Attached is a Policy Planning Staff paper embodying certain points which
the staff feels should be considered and clarified before we
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enter upon the forthcoming
negotiations for a North Atlantic security pact.
The staff is aware that there will be adverse views in the European
office on this subject; but it has not previously formally stated its
position on these matters and feels that a clear and firm position
should be arrived at by the Department on these points before any
further negotiations are conducted with the European
representatives.
[Enclosure]
Considerations Affecting the Conclusion of a
North Atlantic Security Pact2
The Policy Planning Staff washes to invite attention to certain
considerations which it feels should be borne in mind in connection
with the forthcoming negotiations for a North Atlantic Security
Pact, and to advance certain recommendations which flow
therefrom:
1. Misconceptions as to the
Significance of the Pact.
There is danger that we will deceive ourselves, and permit
misconceptions to exist among our own public and in Europe,
concerning the significance of the conclusion of such a pact at this
time.
It is particularly difficult to assess the role of such a pact in our
foreign policy for the reason that there is valid long-term
justification for a formalization, by international agreement, of
the natural defense relationship among the countries of the North
Atlantic community. Such a formalization could
- contribute to the general sense of security in the
area;
- facilitate of development of defensive power throughout the
area; and
- act as a deterrent to outside aggressive forces.
It is therefore desirable, quite aside from the situation of the
moment in Europe, that we proceed deliberately, and with careful
study to the elaboration and negotiation of such an agreement.
On the other hand, it is important to understand that the conclusion
of such a pact is not the main answer to the present Soviet effort
to dominate the European continent, and will not appreciably modify
the nature or danger of Soviet policies.
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A military danger, arising from possible incidents or from the
prestige engagement of the Russians and the western powers in the
Berlin situation, does exist, and is probably increasing rather than
otherwise. But basic Russian intent still runs to the conquest of
western Europe by political means. In this program, military force
plays a major role only as a means of intimidation.
The danger of political conquest is still greater than the military
danger. If a war comes in the foreseeable future, it will probably
be one which Moscow did not desire but did not know how to avoid.
The political war, on the other hand, is now in progress; and, if
there should not be a shooting war, it is this political war which
will be decisive.
A North Atlantic Security Pact will affect the political war only
insofar as it operates to stiffen the self-confidence of the western
Europeans in the face of Soviet pressures. Such a stiffening is
needed and desirable. But it goes hand in hand with the danger of a
general preoccupation with military affairs, to the detriment of
economic recovery and of the necessity for seeking a peaceful
solution to Europe’s difficulties.
This preoccupation is already widespread, both in Europe and in this
country. It is regrettable; because it addresses itself to what is
not the main danger. We have to deal with it as a reality; and to a
certain extent we have to indulge it, for to neglect it would be to
encourage panic and uncertainty in western Europe and to play into
the hands of the communists. But in doing so, we should have clearly
in mind that the need for military alliances and rearmament on the
part of the western Europeans is primarily a subjective one, arising in their own minds as a result of
their failure to understand correctly their own position. Their best
and most hopeful course of action, if they are to save themselves
from communist pressures, remains the struggle for economic recovery
and for internal political stability.
Compared to this, intensive rearmament constitutes an uneconomic and
regrettable diversion of effort. A certain amount of rearmament can
be subjectively beneficial to western Europe. But if this rearmament
proceeds at any appreciable cost to European recovery, it can do
more harm than good. The same will be true if concentration on the
rearmament effort gradually encourages the assumption that war is
inevitable and that therefore no further efforts are necessary
toward the political weakening and defeat of the communist power in
central and eastern Europe.
2. The territorial scope of the
Pact.
The Policy Planning Staff is of the opinion that the scope of a pact
of this sort should be restricted to the North Atlantic area itself,
and
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that attempts to go
further afield and to include countries beyond that area might have
undesirable consequences.
The possibility of a mistake in this respect is particularly acute
because we ourselves showed uncertainty on this point in the
preliminary discussions of the past summer, and the final record of
the results of those discussions left open the possibility of the
Pact’s being extended beyond the North Atlantic area.*
This point was included largely at the insistence of the United
States group. While it might do no great harm to have this
possibility left open in the final text of the Pact, the Policy
Planning Staff did not then, and does not now, agree with the
thinking that lay behind this insistence.
The Staff considers that a North Atlantic security pact might
properly embrace any country whose homeland or insular territories
are washed by the waters of the North Atlantic, or which form part
of a close union of states which meets this description. Under this
concept, for example, Luxembourg would properly come into such a
pact through its membership in the Benelux group. But to go beyond this, and to take in
individual continental countries which do not meet this description
would, in the opinion of the Staff, be unsound, for the following
reasons.
In the first place, the admission of any single country beyond the
North Atlantic area would be taken by others as constituting a
precedent, and would almost certainly lead to a series of demands
from states still further afield that they be similarly treated.
Failure on our part to satisfy these further demands would then be
interpreted as lack of interest in the respective countries, and as
evidence that we had “written them off” to the Russians. Beyond the
Atlantic area, which is a clean-cut concept, and which embraces a
real community of defense interest firmly rooted in geography and
tradition, there is no logical stopping point in the development of
a system of anti-Russian alliances until that system has circled the
globe and has embraced all the non-communist countries of Europe,
Asia and Africa.
To get carried into any such wide system of alliances could lead only
to one of two results; either all these alliances become meaningless
declarations, after the pattern of the Kellogg Pact, and join the
long array of dead-letter pronouncements through which governments
have professed their devotion to peace in the past; or this country
becomes still further over-extended, politically and militarily. In
the first case, we would have made light of our own word and damaged
the future usefulness of Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
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In addition, we would
have weakened the integrity and significance of our own defense
relationship with our neighbors of the north Atlantic community. In
the second case, we would be flying in the face of the solemn
warning recently given by the Joint Chiefs of Staff concerning the
increasing discrepancy between our commitments and our military
resources,†
A particularly unfortunate effect of going beyond the North Atlantic
area would be that we would thereby raise for every country in
Europe the question: to belong or not to belong. An issue would thus
be raised which would be in many cases unnecessary and potentially
embarrassing, and in some cases outright dangerous. If individual
countries rejected membership or were refused membership, the
Russians could make political capital out of this, either way. If,
on the other hand, most of the ERP
countries were permitted to join, and did so, this would amount to a
final militarization of the present dividing-line through Europe.
Such a development would be particularly unfortunate, for it would
create a situation in which no alteration, or obliteration, of that
line could take place without having an accentuated military
significance. This would reduce materially the chances for Austrian
and German settlements, and would make it impossible for any of the
satellite countries even to contemplate anything in the nature of a
gradual withdrawal from Russian domination, since any move in that
direction would take on the aspect of a provocative military
move.
Unquestionably, there is already a strong tendency in this direction;
and it may not be possible for us to prevent a progressive
congealment of the present line of division. But our present policy
is still directed (and in the opinion of the Staff, rightfully so)
toward the eventual peaceful withdrawal of both the United States
and the U.S.S.R. from the heart of Europe, and accordingly toward
the encouragement of the growth of a third force which can absorb
and take over the territory between the two.
Unless we are prepared consciously to depart from this policy, to
renounce hope of a peaceful solution of Europe’s difficulties, and
to plan our foreign policy deliberately on the assumption of a
coming military conflict, we should not do things which tend to fix,
and make unchangeable by peaceful means, the present line of
east-west division.
The Staff feels that, rather than extending membership in the pact to
non-North Atlantic powers, a much sounder way of enhancing the sense
of security of other European countries would be through the
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implementation of the
suggestion, contained in Paragraph 9 of Part II of the record of the
recent informal discussions‡, that the members of the pact jointly
make known their interest in the security of the given country.
This view of the Staff is without prejudice to the question of the
desirability of the United States associating itself with any
further regional agreements, as for example a Mediterranean pact,
which question lies outside the scope of this paper.
recommendations
In the light of the above, the Policy Planning Staff recommends:
(a) That it be accepted as the view of this
Government:
- (1)
- That there is a long-term need for a permanent
formalization of the defense relationship among the
countries of the North Atlantic area;
- (2)
- That the conclusion of a North Atlantic Security Pact just
at this time will have a specific short-term value in so far
as it may serve to increase the sense of security on the
part of the members of the Brussels Pact and of other
European countries; but
- (3)
- That, nevertheless, the conclusion of the Pact is not the
main answer to the Russian effort to achieve domination over
western Europe, which still appears to be primarily
political in nature. The conclusion and implementation of
such a pact should therefore not be considered as a
replacement for the other steps which are being taken and
should be taken to meet the Russian challenge, nor should
they be given priority over the latter.
| Approved: |
Mr. Lovett |
The Secretary |
| Disapproved: |
Mr. Lovett |
The Secretary |
(b) That steps be taken to see that this view
of the significance of a possible North Atlantic Security Pact be
made available for background to all higher officials of the
Department, to Missions in the field, and to the informational
organs of this Department and other Government Departments, with a
view to keeping it before the public and to combatting opposing
concepts.
| Approved: |
Mr. Lovett |
The Secretary |
| Disapproved: |
Mr. Lovett |
The Secretary |
(c) That it be the policy of this Government
not to encourage adherence to a North Atlantic Security Pact of any
country not properly a part of the North Atlantic community.
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| Approved: |
Mr. Lovett |
The Secretary |
| Disapproved: |
Mr. Lovett |
The Secretary |
