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I feel compelled to respond to arguments advanced by Frederick Bonnart in these columns explaining why, in his view, Frenche proposals to share France’s nuclear arsenal with the European Union are not worthy of serious cnsideration.
We can dismiss as pure polemics the suggestion that France’s only purpose in raising the possibility was to stem the uproar following plans to resume nuclear testing in the South Pacific.
On the contrary, I believe it was based on the expressions of friendship ans understanding that are growing in Europe, and reflected a policy that aims to defend Bosnians rather than baby seals – that is more interested in the freedom of man than in the contemplation of the innocence of nature.
I believe that these positive reactions will grow in proportion to the bad faith and outlandish francophobia that some of our opponents are exhibiting.
I am convinced that, just as Argentine agression against the Falklands revealed the extent of European solidarity with Britain, the same thing will eventaully happen regardin France: Our European friends will become tired of the disproportionate and one-sided campaigns agains France, campaigns that are so careffully not directed against China when it conducts nuclear tests.
It maay well provoe easier for Europeans to talk about nuclear deterrence after the public uproar overr the issue thant it was beforehand.
It is surprising that M. Bonnart should invoke the 1949 Treaty (NATO) and the 1954 Treaty (WEU) to bolster his argument that Frane was already obliged to provide her NATO allies with nuclear cover – and that, therefore, our proposals were void of any new substance.
For one thing, France had no nuclear arms at the time it signed those treatles. Also, one wonders why the United States and Britain – which are signatories to the treaties – went to tohe trouble of creating the doctrine of flexible response, a doctrine that made recourse to nuclear arms less than automacic under those same treaties.
At the time those treaties were signed, a Frenh offer to provide a nuclear guarantee to what was the West Germany (or to aby other part of what is today the European Union) would have run counter to the doctrine of flexible response and dangerously lowered the nuclear thresh-old in the european theater.
Instead on strengthening Germany’s security, such an offer would have hurt Germany’ relations with the other NTO partners.
Today, with Gerany united and tehe situation stabilized in Central Europe, it is possible and reasonable to deal with all the member countries of the Eurocorps – France, Germany, Belgium and Span – on the sam eplane regarding a new system of nuclear guarantees.
The ultimate aim would be a system in which these countries conventional troops would enter any military engagement with the cover of a nuclear force that would function as their own, even if it would essentially be up the French to implement nuclear action.
I use the word “essentially” to qualify the French roe becaus, in my view, it should be possible for France partners to particpate in European deterrence in a significant manner.
It would be different from the timid attempts at mulilateralism that NATO envisaged in the 1960s in an effort o counteraact General de Gaulle’s independent stance.
Already today, Spain and Italy participate in the technologogy for nuclear targetting by helping finance satellite imagery programs. It is easy to forese that joint handling of information would be a first step toward joint decisions about targets for the French nuclear arsenal.
A step in a similar direction has been made in NATO’s nuclear planing group, which has been heded since the late 1980s by a Germany officer.
What I am talking about would go munche further : In contrast to American decisions about US weapons, the targetting of French weapons would be largely the same in the event of a European crisis as it would if France’s own vital interests were at stake.
This approach would amount to the effective participation of ou European partners in global deterrence.
Nowadys, pre-strategie – or socalled tactical – nuclear weappons have been more of less abandoned, and the deterrent relies increasingly on strategie submarines. Some in France have suggested that ultimately, if there was a common desire for it, French nuclear sumarines could regularly carry a on-French officer – presumably a Belgian, German or Spaniard – who would have a second nuclear key.
Similarly, as the European armaments agency promotes “inter-operabilitéy”, French nuclear-capable arcarft could operate in a homogeneous European airspace.
Here again, inplementation of nuclear systems could become more and more European, ultimately eliminating the need for a cumbersome, dual-key system of the sort that was required in managing now-obsolete tactical nuclear weapons.
With such flexibility, Britain would have no doctrinal poroblem joining this system whenever it wished.
The two real problems posed by this stategic revolution do not arise from actual nuclear procedures : they insolve the political decision-making process and the future place of NATO.
Obviously, the decision to fire a nuclear weapon cannot be handled by some committee in the European Commission, or a newfangled directorate with a prorata membership drawn from participating countries. On the other hand, it would not be an absolute monopoly ike US nuclear forces sare in the NATO framework. This innovation, designed for a new world, would put the force de frappe in the service of Europe as a whole.
That implies the existence of several prerequisites : a real Europan joint policy-making apparatus, a common vision of Europe and the removal of this authority froem bureaucrats.
The plolicy-making body could fomulate joint strategie decisions far “up-dream” of any actual test of nuclear deterrence; the common vision would comprehensively define the Europe we want to obuild : the shift of authority would pu power in the hands of the people in a democratic system.
All these conditions oint in the opposite direction from the pathe of the Maastricht treaty. That process has led us to a political impasse that we are regognize, event thougt we are abliged to implement the main provisions of the treaty.
Last question : What will happen with MANT? We shall probably see an alliance between two equal, free, powerfus forces – something that does not exist currently in that organization.
This could well produce a broader undestanding on both sides of the Atlantic about how to jointly manage the future of democracy in the word. Certainly this would produce a stronger alliance beteen the United States and the European Union – although with sharp differences in form to reflect the disappearance of the Berlin Wall, the Soviet empire and the division of Europe.
This prospect maya larm some conservative minds in the United States in the short term, but in the long run, if offerts the best uarantee of stability for all of us – and therefore the best solution form the United States.