A constructed Peace The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963

It soon became clear, however, that the great goal could not be achieved overnight. If it were to be achieved at all, a more gradual approach would have to be adopted. If Europe was not going to develop quickly into a "third great power bloc," American power would have to remain committed to the defense of Europe for a certain period of time. Eisenhower was thus coming to think in terms of a three-stage process. There was the initial emergency period when a sizeable American army would be stationed in Europe, lasting for perhaps five to ten years. There would be a second period when Europe would take over the burden of providing for her own ground defense. America, at this time, would continue to underwrite the defense of western Europe with her strategic nuclear force, but would station only token ground forces--perhaps only a single division--on the continent. And finally there would be a third period when Europe, while remaining friendly with America, would stand on her own militarily and would emerge as a truly independent "power mass" in world affairs.

Eisenhower wanted to move as fast as he could along this road, and all the major elements in America's European policy in the mid- and late 1950s were rooted in this kind of thinking. On the political level, the U.S. government pressed hard for European unification. On the military level, its basic goal was to turn over to the Europeans primary responsiblity for their own defense. And implicit in this policy was the assumption that the Europeans would have a nuclear capability of their own--that western Europe would not simply remain a strategic protectorate of the United States.

The support for European unification, to take the first of these general policies, was not rooted in a particularly sophisticated analysis of the issue. European unification was an important goal, and therefore anything that seemed to promote the "European idea" was worth supporting. A European union, a true merging of sovereignties, a common parliament, common elections, a real federal government--all that would be ideal. But if something this radical was beyond reach for the time being, and all one could get were integrated European administrative structures à la Jean Monnet, that was fine too, since it was taken for granted that this sort of thing might well in time develop into a true federal system.⁴⁹³ The EDC was the great symbol of the "European idea," so the EDC had to be supported. This was why Eisenhower in mid-1951 shifted his position and decided to back the EDC concept, in spite of the fact that the plan, as he said at the time, "seemed, almost inherently, to include every kind of obstacle, difficulty, and fantastic notion that misguided humans could put together in one package."⁴⁹⁴ After the EDC failed, the U.S. government threw its weight behind the two new projects on which the supporters of European unification placed their hopes, the European Common Market and the European Atomic Energy Community.

The Common Market, and the already-existing European Coal and Steel Community as well, were tied to the idea of Europe becoming a "third world force along with the US and the Soviet Union," and the Eisenhower administration strongly backed these efforts. Dulles, for example, made his standard veiled threat in May 1957 when he urged the Germans to ratify the Common Market treaty. A united Europe could stand on its own, he said, but if Europe remained weak and divided, the burden of defense would continue to fall disproportionately on the United States. The American people, however, would simply not go on carrying this burden indefinitely: "complete sovereignty for the many nations of Europe," he said, was "a luxury which European countries can no longer afford at US expense. If the Common Market treaty should fail, after the failure of the EDC, the Secretary thought that further support for Europe could hardly be expected from American public opinion."⁴⁹⁵

Eisenhower and Dulles were also strong supporters of the plan for a European Atomic Energy Community. Euratom, as it was called, was linked in their minds to the notion of western Europe as an independent "focus of power," of a "united Europe as a third great force in the World." "Were Western European integration to take place," Dulles remarked in this context, "this could remove the burden of Europe from the back of the United States, draw France and Germany together, and constitute a unified pool of power to balance the USSR."⁴⁹⁶

The Euratom project was in fact directly linked to the idea of an independent, integrated European nuclear capability. The idea of western Europe balancing the great nuclear power of Russia on its own obviously implied an eventual European nuclear force, and Eisenhower and Dulles wanted to move in that direction. To be sure, "a multiplicity of uncontrolled national atomic developments leading to multiplying atomic weapons programs" was to be avoided.⁴⁹⁷ But an integrated European program was another matter entirely, and Dulles favored the idea. Some key State Department officials strongly opposed the very notion of an independent European nuclear infrastructure, and were very much against taking the one crucial step the U.S. government could take to help the Europeans "achieve atomic independence"--the sale to them of a gaseous diffusion plant for isotope separation--but Dulles disagreed. When the issue came up at a meeting between State Department and Atomic Energy Commission officials, and the AEC chairman declared his willingness to cooperate with the pro-Euratom policy "up to the legal limit," Dulles "said that he hoped the Commission might exceed those limits and consider all possibilities," based on what was the best policy for the United States. There had been some question about the legality of the sale of a gaseous diffusion plant; Dulles was in this context signaling his willingness to go ahead with such a sale and thus help the Europeans "achieve atomic independence." The real significance of this policy lay in the fact that although Euratom was supposed to be devoted to peaceful uses of atomic energy, everyone was aware of the military implications of the project: an independent nuclear infrastructure might ultimately mean an independent nuclear weapons capability.⁴⁹⁸

The basic Eisenhower defense policy ultimately pointed in the same direction. One of the president's central goals was to get the Europeans to take on more responsibility for their own defense. For the time being, this implied a policy of pressing the Europeans to build up their ground forces. In the early 1950s, Eisenhower certainly took the direct defense of western Europe seriously. He was unwilling as SACEUR in 1951 or in his first years as president to settle for a simple policy of relying almost exclusively on nuclear deterrence. A meaningful ground defense of the continent--not large enough by itself, perhaps, to hold the line against a Soviet land attack no matter how massive, but a ground force capable of making a respectable military effort--was from the start a central part of the Eisenhower strategy. He had no intention of "allowing Europe to be overrun," he said in late 1954, and was irritated whenever anyone suggested that it was American policy to "strip ourselves naked of all military capabilities except the nuclear." "It was ridiculous," he said, "to imagine anything of this sort."⁴⁹⁹ But the Europeans were to provide the great bulk of the ground forces needed to implement the strategy. The United States would be the "central keep behind the forward forces." U.S. military power was not to be dispersed all along the periphery of Soviet power, but would be concentrated within the United States as a kind of mobile reserve.⁵⁰⁰

This was the main idea behind the "New Look," the military strategy the Eisenhower administration adopted not long after it took office in 1953, and it remained a key element in official U.S. thinking throughout the 1950s. The basic New Look document, the JCS report of August 8, 1953, explicitly argued for a "redeployment" of American forces back to the continental United States. America, it argued, had become "over-extended" under the existing policy of placing "major emphasis" on "peripheral deployments overseas." U.S. freedom of action was "seriously curtailed, the exercise of initiative severely limited." Military priorities had to be reversed. Primary emphasis had to be placed on the ability to wage a general nuclear war--on the "capability for delivering swift and powerful retaliatory blows" and for protecting "our Continental U.S. vitals" through an air defense that could "hold damage to nationally manageable proportions."⁵⁰¹ The assumption was that the bulk of whatever local defense forces were still necessary would be supplied by the allies in the region. America could not do everything. There had to be a kind of division of labor. As Dulles pointed out in 1957, the theory was that "we would do the 'big stuff' (large-scale retaliatory attack). Our allies were expected to handle local hostilities." The President agreed: "our policy should be that our friends and allies supply the means for local defense on the ground and that the United States should come into the act with air and naval forces alone."⁵⁰²

The U.S. government therefore pressed the Europeans to

build up their ground forces, and, during the late Eisenhower period especially, American officials complained repeatedly about the Europeans' failure to bear their "fair share" of the common defense burden. Eisenhower wanted the Europeans to take over primary responsibility for ground defense, so that the great bulk of the American force on the continent could come home.⁵⁰³ The question was how the European governments could be made to do this, and for one reason or another, the American government was never ready to bring this issue to a head with the allies. The administration itself was somewhat divided on this basic question. Dulles in particular did not see eye to eye with Eisenhower on the issue. From the start, the Secretary of State thought that America had to be very cautious about broaching the subject of "redeployment." A U.S. withdrawal might well be interpreted as implying a return to isolationism and a "Fortress America" mentality. It might bring about a collapse of European morale, it would undercut Adenauer politically, it could lead to a drift toward neutralism, to a breakdown of the western alliance, and eventually to the loss of all of Europe.⁵⁰⁴ The NATO allies, as Eisenhower himself pointed out, became "almost psychopathic" whenever anyone talked about a U.S. withdrawal.⁵⁰⁵ To assuage their anxieties, the State Department had over the years given the allies misleading assurances about America's intention to stay in Europe--assurances contradicted from time to time by disconcerting noises about "redeployment" coming from the Pentagon.⁵⁰⁶

But by the end of the decade Eisenhower had come to feel that American goals had to be made clear to the Europeans. The United States in the past had evaded the issue, he thought, and as a result the Europeans had come to take the American presence for granted--America was being trapped in Europe, the "temporary" U.S. presence was in danger of becoming permanent, and a real shift in policy was becoming harder to engineer. Even in 1956, Eisenhower was complaining about the U.S. government's "unwillingness to put the matter squarely to the Europeans"; as a result, he said, the problem had now "become extremely difficult."⁵⁰⁷

By 1959, with Eisenhower's term of office due to end fairly soon, it was rapidly becoming a question of now or never. America by this time had begun to develop a serious balance of payments problem, and this gave additional weight to the argument for cutting back on the very expensive American military presence in Europe. The time for action was perhaps at hand. For five years, Eisenhower said, he had been trying to get the State Department "to put the facts of life before the Europeans concerning reduction of our forces." Given how prosperous the Europeans now were, there was "no reason" why they could not "take on" a greater share of the defense burden. America should not have to do everything. "We are carrying practically the whole weight of the strategic deterrent force, also conducting space activities, and atomic programs. We paid for most of the infrastructure, and maintain large air and naval forces as well as six divisions. He thinks the Europeans are close to 'making a sucker out of Uncle Sam.'" When it was a question of emergency help, that was one thing, but that time had passed.⁵⁰⁸

The U.S. government, however, could not use shock therapy. The Europeans had to be made to see that America would not be turning her back on her allies, but was only asking for a fair division of responsibilities. Eisenhower was "tired of having the whole defense burden placed on U.S. shoulders." "It was high time," he said, "that the thinking of Europe was reoriented and made more realistic before the NATO situation is further crystallized; it was high time that the population of Europe did its part with respect to ground forces." If the Europeans refused, and if "responsibility for defending the world is to be imposed upon us, then perhaps," he said facetiously, "we had better rule the world." But if the Europeans wanted to play a real role, then they would have to make the kind of effort the United States was making. These shifts in policy, however, could not be imposed unilaterally. The Europeans would first have to be brought to understand these "facts of life" and agree to these structural changes voluntarily. America had made commitments and perhaps nothing could be done right now. There was also the on-going crisis over Berlin to consider. An American pullout in the midst of this crisis would give the wrong signal. But after the crisis had passed, the whole issue could be pushed to the front burner. In the meantime, America "must not drift." The problem, the president insisted, should be brought to the "attention of Europe bluntly and clearly."⁵⁰⁹

The U.S. government complained about the Europeans not doing their share, but it also understood why their effort was limited. The basic problem was that America and not Europe controlled what was unquestionably the dominant form of military power. Why should the Europeans embark on a major build-up of local defense forces if that effort, no matter how massive, would not give them any greater control over their own destiny--indeed, if it would make it easier for the Americans to withdraw the bulk of their ground forces and thus weaken the U.S. nuclear guarantee? The United States, in the final analysis, would be making the crucial decisions while the Europeans, with their conventional forces, would be merely "playing with marbles."⁵¹⁰

If the Europeans were not doing their share, if they were not taking enough responsibility for their own defense, this was because all the power was concentrated in American hands. If the Europeans were to take on more responsibility, that situation would have to be changed. And the top U.S. leadership did not want western Europe to remain an American protectorate. Eisenhower wanted the Europeans to be real allies, the sort who felt responsible for their own defense. He complained increasingly that the Europeans had lost this sense of responsibility. They should be "ashamed" of that fact, and America had to do more to "wean our allies from overdependence upon us and to encourage them to make better efforts of their own."⁵¹¹ The Europeans had to be made to see that their "security cannot always and completely depend on the U.S."⁵¹² This implied that the Europeans needed nuclear forces under their own control, for how else would they be able to reduce their dependence on America and take on real responsibility for their own defense? And indeed, referring specifically to the idea of a NATO nuclear stockpile, Dulles said: "we do not ourselves want to be in a position where our allies are wholly dependent upon us. We don't think that is a healthy relationship."⁵¹³

So if Europe's "overdependence" on the United States was a fundamental problem, if the real goal was to get the Europeans to take responsibility for their own fate, there was only one answer. The Europeans had to be armed with nuclear weapons--and that meant nuclear weapons under their own control. As early as 1954, Eisenhower was already thinking along these lines. In a meeting with Dulles, he suggested telling the British and the French that "we were holding a certain number of atomic weapons of varied types for their possible use so as to place upon them a greater degree of responsibility in deciding whether or not in fact such weapons should or should not be used."⁵¹⁴

So while the immediate aim was to work out a division of responsibilities with the Europeans whereby America would maintain the strategic nuclear force while the allies would concentrate on area defense, the administration never thought that what was obviously the dominant form of military power would remain exclusively under American control. Indeed, the very notion of a division of labor in this area implied that the U.S. government had to be open to the idea of nuclear sharing. The immediate goal might be to get the Europeans to concentrate on ground forces and leave the strategic air offensive to the United States. But this meant that the Europeans were dependent for their security on America's willingness, in the final analysis, to launch an all-out nuclear attack. Europe, that is, was being asked to trust America, to believe that the U.S. government would deliver on its promises. But how could Europe be expected to trust the United States, if the Americans were unwilling to trust their own allies by sharing their most important weapons with them? If the Europeans were treated as "second-class" members of the alliance, how could the alliance survive? The effect would be profoundly corrosive. "Trust," as Dulles pointed out, had to "operate both ways. It is not enough that others trust us. We must also allocate tasks to them. We must give them things to do. They all want to be in the missile business and do not wish to be mere cannon fodder."⁵¹⁵

Eisenhower also took it for granted that the Europeans themselves would insist on a greater degree of independence; given that they had to face a great Soviet military force armed with nuclear weapons, it was the most natural thing in the world for the European governments to want nuclear forces of their own. He thought that it was as "sure as day follows night that a number of countries would develop nuclear capabilities."⁵¹⁶ And it made no sense for them to build those forces entirely by themselves. A whole series of independent and uncoordinated national programs would be unconscionably wasteful. America had at great expense built up an enormous nuclear infrastructure. The best thing would be for the United States to treat the NATO countries as real allies and supply them with the weapons and the technology they needed.

All this was obvious to Eisenhower, as obvious as could be. "For God's sake," he exclaimed in 1955 (at the same NSC meeting where he talked about western Europe as a "third great power bloc"), "let us not be stingy with an ally." It was absurd to "treat many of our NATO allies like stepchildren, and then expect them to turn around and commit themselves to fight with us. By such actions we cut our own throats."⁵¹⁷ The allies should be helped to acquire modern weapons. Indeed, he said in 1959, they had to be helped "if they were to remain allies."⁵¹⁸
MC 48 and its Meaning

In late 1950, the United States and her European allies embarked on a great rearmament effort. Defense production expanded dramatically. In America, military deliveries increased from $1.2 billion in the first quarter after the outbreak of the Korean War to over $10 billion a quarter in mid-1953. U.S. defense spending increased from 4.7 percent of GNP in the last year before the Korean War to an extraordinary 17.8 percent of GNP in 1952-53, and only a small part of the expansion was due to the Korean War as such. It was America's general war-fighting power that was being built up, especially her ability to wage an air-atomic war against the Soviet Union. And the NATO allies joined in the buildup. British defense spending, it was estimated at the time, rose from 5.7 percent of GNP in 1949-50 to 9.9 percent in 1952-53; for France, the increase in the same period was from 6.5 percent to 10.1 percent.⁵¹⁹

[Put Figure Five about here]

But the raw numbers give only a faint indication of the impact of the buildup. This was a period of revolutionary change in military technology. In the nuclear area developments were especially dramatic. The advances in bomb design meant that weapons could be made small enough and light enough to be carried in fighter aircraft, including Navy carrier planes, and there was an enormous increase in the production of fissionable material and in the efficiency with which it was used. At the same time, weapons of ever higher yields were being tested, and a true thermonuclear device, a thousand times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan, was first detonated in 1952. This event was to have very far-reaching implications; the nuclear revolution of 1945 represented a radical break with the past, but the coming of thermonuclear weapons was an event of even greater importance.⁵²⁰ And although these nuclear developments were fundamental, in many other areas--aircraft propulsion, military electronics (including the beginnings of military computerization), intelligence technology and so on--impressive advances were constantly being made.

The fact that military technology was developing so rapidly meant that the strategic impact of the western rearmament effort was a good deal greater than the simple statistics might suggest. The American forces especially, armed with the most modern weapons, had by late 1952 developed a level of military power which the USSR, with its large stock of increasingly obsolescent weapons, simply could not match. The military balance had in fact been utterly transformed. In 1950-51, American leaders had been worried that if a third world war broke out, the United States might well lose. But by 1953-54, they had no doubt what the outcome of a general war would be. America would win, and the Soviet Union would be utterly destroyed.⁵²¹

And at the end of 1954 the western alliance adopted a strategy which took full advantage of America's enormous military superiority at that point. That strategy, embodied in the very important NATO document MC 48, and approved by the North Atlantic Council on December 17, 1954, was the second great taproot of the nuclear sharing policy.⁵²²

The MC 48 strategy placed an extraordinarily heavy emphasis on nuclear weapons for the defense of Europe, and NATO's acceptance of this strategy was an event of enormous historical significance. Its importance does not lie in the fact that this act marked NATO's formal acceptance of a strategy based on nuclear weapons. There was nothing particularly special about that. NATO strategy for the defense of Europe relied ultimately on nuclear forces for the entire Cold War period. What was special about the MC 48 strategy was that it was built on the assumption that there was one, and only one, way in which the Soviets could be prevented from overrunning Europe in the event of war, and that was through the very rapid and massive use of nuclear weapons, both tactically and strategically. A forward defense of western Europe had long been considered necessary for political reasons: a European commitment to the alliance could only be based on a sense that the alliance was doing everything it could to defend its European members against Soviet attack. The events of the early 1950s had made it abundantly clear that a non-nuclear defense was simply out of reach for reasons of domestic politics and finance. In the pre-1954 period, NATO strategy had been plagued by a persistent and intractable gap between military "requirements" and the actual resources the NATO allies were willing to generate. But now it seemed possible actually to defend Europe on the ground. The goal was not simply deterrence, but a defense able to prevent the USSR from overrunning western Europe, if a fighting war with the Russians were ever to break out.