Even before President Ford left for Brussels to participate in the NATO summit last week, he must have known that he could neither reassure his European allies regarding their security nor persuade them to raise their contribution to the strength of the alliance. But he had to go through the motions of reaffirming America’s commitment to the defence of his NATO allies in view of the collapse of anti-Communist regimes in Indochina and the USA’s inability to fulfil its promises to them. And, having done so, he was ready to concentrate on the task which must have been uppermost in his mind.
President Ford did not, of course, undertake the trip to Europe solely for the purpose of conferring with President Sadat and exploring with him a possible basis for an Israeli-Egyptian agreement on further disengagement in the Sinai. But there can be little doubt that West Asia and not Europe is going to command American attention in coming months. This will be so not only because the danger of an explosion is far more acute in West Asia but also because the gains from success there will be far greater. Indeed, the security and well-being of all members of NATO and Japan depends critically on the outcome of the American effort in West Asia.
In Europe the United States cannot, on present reckoning, engage in anything more significant than a holding operation. In fact it must consider itself lucky if it can accomplish this limited task successfully.
Disparity
This assessment does not rest entirely on recent developments like the disarray in NATO in the form of the Greek-Turkish conflict over Cyprus and the emergence in Portugal of a left-of-centre regime dominated by radical military officers and the pro-Soviet Communist Party. It also takes into consideration other factors like the growing disparity between NATO and the Warsaw Pact powers in respect of conventional military forces, the unwillingness, and now also the inability, of West European countries to strengthen their conventional forces in view of the inflationary pressure – four of them have in fact reduced these – the growth of leftist and neutralist sentiment among the youth and the failure of all western attempts to reduce the Soviet hold on Eastern and Central Europe.
Since despite the long-standing doubts regarding the credibility of the US nuclear deterrent in Western Europe, the West as a whole can assume that the Soviet Union will neither resort nor threaten to resort to force in the foreseeable future, the last point regarding the Soviet position in Eastern Europe is perhaps the most notable. So far it has not commanded either in the United States or in Western Europe the attention it deserves. But that does not detract from its importance.
To simplify rather complicated issues, it can be said that since the construction in 1961 of the Berlin wall which ended the bleeding of East Germany through the flight of millions of well-trained personnel to the Federal Republic, the West has tried two sets of policies neither of which can be said to have been successful. In both instances Bonn has been the principal actor on behalf of the West.
The Federal Republic first tried to woo East European countries, specially Czechoslovakia and Poland, by offering them enticements in the form of increased trade, credits and technical know-how which they needed desperately in order to modernise their economies and meet the growing demand for consumer goods. This phase ended with Soviet military intervention in Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Though the Soviet leadership acted after a great deal of hesitation and vacillation, it finally left the West in no doubt that it would not allow any East European country to opt out of the political, economic and military system presided over by it.
Discovery
Mr Brandt then made the well-advertised discovery that the route to Prague and Warsaw lay through Moscow. But once again the calculation was that a settlement of the contentious Berlin issue, the acceptance by the West of the Soviet demand regarding the inviolability of frontiers resulting from the second world war, the recognition of the German Democratic Republic as a sovereign state and substantial economic deals with Moscow itself would reassure the Soviet leadership sufficiently to persuade it to liberalise the regime at home and reduce, or at least not strengthen, its military presence in Eastern and Central Europe. Neither of these expectations has been fulfilled. Moscow, on the contrary, has stepped up its military strength in Europe despite its preoccupation with China.
At the same time the West’s feeling of vulnerability has increased as a result of inflation, economic stagnation, increased unemployment, the four-fold rise in oil prices, the fear that producers of other raw materials may form cartels on the pattern of the OPEC, the weakening of NATO’s southern plank and the growth of the neo-isolationist sentiment in the US.
The apparent weakness of the West in Europe may incidentally explain the Chinese insistence that the basic relationship between the two super-powers is antagonistic and that Europe is the centre of their contention. The point here is not that the Chinese are accurate in their description of the situation as it exists but that they regard it necessary to do what they can to ensure that the Americans and the West Europeans do not accept the present position. Peking’s true assessment is well summed up in an address attributed by Taipei to Mrs Mao Tse-tung. She is reported to have said that while Mr Kissinger’s policy of maintaining a balance of power involves an admission on his part that there are conflicts and contradictions with the Soviet Union, which is not named in the text as released by Taipei, he has not made any effort, through struggle, to resolve these. Instead, having adopted an escapist attitude, he is persisting in an ostrich-like policy.
In view of Tel Aviv’s refusal so far to make territorial concessions which President Sadat can accept without loss of face and the strength of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States as reflected in the memorandum 76 Senators have submitted to President Ford asking him to meet Tel Aviv’s request for massive military and economic assistance, it will obviously be premature to say that the West’s weakness in Europe is balanced by the Soviet Union’s in West Asia. But it cannot be disputed that Moscow has not been able to recover the ground it clearly lost not only in Egypt but in the region as a whole in the summer of 1972 when President Sadat expelled its military personnel. Indeed, by sending two diplomats to Tel Aviv on a secret mission and opening secret talks with Israeli ambassadors in Washington and Bonn, Moscow has indirectly acknowledged that its previous West Asian policy has not paid much dividends. Similarly, the decision to provide massive supplies of highly sophisticated weapons to Libya is an indirect admission that it is not likely to be able to retrieve its position in Egypt which remains highly influential in the Arab world despite its economic weakness and the unprecedented affluence of the oil-rich nations.
Diminution
The Soviet Union has also suffered a diminution of influence in Iraq partly as a result of the Teheran-Baghdad agreement and partly as that of the aggravation of the Baghdad-Damascus dispute over the division of the waters of the Euphrates. The agreement with Iran has reduced Iraq’s need for Soviet arms and support and the conflict with Syria must inevitably anger Baghdad against Moscow because it has built the dam which has enabled Damascus to deny Iraq what it regards as its legitimate share of the waters.
And ironical though it may appear, the Soviet Union has not gained any direct advantage as a result of the communist victories in South Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos. The Vietnamese are already at pains to emphasise that they intend to pursue an independent line. In New Delhi, for instance, they invited the CPM to participate in a function which was organised for celebrating Ho Chi Minh’s birthday. In Saigon, they have dropped broad hints that they would like the western oil companies, which had entered into agreement with the Thieu government, to stay on.
Thus in the whole of Asia, India alone remains a firm friend of the Soviet Union from the long-term point of view. But here, too, a fairly strong anti-CPI sentiment has emerged in the ruling party. It has also begun to be widely recognised that private enterprise must be allowed considerable leeway if the economic difficulties are not to become unmanageable and that it is necessary to improve relations with the United States and strengthen co-operation with its ally, Iran.
The Times of India, 4 June 1975