Europe: The Razor’s Edge

It is doubtful that Charles de Gaulle would cut off that magnificent nose just to spite his face, but last week the razor was stropped and poised. After two days of debate, the French National Assembly rubber-stamped its approval of De Gaulle’s military program for the next six years, including the somewhat farcical force de frappe. By a vote of 278 to 178, the Assembly gave De Gaulle a green light to pursue his intransigent course. He will have an opportunity to try the razor’s edge next week, when the NATO foreign ministers assemble in Paris to debate the future shape of the alliance.

“We cannot content ourselves with a role within the alliance of auxiliaries to a Roman legion,” said one Gaullist Deputy, advancing the reasonable enough argument that a truly independent Europe cannot permanently depend on the U.S. nuclear deterrent for its defense. There are only two things wrong with this reasoning: 1) De Gaulle expects the rest of Europe, including Germany, to be dependent on France in precisely the way he refuses to be dependent on the U.S.; 2) the French deterrent as out lined last week is not worth much now and will not be for a long time.

Fadinq Mirages. For a price tag of $30 billion, or roughly 5% of the French gross national product over the next six years, Frenchmen will be buying a beefed-up conventional force and a total of 62 needle-nosed Mirage IV bombers to tote the Gaullist bombette at a relatively slow 1,200 m.p.h. over a range of 1 ,000 miles. When the Mirages fade into obsolescence around 1968-69, they will be supplanted by SSBS missiles (the sibilant stands for sol-sol-balistique-strategique, or ground-to-ground-ballistic-strategic), to be lodged in hard-base silos in France. With a range of 1,800 miles, the two-stage SSBS missile will pack a warhead in the megaton range, making it roughly the equivalent of the already operational Polaris missile, smallest of the U.S. strategic rockets.

As an alternative to all this, the U.S. continued its almost fanatical backing—with West Germany giving more restrained support—of the proposed multilateral force of 25 surface ships armed with Polaris missiles and manned by mixed crews from NATO nations. Where the French nuclear force currently swings a total punch of three megatons, the MLF would carry 200. Though the U.S. would retain ultimate control of the MLF’s nuclear trigger, participating nations would have more pull on it than under the French scheme. The French last week reiterated one of their many objections to MLF: it would start the Germans toward being a nuclear power. But how in the long run can Germany be kept from wanting the same nuclear status De Gaulle wants for France? The French have no answer.

Qualified Endorsement. The British think they have a partial answer. Prime Minister Harold Wilson proposes to broaden the scope of MLF to include land-based missiles, three of five British Polaris subs, and various aircraft. This sprawling scheme would greatly dilute the German contribution.

Meeting in Paris, the Western European Union (composed of legislators from the six Common Market nations plus Britain) approved the Wilson plan by a vote of 37 to 9, with 15 abstentions. This qualified endorsement will give Wilson a somewhat stronger hand to play in his talks this week with President Johnson. But having just helped bail the British out of their financial crisis, Washington is not rushing to buy the Wilson plan—or to force the Germans to buy it. Speaking at Georgetown University last week, Johnson allowed as how “we shall never insist on unanimity” within the alliance, meaning that the U.S. and West Germany would very probably go ahead with MLF even if Britain and France stay out.