Storm over the Alliance

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Expert Bertram: "Friends are there for bad times, and these are bad times. But if we decide not to go to the Olympics, if we decide to break off diplomatic relations with Iran, if we decide to impose economic sanctions for the sole reason of appeasing the Americans rather than deterring the Soviets, then something is wrong with the alliance."

The easiest change for the U.S. to make will be to consult more frequently with its allies before leaping into action. Far more difficult will be the challenge of creating a consistent foreign policy that the allies can trust and use as a lodestone to plot their own courses.

For their part, the allies must try to broaden their limiting regional perspective and recognize that their first line of defense may no longer be in their backyard. They would be protecting themselves by joining the U.S. to stop Soviet threats to Southwest Asia and other strategically important regions. The European Community should streamline its cumbersome system of consulting so that it can more quickly respond to U.S. initiatives and to international challenges. Together the U.S. and its partners should do some contingency planning for Third World crises. Says Bertram: "If the crisis had been over Berlin and not Afghanistan, the alliance would have immediately known what to do."

The dispute between the allies that erupted publicly last week left officials in every allied capital worried about the future of the alliance. Mirrored in the series of events were the weaknesses—as well as some of the strengths—of the ties binding the free world's major powers. Says Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a former aide of Henry Kissinger and now a scholar at Washington's Brookings Institution: "The alliance is going through a period of adjustment out of which new practices and perceptions will grow. There is a potential for new strength but the danger of discord and weakness is greater."

Last week, with protests and promises still ringing across the oceans, Brzezinski summed up the problems facing the alliance. The U.S. certainly must continue to pursue its leadership role, he said, which inevitably "creates frictions, and we acknowledge it. But without such a role for the U.S., there will be no action. Therefore, we are prepared to accept friction as a necessary preliminary to a collective response that needs to be made. At the same time, we must be careful not to force our allies into positions where their vital interests are jeopardized. This dilemma, the recognition of diversity and the need for common action, will be with us for years to come." ∎

*NATO's members: Belgium, Canada, Denmark. France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Turkey, United Kingdom, U.S., West Germany.