SUMMARY

THE SITUATION

Recent developments within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and in the international situation affecting NATO raise basic and important questions for future U.S. policy toward NATO.

First, formerly strong governments have suffered political downfall throughout Europe in the last several years, resulting in weak, thin majority governments in nearly all of the NATO countries. In particular, on the southern tier of NATO, we can see that Portugal and Italy face the strong prospect of increasing Communist strength and participation in their governments in the near future. Greece has overthrown a military dictatorship and has withdrawn from NATO's integrated military structure. Turkey has a weak interim government and has also called for a reevaluation of her defense relationship to the United States and NATO in the wake of the recent U.S. arms embargo to Turkey. Outside of NATO, but vital to the total defense posture in Europe, Spain is showing ominous symptoms of uncontrollable and unpredictable instability as General Franco approaches the end.

Second, economic pressures on defense spending have increased sharply. The economic downturn in the West and the oil crisis, together with the growing realization of resource scarcity, has made it more difficult to pay the escalating costs of high defense outlays in NATO's consumer societies facing the prospect of a deterioration in their standard of living. This is the pressure most directly felt in the Congress. The longstanding U.S. request for her European allies to share more of the burden of NATO defense costs has not been satisfied. The British have apparently even withdrawn some forces from their sector of the front line on the North German Plain, leaving a potential hole in NATO's defense posture.

Third, the much-touted détente between East and West, the United States and the U.S.S.R. and the People's Republic of China, has weakened the ultimate raison d'être of NATO in the eyes of many, especially among U.S. voters.

Meanwhile, however, all the NATO countries visited, as well as Spain and even neutral Sweden, appear to regard the heavy U.S. commitment to the defense of Europe and the stationing of U.S. forces in Europe as vital to their own security. Nowhere in Europe did it appear that any alternative to NATO or to the predominate role of the United States in NATO was considered realistic or even feasible. There has, in the past, been much talk about ways to revitalize NATO or to change NATO in order to adapt to a changing world. But NATO has continued virtually unchanged despite all efforts to change it, exhibiting a considerable amount of institutional inertia.

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FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

1. The United States should continue to regard NATO as the keystone and primary forum of our foreign policy with our major allies in Europe. It is readily apparent that no alternative to an alliance between Western Europe and the United States with the United States as the dominant factor in such an alliance, is considered realistic or feasible.

2. The United States should continue to press the Europeans to share more of the burden of the cost of such an alliance. Obviously, the easiest thing politically for European governments to do is to resist assuming more of the burden. Unless we insist and, if necessary refuse to pay more than our share, an undue proportion of the burden will continue to be carried by the United States, and popular support for NATO in the United States by the American taxpayer and voter, will erode. The United States should protest any British force cutback in its Army of the Rhine in Germany, as described by a British Parliamentary Committee report.

3. Before the power struggle in Portugal has abated, there may be significant armed conflict, especially if the leftist military circles behind the revolution find no peaceful means of restraining control. While watching closely for any Soviet involvement, the United States should take care not to confuse indigenous political struggle between the Portuguese left and right, with such involvement.

4. With the departure of General Franco, the United States should insist that Spain be brought into NATO. The southern tier of NATO is in sore need of full Spanish membership.

5. Foreign policy planners and military strategists should consider seriously what actions must be taken in the event that the Italian national elections, which must be held within 2 years, bring a Communist plurality to power. There is a strong possibility that such a circumstance will occur.

U.S. policy in Italy must take into account the growing political significance of the Italian Communist Party in the face of the continued inability of the other political parties to make any meaningful progress toward solving Italy's worsening economic and social problems. We can no longer pretend that the PCI does not exist, officially. The attitude of the PCI toward the United States just might be influenced to some extent by our attitude toward the PCI. A long, hard and honest look should be given to the PCI to determine their true degree of independence from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

6. Immediate consideration should be given to the present troop dispersal of those nations which have troops stationed along the East German border. It would be far more cost-effective and militarily sound to withdraw NATO troops positioned along the actual border to concentrated positions some distance behind the border. The West German border guard could then patrol the border itself, while multinational NATO troops, in brigade and division size, could remain in a ready position. In case of attack, there would be much greater flexibility in sending reinforcements when and where needed.

The present layer-cake system of each NATO country conducting movements by itself is both militarily unsound, and practically impossible to coordinate in case of attack.

INTRODUCTION

As a member of the Committee on International Relations and its Oversight Subcommittee, I conducted a study mission to selected NATO countries in August 1975. The countries visited were Portugal, Spain, Italy, NATO and SHAPE headquarters in Belgium, V Corps Army units on the border in West Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Ireland. I was accompanied on the trip by James T. Schollaert, Staff Consultant, Committee on International Relations.

The purpose of the trip was to gain firsthand information about problems facing the future of NATO, which the Congress must eventually deal with in conjunction with domestic political considerations. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formally created on April 4, 1949, over 26 years ago. NATO, with the United States as the military backbone, was created to defend its member countries from a Soviet military threat, which was perceived as very real in 1949. The U.S. commitment to NATO since that time has remained wholehearted, and expensive. Today, the wholehearted commitment of our European Allies appears questionable. France since 1966, has withdrawn from NATO's integrated military command structure, and has denied the use of French soil to NATO forces. Greece, in 1975, has withdrawn from NATO's integrated military command structure. Turkey is in the process of reappraising its NATO membership in the wake of the cutoff of U.S. military sales and assistance by the Congress. In Portugal, the Communist Party presently is exerting considerable influence in a frail and unpredictable political situation in the wake of a coup by young left-leaning military officers. In Italy, the Communist Party (PCI) continues to gain political strength, gaining 35 percent of the Italian vote in the June 15, 1975, regional elections. There is a strong prospect of the inclusion of the PCI in the next government after the 1977 national elections. And the Italian military will soon cut the term of service from 18 months to 12 months.

Outside the southern tier, Great Britain, continuing its long economic decline, has cut its defense spending and ceased regular patrol of their northern end of the central front in Germany, and withdrawn some forces from Germany for use in Northern Ireland, weakening the defense of the North German Plain approaches to Western Europe. Only the Federal Republic of Germany has increased its contribution to the NATO forces.

The vital resource of oil has multiplied in price following an Arab oil embargo in the wake of the September 1973 war in the Middle East. This development has shaken the already faltering economic situation. in all of the NATO countries and increased the difficulty of paving for rapidly escalating defense costs. It also raises the question of how the NATO countries would respond to a Soviet attack accompanied with an Arab oil embargo.

Détente continues, with the Helsinki Summit, which resulted in the signature by 35 states including the United States and the Soviet Union, of a document foreswearing the use of force to change any of the borders in Europe, and to otherwise relax tensions and increase trade.

Meanwhile, all the NATO countries visited, as well as Spain and Sweden, regard the heavy U.S. commitment to the defense of Europe and the stationing of U.S. forces in Europe as vital to their own security. None of these countries regard any alternative to the present NATO security alliance arrangement to be realistic or feasible. The Norwegians put it most bluntly and aptly by describing the presence of American forces as hostages and a guarantee to the Europeans that the United States would be involved in any war that might be initiated by an attack on Western Europe by the Warsaw Pact nations.

All of these developments raise many critical questions about the future of NATO, and the U.S. contribution to NATO, which may well come under increasing pressure from the dynamics of the domestic economic situation in the United States, apart from the overall political and security situation in Europe.

A detailed account of the study mission's visit to individual countries follows.

PORTUGAL

The study mission arrived in Lisbon on August 5, 1975, during a time of particularly tense unrest. A three-man military junta of Costa Gomez, Goncalves, and Carvalho had just been formed the previous week by the Revolutionary Council of Military Officers, to head the government of the country. Prime Minister Goncalves was already under mounting pressure from the right to resign. The first serious unrest and violence since the revolution was occurring in the north around Oporto. General Atelo de Carvalho, had just returned from Cuba to make some strong statements threatening opponents of the military government.

Opposition to the left direction of the government under Goncalves was coming chiefly from the Socialist Party Chief Soares, the former Foreign Minister, Maj. Melo Antunes.

The study mission met with Embassy officers for briefings, visited NATO's IBERLANT headquarters, and met with a leading figure of the Portuguese Military's Revolutionary Council, as well as a political leader of the moderate Popular Democratic Party.

PORTUGAL'S GEOGRAPHIC CONTRIBUTION TO NATO

A visit and briefing at IBERLANT, NATO's planning and coordinating headquaters for the southern Atlantic flank was conducted on August 6. Information concerning IBERLANT and Portugal's role in NATO was collected.

Geographic location appears to be the most important Portuguese contribution to NATO. NATO bases in Portugal and the Azores permit the southern Atlantic area which is crucial to shipping to be more effectively monitored.

If Portugal were to leave NATO, it appears that Spain could effectively replace the geographical location contribution to NATO, if Spain could be admitted to NATO. Also there remains the question of whether the Azores would remain a Portuguese possession if Portugal continues its leftward drift, in view of the strong pro-independence sentiment and conservative political leanings of the Azorean population.

PORTUGUESE ATTITUDES TOWARD NATO

Under the authoritarian Salazar and Caetano governments, the Portuguese people were not consulted or often even informed about Portuguese foreign policy commitments and the need or lack thereof for these commitments. Thus there was no reservoir of broad public support for NATO or even wide understanding of the need for NATO in Portugal following the downfall of Salazar and Caetano.

The Portuguese commitment to provide one division for the defense of Europe is of questionable value today, as it was even under the Salazar regime. This was especially true after the 1961 U.S. arms