opinion supports it. This is especially so since virtually every political actor in Europe now wants the United States to be a guarantor of any new security system.

The second argument contains the seeds of future conflict. Officials are openly talking about retaining an anti-Soviet alliance to contain Germany, the western half of which has been the principal beneficiary of the alliance. One reality is that American forces are going to be leaving Germany in the next few years in any event; the decision not to modernize nuclear weapons makes it likely that this will happen because U.S. strategy depends upon nuclear "protection." A second reality is that German public opinion will not tolerate indefinitely anything resembling an occupying force remaining on German soil. A third reality is that if a future German chancellor should decide to act unilaterally in an aggressive way, for example to make nuclear weapons in violation of treaty commitments, the American troops could not and would not stop him or her.

After fighting two world wars to prevent it, the United States confronts a Germany that is the dominant economic and military power on the continent. The best way to allay fears of German militarism is rapid disarmament across the continent, a process that the United States would have to join. The best hope for peace is to increase each nation's stake in a new political order. Forcing the Soviet Union to accept Germany in NATO is a needless humiliation that could well stimulate a Russian nationalist and conservative backlash.

A new security arrangement should be based on the emerging consensus on the components of security, on new understandings that economic, social, and environmental concerns are paramount, and that the symbolic use of military power destroys the user. Unless the heavily armed nations project that understanding and disarm, the militarization of small and poor nations will proceed and threaten the peace of the powerful.

NATO began life as a symbol, a military machine for an improbable war to achieve political ends. We need new symbols for a new era. A European security arrangement built on a European-wide institution such as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe rather than an outmoded alliance of one half of Europe against the other would send a signal of hope that politics and diplomacy were being brought into line with the real security needs of a new century.

Richard J. Barnet was a Sojourners contributing editor, a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, and the author of The Rockets' Red Glare: When America Goes to War (Simon & Schuster, 1990) when this article appeared.