being put into Germany, you see it as Germany losing its nuclear virginity. There is no way, once those things are on the ground, for the Soviets not to suspect that Germans will get control of some of them. They already think Germany is interested in building its own cruise missiles, and that worries them a great deal."

A New Order of Consultation.-Given their concerns about the future--and the practices of the relatively recent past-Europeans reasonably expect a new role in the coordination of Western arms control tactics. While all of our sources agreed that NATO consultation on military and political matters has greatly improved in the last two years, they also remember the gaps during SALT I and early in SALT 11. "Obviously," remarked an HLG participant, "the United States is always in the position of deciding what information about the progress of SALT or of its own thinking it will give out in formal or informal briefings. And there have been times-but fewer and fewer lately when the Allies have been informed after the fact instead of consulted beforehand." Now, however, with the formation of the High Level and Special Groups, Allied consultations have an institutional framework which seems likely to outlast the planned 1979 decision on TNF.

General expectation of increased participation by the Allies arises not only from the expanding importance of theater issues but also from the steady political and economic resurgence of Western Europe. For the most part, the United States has accepted as inevitable-and has indeed welcomed-the growth of Allied self-confidence and assertiveness, but it has also made decision-making more complicated. "The basic nature of NATO is changing," said a senior European defense official. "Until now the United States handled all nuclear matters. Now the U.S. asks if we are ready to take responsibility ourselves for deploying nuclear weapons. Putting that question means your giving up any thought of a free hand on nuclear arms control." At the same time, however, most observers agreed that, given the increasing complexity of nuclear negotiations along with heightened public sensitivity to nuclear issues, effective American leadership in the Alliance would be more necessary than ever. As an American at NATO headquarters quipped, "the era of the nuclear free lunch is over. It is no longer a matter of the United States spreading out its wares and the Europeans picking and choosing what they want or, more often, letting us make the choices for them. The challenge now is for the United States to lead them to the choices we think are right."

The needed balance was suggested by another NATO diplomat, one from Europe, who drew a distinction between the levels of consultation within the Alliance necessary for SALT and for the MBFR talks, concerning force reductions in Central Europe, which have been underway since 1973 in Vienna and which have required the development within NATO of formal Western positions. "Much of SALT III," he said, "can take place without European participation, but on TNF matters consultation will have to be very close. We cannot go all the way to the MBFR pattern, because the talks should remain essentially bilateral without NATO's being charged with agreeing to explicit, precise negotiating instructions. But the Americans," he concluded, "can no longer think of making a SALT agreement over the heads of Europeans.'

Timetable. As the Alliance has sought answers to the questions discussed above, it has also set itself a target the mid-December meeting of the North Atlantic Council-for resolving them. Although the intensive consultations in the High-Level and Special Groups have moved the Allies close to the required consensus, it is not yet clear that a key political element of the equation will be in place in time for the NATO Ministers to make the TNF modernization decision on schedule. The missing ingredient is Senate ratification of SALT II. Without that proof of U.S. commitment to nuclear arms control and to continuation of the search for East-West stability, Europeans will find it hard to take the difficult political decisions on TNF modernization. For technical reasons NATO's military planners are anxious to have no delay on the actual choice of weapons systems to be procured. For political reasons having set themselves a deadline-Alliance leaders are even more anxious that they maintain their schedule. "In this case," said one senior NATO analyst, "a delay will be seen as the equivalent of a decision not to go ahead, and that would be very damaging."

APPENDIX A

THE OFFICIAL U.S. PERSPECTIVE ON SALT'S EFFECT ON THE EUROPEAN THEATER

The body of this report focuses on European attitudes to nuclear weapons in NATO and to SALT II and SALT III. This appendix discusses, from the official U.S. perspective, the SALT II Treaty issues of specific concern to Europeans. What follows is a brief account-derived from discussion with Administration officials-of how the non-circumvention clause, the Protocol, and the Joint Statement of Principles arose in the SALT II negotiation and how they were presented and explained to the NATO Allies.

NON-CIRCUMVENTION

The concept of a non-circumvention provision first arose in connection with a definitional issue that impeded SALT negotiations from the outset the question of what constitutes a "strategic" weapon. For their part, the Soviets have strongly favored the simple definition of a "strategic" system as being any weapon owned by one side capable of striking the territory of the other. Such a definition would count all of the central strategic systems-ICBMS, SLBMs, and heavy bombers-on both sides, but would also include all U.S. forward-based systems (FBS) while excluding all Soviet systems not deployed to strike U.S. territory. While arguably fair with regard to the superpower balance, this approach would weigh in favor of the Soviets in the European theater and has thus remained unacceptable to the United States. Accordingly, the U.S. approach has been to sidestep the question of defining a "strategic" system and to argue that SALT should deal exclusively with central systems, and not with theater systems such as the more than 500 U.S. aircraft deployed in the European and Pacific theater which can strike Soviet territory. During the SALT I negotiations, this definitional dispute stalemated progress for an extended period and was never resolved. As the SALT II negotiations began, the Soviets proposed asymmetrical central system limitations, with a larger aggregate for themselves to compensate for U.S. FBS and for Allied nuclear forces. The U.S. goal in turn was to achieve agreement on the principle of equal aggregates, with FBS excluded and with no compensation for Allied systems. It was in the context of seeking Soviet agreement to this basic principle that U.S. negotiators first conceived the idea of a provision by which the Soviets, if they did agree to exclude FBS from treaty limits, could at least be assured that the United States would not circumvent ceilings on central systems by augmenting forward systems.

At Vladivostok in November 1974, when the Soviets withdrew their demand that FBS be included in SALT II, the United States temporarily set aside its non-circumvention proposal. But as negotiations resumed in Geneva in early 1975, the question arose again when the Soviets proposed that the new treaty contain not only a non-circumvention provision but also a non-transfer provision under which each party would undertake "not to transfer strategic offensive arms to other states, and not to assist in their development, in particular, by transferring components, technical descriptions or blueprints for these arms." The Soviets subsequently defined "strategic offensive arms” as arms limited in the Treaty and the Protocol.

Although the United States had agreed to such a non-transfer provision in the ABM Treaty of 1972, U.S. negotiators categorically rejected the Soviet non-transfer proposal regarding offensive strategic arms. The Soviets continued, however, to press for U.S. acceptance of their dual non-circumvention/non-transfer concept. As a result, the issue was left at an impasse.

In June 1977, in consultation with the North Atlantic Council (NAC), the United States discussed the possibility of proposing to the Soviets that they drop their non-transfer proposal in exchange for American acceptance of a general non-circumvention provision. The United States suggested to the Allies the following alternative formulations:

"In order to ensure the viability and effectiveness of this Treaty, each Party undertakes not to circumvent the provisions of this Treaty."

"In order to ensure the viability and effectiveness of this Treaty, each Party undertakes not to circumvent the provisions of this Treaty, through any other state or states, or in any other manner.'

The United States told the Allies that it considered the first alternative to be preferable, since it used more general language, but emphasized that the difference between the two was not substantive because neither version did anything more than make explicit the obligation inherent in any international agreement not to circumvent the agreement's provisions. At the same time, the United States pointed out that the second alternative was more likely to induce Soviet withdrawal of the non-transfer proposal; and, on that basis, the United States suggested it be considered a "fallback" to the first proposal. The NAC responded by agreeing that the United States should propose the first version to the Soviets, and consult again with the Allies if the "fallback" appeared necessary.

In August 1977, following this consultation, the United States presented its non-circumvention proposal to the Soviets. Five months later, in January 1978, the Soviets responded with a counterproposal which softened the wording of their non-transfer proposal by (a) deleting any reference to components, technical descriptions and blueprints and (b) combining non-transfer and non-circumvention stipulations into a single provision.

In February 1978, having reasserted to the Soviets that any nontransfer obligation was unacceptable, the United States consulted with the NAC, telling the Allies that the "fallback" version would now probably be useful in persuading the Soviets to abandon their nontransfer proposal and resolve the issue. The United States reempha