A European nuclear force in NATO

The control of the use of nuclear weapons in Europe has long been a subject of extensive debate in NATO.¹ Ultimately, however, the US has retained both absolute negative control over allied dual-key forces and virtually absolute positive control over its own forces deployed in and around Europe. This arrangement, adopted in the fifties, has arguably yielded considerable advantages to the non-nuclear members of NATO Europe. The most important of these is that it has provided at least some degree of coupling with the US central nuclear deterrent. Second, reliance on the US extended deterrent has probably prevented a proliferation of national nuclear arsenals in NATO Europe.

However, at least since the Athens and Ann Arbor speeches of 1962 by then US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, NATO has witnessed a gradual decrease in the emphasis that was put by the US on the use of nuclear weapons for the defense of Western Europe. This trend has progressively eroded the credibility of the extended nuclear deterrent of the US and poses fundamental challenges for the future of deterrence in Europe. This paper argues that this trend is not acceptable for NATO Europe; that it is nonetheless continuing; and that, if NATO Europeans wish to continue to rely on nuclear deterrence for the maintenance of peace in Europe--as it is argued here they should--they will have to assume greater nuclear use control responsibility. I will first analyze the requirements that would have to be fulfilled for the achievement of this goal and then propose an option for the future.

In an era of rapid political change in Eastern Europe, with the Soviet Union retreating politically and militarily and the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) collapsing, one could wonder whether a nuclear deterrent continues to make sense in the first place. The fact is that the military threat to peace in Europe is not withering away with the disgregation of the Soviet bloc. As one authoritative analyst recently put it, the capability to attack would "vanish only if weapons and soldiers ceased to exist",² which is not likely to be the case for a long time indeed. In all other conceivable scenarios, the ability of nuclear weapons to make war unusable as an instrument of policy can not be replaced. Even after all on-going and projected nuclear reductions in Europe, the Soviet Union will retain a plethora of land-, air-, and sea-based systems with which to inflict a holocaust on Western Europe. While that intention seems to be a remote one indeed in the minds of the Soviet leadership today, the capability is there, and the wholly unpredictable character of future political developments in that country warrants an insurance policy against it.

In addition, rising nationalism throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union raises the possibility that, at some yet indefinite point in the future, one or more of the newly emerging national actors might decide that nuclear weapons are necessary to its security, and may well have the capability to make them. This might be the case, for instance, either with an independent but politically isolated Ukraine or with a fiercely nationalistic, undemocratic and ostracized Romania.

In sum, while the security scene in Europe is changing in ways that are certainly welcome inasmuch as they reduce Cold War vintage tensions, uncertainty and instability are increasing. It would be imprudent to assume that the on-going dramatic geopolitical reshuffle will produce a new static order that is both Western-friendly and long-lasting. In the absence of moderating hegemonic spheres of influence, these may more easily degenerate in armed conflict.

Therefore, while the US extended deterrent has been eroded, the need for war-preventing nuclear deterrence has not lessened in Western Europe, despite current military and political changes in Eastern Europe and in the USSR. However, all traditionally solid justifications for keeping US nuclear weapons in Europe (offsetting Soviet conventional superiority and nuclear forces as well as the ideologically offensive character of the Soviet state) might soon be invalidated by the enthusiasm over Gorbachevism. That the US nuclear presence in Europe will decrease is an ascertained fact. Therefore, NATO Europe urgently needs to take greater nuclear respon­sibility off US shoulders. The thesis of this article is that if NATO Europeans wish to continue to rely on a nuclear deterrent to guarantee their security, they must begin to reconsider options for increasing their own nuclear control responsibilities. This would be a far from uncontroversial process, and the proposal put forward in this paper would certainly attract much opposition. But the issues which it raises are the kinds of questions that Europeans must answer lest they throw up their hands and just hope that the end of the Cold War is also the end of all their security concerns. This paper will have served its purpose if it contributes to generate further debate on the question of the Europeans' nuclear responsibilities after the Cold War.

The option proposed here is the establishment of a NATO European Nuclear Force (NEF) within the integrated military structure of the Alliance. A small survivable force could be constituted as a separate Major NATO Command, equivalent in rank to the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR) and to the Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic (SACLANT), and to be headed by a European general, who would be either French or British for the time being, but whose nationality could later be chosen on a rotational basis if greater European political unity will make it feasible to do so. This post would be assigned solely nuclear retaliatory missions. In case of confirmed Soviet nuclear attack against NATO ter­ritory, the commander would have the pre-delegated authority to fire, at his discretion.

Pre-requisites for a NEF

Several conditions would have to be met to make a NEF a workable political, military and economic proposition: (i) the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), or a united Germany, would have to be involved but, for political reasons, at this time it would not desire--and should not be given--an independent nuclear trigger; (ii) the Nonproliferation Treaty regime should not be weakened; (iii) the cost of any nuclear control rearrangement should be acceptable to those concerned; (iv) such rearrange­ment does not need to be an alternative to the European-North American alliance or even to just the US military presence in Europe, and should therefore be acceptable to the US; (v) nuclear responsibility rearrange­ments in NATO should not be seen by the Soviets to be deliberately provoca­tive; (vi) the force should be acceptable at the domestic political level in the countries involved.

The issue of German nuclear control is a contradictory one in NATO. On the one hand, few Europeans, Eastern or Western, not to mention the two superpowers, are eager to see a German national trigger for nuclear weapons. As of 1990, few have that desire in Germany as well. But the geopolitical equilibria in Europe are changing as a result of both politi­cal transformations in Eastern Europe and continued US nuclear withdrawal from NATO Europe. The new Germany which is emerging as an economic and political superpower in Europe might one day decide to develop a national nuclear arsenal. Should they do so, they would ultimately be able to withstand foreign opposition: therefore, the task for the West is to prevent any development in this direction.³

On the other hand, it would be politically and militarily inconceiv­able to structure any nuclear deterrent in Europe without some kind of prominent German participation, since the central front remains the crucial area of the East-West military equilibrium. For this reason, most West Europeans who believe in nuclear deterrence as an element of their security have been concerned by the growing sentiment in some sectors of the German polity against the presence of US nuclear weapons in Germany. It is difficult to determine exactly to what extent this sentiment is anti-nuclear per se or is just resentment against the US ability to wage nuclear war in Germany. It is certainly a combination of the two. In any case, any measure intended to take some nuclear responsibility away from the US and into Europe--including Germany--should help contain it.

Put another way, most West Europeans and Americans fear both the prospect of a fully nuclear Germany (a traditional concern which may be raised anew by a reunified Germany) and that of a denuclearized one (a relatively new concern).⁴ A NEF would have to balance these two contradictory aspects.

The second problem is constituted by the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). With the recent accession of Spain, all non-nuclear European NATO members are parties to the NPT. The treaty has long performed an important role in stabilizing the military situation in Europe and elsewhere. It would be a mistake to weaken it, perhaps decisively, as the withdrawal of some NATO Europeans in the pursuit of a European deterrent most likely would.

Yet, the creation of the NEF would not require the withdrawal from the treaty by countries participating in the proposed new forces. Italy and the FRG, for example, introduced reservation clauses at the time of signing to the effect that their participation in a European nuclear force created as a follow-on to the current French and British national forces would not be prejudiced by the treaty.⁵ Hence, an integrated NEF would not be incompatible with the NPT if it is created as a successor, albeit a partial one, to the current French and British national arsenals.

While such a succession will obviously not be easy to work out politically, recent renewed political emphasis on European defence coopera­tion (and particularly Franco-German and Franco-British initiatives) are encouraging. A greater degree of joint nuclear control need not be the result of full European political unification and defence integration, but, rather, could act as a catalyst for it. A good, if limited, precedent is set by the gradual turn-over of economic sovereignty with the Single Act, which will produce a united market by 1993. After all, European unification will not be born overnight, but must go forward in steps, and there is no reason not to gradually pursue incremen­tal steps in the defence realm as well.

Threshold countries outside Europe can be expected to seize on the issue to restate the discriminatory character of the NPT, particularly in light of the upcoming 1995 debate over the extension of the treaty, but there is little reason to think they would change their nuclear policies as a result. In the past, the history of the nonproliferation regime shows that nuclear weapon decisions have consistently been taken on the basis of perceived national security interests, and not simply by following the example of other distant states. The NEF would not influence the security environment of any nuclear weapon threshold state such as Argentina, Pakistan, South Korea or South Africa. Consequently, no major change in the nuclear weapon choices of these countries as a result of its creation is to be expected.

At a time of severe budget constraints for all Western governments, the cost of a NEF would have to be low to be acceptable. Yet, since the force could be small in size and might utilize in large part the existing logistical infrastructure and weapons of NATO, this requirement should not be prohibitive.

The force should not be seen as an alternative to the overall US security tie to Western Europe. In particular, it would have to be com­patible with a continued US nuclear presence in Europe. In fact, a con­tinued US conventional and nuclear presence in Europe would be essential to the feasibility of the NEF. As will be shown below, the NEF proposed in this paper must be backed by conventional and short-range nuclear forces, under the existing NATO commands, which can be guaranteed only by a continued US contribution. In addition, the US military presence in Europe serves a political purpose which still retains the support of the over­whelming majority of Europeans. Finally, US technical cooperation and targeting coordination, while probably not essential--much as it is not essential today for the French and the British--would be advisable. Even if the strategic rationales of the new force would be different from those of US forces, a minimum of coordination would be desirable to avoid both fratricide and operations at cross purposes. Therefore, a NEF would not require, nor should it encourage, an erosion of the European-American security partnership in NATO. Indeed, one of its purposes would be to reinforce the partnership by avoiding false illusions on each side about what such a partnership can and can not provide to its participants.

A NEF would have to be structured in such a way that it is not regarded as unduly provocative by the Soviets. Several problems might arise in this regard. The USSR has traditionally been very sensitive to the idea of West European, and particularly German, nuclear use control. Several Soviet strategic analysts⁶ emphasize that Moscow can not but be concerned about any type of West European defence cooperation because, in their view, it would be directed mainly or even, arguably, solely against the USSR. This is all the more worrisome, from the Soviet point of view, when nuclear weapons are involved. But the argument for greater European nuclear control, presented here, would not be to increase the offensive capability of NATO against the Warsaw Pact--or whatever will be left of it. Indeed, given its small size, the warfighting value of the NEF would and should be negligible.

The Soviets could see a NEF as a disruption of the current rather stable bilateral nuclear relationship with the US. Yet, Moscow should realize that any move toward a Europeanization of the British and French national deterrents, to the extent that it would prepare the way for the eventual renunciation of their national trigger (to be achieved when a true West European political entity is created) could, in time, simplify rather than complicate the Soviet nuclear problem in Europe.

Finally, it has been pointed out that a greater West European nuclear role may pose political problems because the Soviets could not match it with an organization of their own among their Eastern European allies.⁷ Traditionally, the USSR has never shared nuclear use control with its allies. With the current de facto dissolution of the Pact this has become a mute question.

On the other hand, there are several reasons to believe that the Soviets might, in time, perceive some benefits in the creation of an integrated NATO-European nuclear force. It would not be the first time that the Soviets belatedly recognize that there is something to be gained from policies they have long opposed on political grounds. This has been the case with recent shifts in Soviet in arms control positions and with their official recognition that a free Eastern Europe, anathema until recently and accepted by default, actually contributes to enhance their security.

First, a long-range NEF would reduce, though not eliminate, current NATO reliance on US Short Range nuclear forces (SNF) for battlefield use, thereby reducing the incentives to hasty action in a crisis and enhancing strategic and crisis stability. The latter is a declared Soviet goal as it is for the West, and there is no reason to think it will change. As a gesture to prove its genuine interests in common security and stability, parallel to the creation of the NEF NATO could continue to reduce its reliance in SNF.

Second, a NEF, with its renewed emphasis on nuclear deterrence, would reduce pressures for costly conventional improvements in NATO. One should keep in mind that, despite the recent reduction of defense budgets and deployed in both NATO and in the Soviet Union, the latter in still pursuing vigorous technological upgrading of its conventional forces. A marked NATO shift away from conventional improvements would further reduce the likeli­hood of a continu­ing expensive investment in conventional forces on the part of the Soviets, thus freeing precious resources for their domestic economic needs. In particular, a NEF would, ceteris paribus, reduce pressure on defence-related technological improve­ments by NATO, particular­ly as pertains to conventional forces. In fact, there is current­ly a tendency to improve NATO's technological edge in the conventional sphere so as to strengthen conventional capabilities in light of the declining credibility of its nuclear deterrent. While the NEF would hardly stop the momentum of defence technology research, it would only need to slow it down to be beneficial for the Soviets. This might relieve them from a technological competition to some extent, and particularly in Emerging Technologies (ET), which would drain their R&D resources and which they would probably lose.

Third, the NEF could serve to bring the French and British arsenals into the arms control process. Along with its creation, NATO might propose to set alliance-to-alliance limits on all INF--including also air-borne and sea-based systems in and around Europe capable of hitting Soviet territory. In practice, this would mean a NATO-USSR deal, since Eastern Europeans are hardly likely to have any role in nuclear control in the WTO. If anything, current developments make one wonder whether the WTO will even continue to exist as a viable military entity. Such a NATO-WTO deal would, however, thwart a traditional Soviet objection, namely that NATO third country forces (i.e. the UK and France) unrestrained by arms control agreements, circumvent the INF treaty.

Finally, a NEF would further strengthen the integration of the FRG into NATO nuclear affairs, thus repressing potential future stimuli toward an independent German nuclear force. The latter has been a most serious Soviet concern in the nuclear field over the years. As mentioned above, while the issue is simply not topical in the FRG at this time, it might become so in the not so distant future. The resur­gence of a German political and economic superpower could make such a prospect a more concrete one in this decade. The Soviets would certainly feel particularly threatened should the Germans decide to proceed with a national nuclear option; they would be likely to exert strong pressure to prevent it, but they would probably be unable to impede its creation.

Quite aside from the strategic merits of the NEF which will be discussed in this article, two further kinds of preliminary political objections might be raised against the case for increasing European nuclear responsibility in NATO. One possible political problem with respect to the broader implications of greater European nuclear control responsibility is that it might fuel renewed global geopolitical ambitions for Western Europeans, which might be destabilizing and should be avoided.⁸ However, increasing European nuclear decision-making power according to a scheme such as that proposed in this study does not need to involve greater geopolitical ambitions. In fact, in no way would NATO Europe need to redefine its global political or military role in order to provide for a more autonomous nuclear deterrent. The only purpose of such greater nuclear responsibility should be to provide a nuclear deterrent against any kind of war in Europe, which the US guarantee is increasingly failing to provide.

Another political problem would be to make the proposal acceptable at the domestic political level in the various countries concerned. The domestic political acceptability would depend on many factors which are difficult to estimate, such as the perception of the Soviet threat, the status of West European integration, and the costs involved. This paper will not speculate in depth on each of these; the main purpose of this study is to suggest a possible solution to the strategic and military aspect of NATO's nuclear deterrent problem. This is the fundamental security problem in NATO Europe. Should Europeans agree on how to solve it, their governments should then fit the solution into the more general framework of European defence cooperation which is taking shape today. West European establishments are moving toward a consensus on the desirability for greater cooperation in defence matters. For the first time since its withdrawal from the NATO integrated military structure, this trend involves France as well.⁹

To make it politically acceptable to the European public, the NEF arrangement proposed here should be presented as the Europeanization of the existing French and British forces. NATO should point out that this would not mean their proliferation but rather their harmonization into the more general new East-West security architecture of Europe. In time, this may also mean bringing these forces into the arms control process, though at a date which might indeed be far into the future.

In addition, it should be pointed out that one of the main reasons for public uneasiness with nuclear weapons in Europe has been that they are American-controlled. In France, national control has historically con­tributed to shaping and consolidating a strong national consensus for nuclear weapons, and to a large extent the same has been true for the UK. In the rest of NATO Europe, the INF debate in the early eighties showed how popular opposition to their deployment was in large measure opposition to giving the US the ability to unleash nuclear war in Europe.

A NATO-European Nuclear Force (NEF): A Proposal

Many proposals for increased NATO European nuclear control have been discussed in the past, either officially (such as the European Defense Community and the Multilateral Force) or in the strategic literature.¹⁰ For different reasons, they all failed to be adopted by NATO. The remainder of this paper will explore a possible structure for a NATO European nuclear force. The following paragraphs do not purport to provide a detailed operational proposition. They do intend to outline the broad contours of a possible arrangement which would satisfy the widely perceived necessity for NATO Europeans to acquire greater responsibility for their defence while maintaining both a nuclear deterrent and an American presence in Europe.

A NATO-European Nucleaer Forces (NEF) should be organized as a separate Major NATO Command (MNC), headed by a Supreme Allied Commander, Nuclear European Force (SACNEF), who would be equivalent in rank to SACEUR (the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe) and SACLANT (the Supreme Allied Commander in the Atlantic). SACNEF would command exclusively nuclear forces and would be assigned a purely deterrent, second-strike mission. Because its mission would be to deter attack against all allies, SACNEF would not be assigned to any specific geographic area of responsibility.¹¹

Forces and Costs In light of the simplicity of its strategy (see below) the size of the NEF would be small. The purpose of the force would be neither to survive nor to fight any kind of war, but to deter it by being able to add credibility to NATO's willingness to ignite strategic nuclear escalation against an aggressor. For this, some two hundred survivable warheads (approximately equivalent to the currently programmed combined French and British SSBN arsenals) would be sufficient.¹² While this number is obviously arbitrary, it should be underlined that the purpose of the NEF would be far less ambitious than flexible response today. The NEF should only be capable of bringing escalation to the territory of the USSR, thus making it more credible that in case of war NATO's deterrent would be involved as a whole.

Submarines would be the most appropriate systems for the NEF in that they are invulnerable and the most penetrating of all French and British forces. Their major shortcoming, i.e. detectability after the first launch, would not be a problem in light of the extreme circumstance under which they would be used--see below. They would also avoid, at least in part, the political problems connected with the visibility of any land-basing decision in NATO.

France and Britain would not necessarily have to turn in all of their national nuclear arsenals to SACNEF. They could still retain a portion of it (perhaps the air-borne and land-based legs of their triads) under exclusively national control. French and British nuclear forces could thus be developed as a basis for a future European Community nuclear deterrent, the exact form of which we can not yet be defined. In this way, while the discussion of Franco-British cooperation has usually been limited to development and procurement--such as with the recent case of negotiations over the Long-range Air-to-Surface missile--it would be aimed at ensuring the triggering of nuclear escalation in case of Soviet attack in the continent.¹³

The UK and France would benefit from this change in several ways. First, the credibility of their deterrents would increase because their launch would automatically involve other allies. Knowing this in a crisis, the Soviets would be deterred from attacking all NATO states participating in the NEF at least as much as they are from attacking the UK and France today. If the Soviets could not ascertain that NEF had executed the attack, they would have to assume that the US were involved, with the obvious, and welcome, coupling effect of that.

Second, the UK and France would be able to save financial resources, since part of their current expenditures on nuclear weapons could and should be shifted toward the allies participating in the NEF. While in the past both France and Britain have enjoyed a strong national consensus on the need to pay for national nuclear forces, current budgetary pressures, particularly in the UK, may put it in doubt in the future.

There would also be other major advantages for the Alliance as a whole in utilizing the French and British arsenals. One would be to allow for the creation of a European nuclear force without violating the NPT.¹⁴ Another would be that if France and Britain coordinated the patrols of a joint submarine force, much higher patrol ratios could be obtained than the two countries combined can achieve now separately.¹⁵ Joint targeting could offer attractive returns to scale. Coordinated deployments would help to maximize survivability.¹⁶ Finally, the NEF would prevent France and the UK from being "singularized" as the sole nuclear powers in Europe in case of substantial US SNF withdrawals from the continent.

The NEF would also contribute to stabilizing the nuclear situation in Germany, since any German national nuclear ambitions could be more solidly frozen by the additional margin of security it could provide. After being integrated into the NEF, the Germans would have a more direct role in the security destiny of their own country than they do now under the US umbrella. At a time of increasing German uneasiness about the presence of US nuclear forces on their territory, the NEF might allay at least some anti-nuclear sentiments in the country. On the other hand, the NEF would prevent the possible denuclearization of Germany which might result from future short-range nuclear arms control agreements between the superpowers.

A NATO-Europe nuclear force would also be a logical and essential step forward in the currently on-going process of increased defence cooperation among Western Europeans, and notably France and Germany. Otherwise, their bilateral efforts, of which the joint Franco-German brigade created in 1987 is a symbolic prototype, are bound to hit a dead end. As the size and scope of such joint forces are expanded, the issue of nuclear weapons will inevitab­ly arise. The question of who will ultimately control those joint forces will then be increasingly difficult to avoid.

SACNEF would command exclusively nuclear forces. This would allow him to concentrate attention on the manage­ment of a purely retaliatory mission, which would greatly simplify the nuclear decision-execution process. It would also relieve dual-capable commanders from the burden of having to worry about the cumbersome security and safety regulations that come with nuclear missions.¹⁷ Nuclear-conventional separation would also make it possible for the NEF not be integrated with the military structure of NATO's other supreme commands,¹⁸ which would make it easier for the French to participate without renouncing their prerogative of remaining outside the NATO structure.

The range of NEF systems should also be sufficient to reach Soviet territory, so as to reduce the perceptions of "calculability" of a war in Europe, thus providing additional coupling between the US and NATO-Europe. In order to avoid an unacceptable return to a trip-wire strategy, however, SACNEF would best be backed by conventional forces under SACEUR's command, sufficient to hold the line long enough until negotiations could terminate hostilities. Thirty days has been suggested as a desirata for NATO's conven­tional defensive capabilities for this purpose.¹⁹

The question of the relationship of the NEF to the US interests and nuclear posture in NATO Europe is a delicate one. The former might worry that the latter was prepar­ing a scheme to draw it into nuclear escalation against its will. This would not be the case; to avoid misunderstandings, the strategy of the NEF would leave it to the US to shoot the first nuclear strike on the NATO side, without which SACNEF could not launch. Secondly, it would be rather odd, and politically difficult, to create a NATO command without any participation of US forces; but the NEF, by definition, would include no US nuclear warheads. Should the US so desire, some American manned delivery systems could be assigned for European warheads in the NEF--a reversed "dual-key" arrangement.

Third, the command and control network of the NEF should remain tied to the current US/NATO apparatus. This would preclude unnecessary duplica­tions and expenses and, what is most important, the network's vulnerability would strengthen the coupling of the force with the rest of the NATO forces and the national forces of the US, whose central C³I is dependent on numerous facilities either located in Europe or dedicated to NATO.²⁰ However, since the Europeans would be using an increased part of the system's capability, it would be fair for them to contribute a larger share of its cost. A necessary addition might include a survivable, perhaps airborne, command post, from which SACNEF would be able to order the launch of the force.

The Seat of Authority Perhaps the most contentious issue in the creation of the NEF would be to decide who would command it and with what powers. The nationality of SACNEF could be rotated among generals from several of the European allies who would express an interest in the position. France and the UK would be the most obvious candidates, at least in the initial years, for their holding the top post would be essential to make the whole idea acceptable in the domestic political scene of those countries. The subordinate commanders to SACNEF would be from interested countries, including the US and Canada, as would the personnel manning the nuclear delivery vehicles. This would ensure that no country in addition to the current nuclear-weapon states would, under any circumstances, acquire the capability to unilaterally use the force without the active cooperation of the others.

SACNEF, more than SACEUR today, should have day-to-day authority to mobilize and alert forces, but not to launch them. This would simplify decision-making in times of crisis, and help overcome likely initial political hesitancies among some of the allies, without however raising the prospect of politically unauthorized nuclear use. Mobilization during crises could be a problem if the opponent should perceive it as a step toward war. However, in the case of the submerged and undetected NEF, mobilization would entail virtually no visibility, and should not therefore precipitate Soviet reactions. In order to make this possible, NEF person­nel, much like today's Allied Mobile Force is for SACEUR, should be permanently assigned to SACNEF's command.

Needless to say, it would be extremely damaging if the US should perceive that the Europeans wanted to manipulate the possibility of unauthorized use as a means to increase the probability of nuclear escala­tion in a conventional war. However, SACNEF would be delegated authority to use forces only in all cases of confirmed nuclear strikes, even the most limited one, against any of NATO's members. That such confirmation would come through the NATO-wide warning system, of which the US and Canada are also a part, would be at the same time both a further instrument of transatlantic coupling and a way to reassure the US (and Canada) that they would not be drawn into nuclear escalation in Europe against their will.

Similarly to what happens in NATO's European Command today, the capability to activate the forces, i.e. the warhead release codes, would be in the custody of SACNEF at all times,²¹ both to ensure delivery in case of incapacitation of the relevant NCAs and to smooth execution procedures. The custodial units of the NEF would be vertically integrated with the force (i.e. it would be completely separated from other NATO nuclear custodial units) and they would be internationally manned as well, so that there would be no danger of any single alliance member acting unilaterally.

Strategy The main goal of the NEF should be to strengthen the deterrent role of nuclear weapons in an evolving strategic situation in Europe in which the threat of massive Soviet attack is giving way to that of more limited wars. In brief, the purpose of the NEF, in an era of arms reductions and politi­cal instability in Eastern Europe, would be to add credibility to the NATO deterrent and thus stress the unusability of war as an instrument of policy in Europe.

The doctrine and operational strategy of the NEF should be drawn somewhat along the lines of the "inflexible response" suggested by François de Rose. He suggested that NATO build its conventional forces to withstand an attack only for a period--perhaps several weeks--sufficient to explore possibilities to terminate the war without returning to a trip-wire strategy. Failing that, NATO should use nuclear forces in a strictly tactical fashion, against Soviet forces either on or near NATO territory. However, if the Soviets still not stop aggression and respond instead with their own nuclear weapons, then NATO should escalate to nuclear strikes against Soviet territory itself, thus bringing the risks and costs of war to the homeland of the aggressor. de Rose proposes that the final escalatory step against the USSR should be taken by the US.²²

The well-known problem here is that, while a US tactical use of nuclear weapons in the battle areas of Europe might be credible, US control would likely prevent NATO from escalating to the point that the USSR would no longer have any incentive for refraining from striking the US itself. If it is to be a credible NATO doctrine, therefore, inflexible response would have to be backed by European control of forces capable of reach­ing the USSR, as only Europeans might credibly risk Soviet strategic responses even after Soviet limited nuclear strikes against their territory. Therefore, the European SACNEF should be authorized to launch, though only after confirmed Soviet nuclear attack against NATO territory.

That SACNEF should not launch his forces until after the Soviets have in no way implies a "No-First-Use" pledge. But it does mean that the decision of NATO's first nuclear use would be left to the present-day nuclear powers, and not to SACNEF. This would guarantee that no new peacetime nuclear triggers would be created in Europe. In the end, the threat of US tactical nuclear first use against advancing Soviet forces--a relatively credible one--should be maintained. In addition, the Soviets would have to account for a pan-European strategic response if they in turn use nuclear weapons.

Conclusions

Increased European nuclear use control within the integrated military structure of NATO in the form presented in this study would have several positive consequences. First, it would strengthen and stabilize deterrence of any war in Europe providing for a nuclear force which would ensure a high likelihood of escalation, and hence a credible deterrent, even against limited aggression. By increasing the credibility of NATO's deterrent, it would strengthen the case for caution in any potential future crisis. In doing so, the NEF would reverse the trend toward NATO's conven­tionalization of its defense posture, which is leading toward a greater degree of warfighting options in Europe. To this end, the doctrinal rationale behind NEF should be made clear to all allies and potential adversaries alike: keeping it secret or ambiguous would defeat its pur­pose. NATO has often argued that doctrinal ambiguity is useful in that it increases uncertainty, but this justification is not a logical one. Ambiguity is useful only when clarification reveals either indecision or disagree­ment over diverging strategic interests. Otherwise, it can be argued that certainty of unacceptable costs would deter more. The NEF would not achieve deterrent certainty; nothing could. But it would come closer to it than today's arrangements.

Second, an NEF would put one more bridle on the potential resurgence of national nuclear weapon ambitions in Europe and reduce the pressure which might mount against the nonproliferation regime in the face of gradually decreasing US nuclear commitment in Europe. The non-nuclear nations of NATO Europe have long disappeared from the list of the so-called "threshold" countries which threaten the current nonproliferation regime, but they might join that list again if they should perceive that the US continues to decrease the nuclear emphasis of its commitment in Europe in a situation of growing political instability around the continent.

In conclusion, a NEF, while not a panacea for the problems of nuclear deterrence in Europe, would address all of the traditional main European concerns about nuclear deterrence--with respect to strategy, organization, coupling and cost. At the same time, it would not pose any provocative threat of aggression to the Soviets, and thus it would not be a cause for a deterioration of East-West relations.

The most important aspect of the NEF is that it would respond to the numerous US calls for NATO Europeans to assume greater responsibility for the defence of their own territories. While the US has usually referred to the need for greater European defence expenditures, Washington must realize that as the post-war scenario of a Europe in ruins, completely dependent on the US for its security fades definitively away, Europeans also need to acquire greater responsibilities for their own defence. On their part, and for the same reason, Europeans must realize that the strategic sustainabil­ity of nuclear free-riding has gradually but steadily been fading for many years now. In fact, it began to wither away almost immediately after it was instituted.

In the post-Cold War era Europeans must still grapple with the issue of a nuclear USSR at their side. The eventual inclusion of former Easter European satellites in Western European political and economic mechanisms might actually contribute to bring the Western-USSR border closer to the West. If both nuclear proliferation and denuclearization are to be avoided, NATO Europeans must now make a new concerted effort to assume greater nuclear responsibilities.

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1This paper is a revised version of a chapter of the author's Ph.D. dissertation, completed at the Center for International Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1989. For useful comments and criticism on earlier drafts of this paper, the author is indebted to George Rathjens, William Griffith, Jack Ruina, Carlo Jean, Stefano Silvestri, Trevor Taylor, Harald Müller, Sean Lynn-Jones, Guido Lenzi, Roberto Zadra, Ettore Greco and Guido Venturoni.

2Kaiser, Karl: "Why Nuclear Weapons in Times of Disarmament?", in The World Today, Vol. 45, No. 8-9, August/September 1989, p. 136.

3Yet, there are some analysts who argue that German control is needed for an effective deterrent. See Treverton, Gregory: Making the Alliance Work (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), p.158. Others take an even more extreme view and argue that not only is German control necessary, but it is necessary outside of the current alliance framework. One analyst suggests that it would be advisable to give nuclear weapons to the FRG after dissolving the alliance so as to push Bonn, Paris and London closer into nuclear cooperation arrangements. See Layne, Christopher: "Atlanticism Without NATO", in Foreign Policy, No. 67, Summer 1987. Another, less extreme, proposal is outlined in Garnham, David: "Extending Deterrence With German Nuclear Weapons", in International Security, Vol. 10, No. 1, Summer 1985, p.108. These views, however, are rare, at least for the time being. Their adoption, at present highly unlikely, might have major destructive repercussions on the political cohesion among the allies.

4In recent years, the anti-nuclearism of the Social Democrats seems to have somewhat softened. While still advocating nuclear disarmament in the long term, they would support, for example, a shift to a sea-based deterrent in the shiort term. See Asmus, Ronald D.: "West Germany Faces Nuclear Modernizat­ion", in Survival, Vol. XXX, No.6, November-December 1988, p.508.

5Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: Yearbook of World Armament and Disarmament 1968/69 (London: Taylor & Francis, 1978), p. 160. For the text of the Italian reservation, see Text of the Italian Declara­tion to the UN General Assembly, 12 June 1968, reprinted in Bettini, Emilio (Ed.): Il Trattato Contro la Proliferazione Nucleare (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1968), p.129. For an Italian parliamentary resolution which explicitly underlined "the necessity that [with Italy's accession to the Treaty] the possibility for collective control of nuclear weapons [among members of the European Community] should be guaranteed", see the Text on the Non­proliferat­ion Treaty approved by the Italian Chamber of Deputies on 26 July 1968, reprinted in Bettini (Ed.): op. cit., p.139.

6Personal communications.

7Burrows, Bernard and Geoffrey Edwards: The Defence of Western Europe, (London: Butterworth, 1982), p.76.

8Bull, Hedley: "European Self-Reliance and the Reform of NATO", in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 61, No.4, Spring 1983, p. 848.

9At least since 1976 France has begun talking about an "enlarged sanctuary", which erodes the originally purely national rationale for the force de frappe. See Lellouche, Pierre: "The Transformation of NATO: Parallel European Cooperation" in Broadhurst, Arlene I. (Ed.): The Future of European Alliance Systems, (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1982), p.100. This is now a matter of consensus in France. The consensus has consolidated itself also at the government level, as demonstrated by Defense Minister Chevènement's declaration, in January 1990, that with greater European political unity the "vital interests" of France will cover an expanded geographical area beyond its borders. See "Non-accès de l'Allemagne aux armes nucléaires", Le Point, 8 January 1990. The author is indebted to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out to him.

10For example, see Gliksman, Alex: "Three Keys for Europe's Bombs" in Foreign Policy, No. 39, Summer 1980, for a proposal to establish a "triple-key" arrangement involving both nuclear and non nuclear allies; an idea for a multilateral force with majority voting for launch is proposed by Robinson, David: "A European Coordinated Force", in Orbis, vol. IX, No.3, Fall 1965.

11Thus, in addition to its primary mission of increasing the credibi­lity of the NATO nuclear deterrent in Europe, the NEF would provide a kind of reverse extended deterrence for the US and Canada as well. While the size of the US arsenal would make this European guarantee little more than a merely symbolic measure, it would nonetheless be an important one, for two reasons. First, it would underline the basic principle of collective security in NATO at a time when the creation of the NEF would put it under questioning. Second, it would likely serve to buy some public and congres­sional support for the NEF in the US.

12One possibility would be to have a force of, say, six submarines, at least two of which would be at sea at all times with sixteen missiles each. Assuming an average of six warheads for each missile, this would result in one-hundred and ninety-two warheads. Subtracting an average twenty percent failure rate, about one-hundred and fifty warheads would reach their targets. (2 on-station-subs x 16 missiles x 6 warheads - 20% failure = 150 warheads.) I am indebted to Dr. Trevor Taylor for this calculation.

13Lellouche, Pierre: "The Transformation of NATO: Parallel European Cooperation" in Broadhurst, Arlene I.: The Future of European Alliance Systems, op. cit., p.108.

14Several European NATO members, upon acceding to the treaty, reserved the right to participate in a European nuclear force should one be created in the future as a step toward the creation of a West European political entity as a successor to the French and British national forces. See Ducci, Roberto: "Tentativi e Speranze di Una Forza di Dissuasione Europea", in Affari Esteri, Anno XIII, No.52.

15Smart, Ian: Future Conditional: The Prospect for Anglo-French Nuclear Cooperation, Adelphi Paper No. 78, (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1971), p. 15-16.

16Joshua, Wynfred and Walter F. Hahn: Nuclear Politics: America, France and Britain, The Washington Papers, No. 9, (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1973), p.67.

17Sandoval, Robert: Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Dilemmas and Illusions, unpublished manuscript, 1985, p.292; Kaufmann, William W.: "Nuclear Deterrence in Central Europe", in Steinbruner, John D. and Leon V. Sigal: Alliance Security: NATO and the No-First-use Question (Washington, DC: Brookings Institutions, 1983), pp.41-42; interest­ingly, this thesis is supported also by some analysts who do not favor relying on nuclear weapons. See for example Halperin, Morton: "Deterrence Cannot Rely on Nuclear Arms", in International Herald Tribune, 29 June 1987.

18The only exception might be a common early-warning system and some common communication facilities. In this case, economies of scale would probably make the cost of dedicated systems a prohibitive one.

19Senator Sam Nunn, Chairman of the US Senate Armed Services Commit­tee, has suggested that if conventional forces were able to hold the line for a period of thirty days this would be an adequate time buffer to avoid using nuclear weapons too early. See interview in The International Herald Tribune, 15 February 1988, p.2. The same parameter value could be agreed to by the Europeans to be a reasonable nuclear threshold for SACNEF as well.

20In fact, it has been argued that the chances of escalation to all-out war of a war in Europe might be reduced by separating to the extent possible the US C³I network from NATO's. On the other hand, keeping the integration of the NATO European C³I network with that of the US will increase the likelihood of such escalation and therefore improve coupling. See Ball, Desmond: Controlling Theater Nuclear War, Working Paper # 138, Strategic and Defence Studies Center (Canberra: Australian National University, October 1987), p.37.

21Neither NATO nor the US have officially confirmed that US warhead release codes are under US custody in Europe, but this was the unanimous opinion among a number of current and former NATO officers interviewed by the author.

22de Rose, François: "Inflexible Response", in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 61, No.1, Fall 1982, passim; see especially p. 143ff.

This article was first published in "Orbis" in 1990.

Volo n. 64 - Esame per il brevetto di volo in aliante

Oggi ho passato l'esame pratico di volo a vela! Sgancio a 1000 metri, 18 minuti sul PICK (un ASK-21 del club) con l'istruttore Cattani. È fatta!

Decollo in aliante

Oggi è la prima volta che vado in volo da solo, sempre sul biposto scuola, I-PICK, l'ASK-21 su cui da un anno sto imparanto ad andare in volo. Condizioni ideali, vento calmo. Faccio comunque  un paio di voli di controllo con l'istruttore, ormai vado senza problemi. Poi poco prima del tramonto è il momento. Aldini avverte la torre che c'è un "decollo" (primo volo da solo per un nuovo pilota) e il fido I-BOLK comincia a trainarmi.

La crisi dell'URSS

L'attuale crisi sovietica ha raggiunto le proporzioni di un crollo storico delle fondamenta ideologiche sulle quali è nato lo stato sovietico, ed è per questo motivo che il cambiamento in corso si può considerare irreversibile; l'URSS che ne uscirà, se e quando riuscirà a farlo, non sarà più l'URSS che conosciamo.

La causa più importante di ciò è sicuramente il fallimento dell'esperimento di economia pianificata, da sempre inefficiente ma diventata palesemente incurabile nel corso del passato decennio. La differenza di Gorbaciov rispetto ai predecessori sta nella decisione di utilizzare tutti gli strumenti a sua disposizione per cercare di invertire la tendenza alla diminuzione della produttività, dello standard di vita e perfino della crescita del prodotto nazionale lordo (in diminuzione da quindici anni). Mentre infatti anche i suoi predecessori sapevano bene che l'eccessiva centralizzazione e pianificazione portava inefficienze, ma per motivi ideologici vi rimanevano attaccati, Gorbaciov parla apertamente di mercato, imprenditoria e proprietà individuale come i rimedi da adottare.

Questo approccio pragmatico, de-ideologizzato nella gestione della politica interna ha dato i risultati più immediati ed eclatanti in materia di glasnost, e cioè, in breve, di libertà di dibattito politico, ideologico e storiografico. L'opposizione alla glasnost è stata ridotta, anche perché è stata usata strumentalmente per attaccare, selettivamente, la diffusa corruzione degli apparati statale e del partito ed eliminare molte figure impopolari dai vertici del potere. Il pericolo per Gorbaciov è che adesso questa libertà di espressione possa essere usata contro di lui e gli faccia pagare i suoi errori di politica economica.

Lo stesso approccio in politica economica, invece, ha incontrato forti resistenze da parte di coloro, e sono moltissimi, che in caso di riforme verso un sistema decentralizzato ed efficiente vedrebbero la propria posizione peggiorare prima di vederla, forse, migliorare in futuro. Gorbaciov ha dunque adottato una strategia di mezze misure, incoerente ed intermittente, che ha provocato i dolori inevitabili di ogni cura traumatica ma non i benefici.

Glasnost e fallimento della perestroika economica hanno entrambi contribuito ad innescare la miccia dei più diversi nazionalismi dell'impero, evidenziando la "disunione" dello stato multinazionale. La loro repressione militare è stata evitata perchè segnerebbe la fine del nuovo corso, ma il loro procedere potrebbe far crollare non solo Gorbaciov ma tutto lo stato sovietico e far esplodere una fase di riorganizzazione violenta di tutto l'assetto geopolitico dell'Eurasia. La via dell'indispensabile compromesso appare molto stretta.

Successi indiscussi invece solo in politica estera, unico campo nel quale c'è un interlocutore che collabora, e cioè l'Occidente, prima sospettoso, poi, almeno dalla metà del 1988, sempre più disposto a collaborare, soprattutto in materia di controllo degli armamenti. Il riconoscimento esplicito che la sicurezza dell'URSS non si può difendere solo, e neanche principalmente, con le armi ha giovato alla nuova distensione. La ricaduta dei successi in politica estera in termini di popolarità interna, alta all'inizio, è poi calata col progressivo delinearsi del fallimento delle riforme economiche, tanto che oggi molti in URSS lamentano di aver concesso oltre quanto era dovuto, particolarmente per quanto concerne l'Europa orientale e la Germania.

Cosa cambia per l'Occidente? La minaccia militare in Europa diminuisce in campo convenzionale, non tanto per le riduzioni quantitative quanto perché si instaura un nuovo regime di sicurezza militare (fatto da misure di fiducia, di maggiori e migliori canali di comunicazione, da maggiori informazioni, ecc) che rende sempre più difficile un attacco che possa cogliere l'Occidente impreparato. L'uscita che appare prossima delle forze Sovietiche dall' Europa orientale amplifica i benefici di questo nuovo regime, anche se apre altri interrogativi sulla stabilità della regione, finora garantita con la forza. La sfida per l'Occidente sarà di trovare il modo di coinvolgere i sovietici ad una nuova collaborazione per prevenire conflitti nella regione che, come nel passato non lontano, potrebbero diventare continentali. In questo contesto di grande incertezza, rimane fondamentale il ruolo dei deterrenti nucleari: privati dell'appoggio di massicci spiegamenti convenzionali, essi perderanno il loro potenziale offensivo ma, per il loro solo esistere, continueranno ad obbligare tutte le parti in gioco alla massima prudenza.

L'impegno più difficile per l'Occidente è però economico. Innanzitutto occorre saper pilotare la transizione delle economie est-europee che l'URSS ha lasciato libere di intrecciare rapporti con l'Occidente, ed in particolare con la Comunità Europea. È in questi paesi che l'impatto dello sforzo europeo sarà maggiore. Più difficile, ma comunque potenzialmente feconda, la collaborazione economica con la stessa URSS, resa ancora più delicata dalla situazione di grande incertezza politica del paese.

Anche il ritiro strategico dei sovietici da varie aree calde del mondo contribuirà a sopprimere sorgenti di conflitto indiretto che in passato hanno influito negativamente sulle relazioni Est-ovest. Anche qui si nota la presa di coscienza sovietica del fallimento, ideologico, dell'esporta­zione del sistema pianificato nel terzo mondo.

Situazione in Jugoslavia

Lo sfondo storico e culturale

La Jugoslavia è il più giovane dei paesi della regione bal­canica, e quello più debole dal punto di vista dell'identità naziona­le. Il Regno dei Serbi, Croati e Sloveni fu infatti fondato solo dopo la prima guerra mondiale, in gran parte su insistenza del presidente americano Wilson, in base al principio dell'autodeterminazione dei popoli che era stato universalmente sancito nei Quattordici punti del presidente americano in occasione delle trattative di pace. Il preva­lere del concetto "jugoslavo" fu per molti una sorpresa, in quanto nella seconda metà del XIX secolo le due alternative più probabili per l'unificazione politica dell'area erano quella di una "Grande Serbia" e quella di una "Grande Croazia". Più di settant'anni dopo l'unifi­cazione, questa vecchia contrapposizione tra le due maggiori etnie si ripropone come la principale fonte di attrito civile nel paese.

Contradictions of Perestroyka

Introduction

The process of political and economic renewal in the USSR is, by all accounts, proceeding in rough waters. Whether it will maintain momentum or sink into chaotic convulsions is important not only for the USSR itself but also for its neighbors and for the West, particularly at a time when the latter is debating whether, how and how much to intervene to help the process. By everybody's reckoning, including Gorbachev's own, increasingly serious problems have arisen along the way than had been anticipated. The economy is still deteriorating: in 1989, Soviet leaders started referring to the "crisis" of the economy, which up to then was in a "pre-crisis". As of the Spring of 1990, there are indications that the general atmosphere of high expectations of 1986-1988 has become one of widespread disillusionment, as more and more obstacles arise on the way toward the new USSR which was charted at the XXVII party Congress.

Gorbachev is aware of these difficulties. He puts the blame squarely on the fact that the "old ways are still alive and can not be done away with overnight while new approaches are as yet unable to pick up full speed ... difficulties ... [are] a natural expression of contradictions inherent in a transition period." But difficulties are different from contradictions: to change the old ways is a difficulty, and may or may not be overcome; but contradictions are generated by the process of reform itself, and therefore are more difficult to eradicate. Gorbachev says he understands that deep contradictions plague his effort, but he does not seem to have the strength to implement the measures needed to defeat them. If anything, they are getting worse with time.

For analytical purposes, the process of perestroyka can be described as guided by three basic objectives:

1) to increase people's motivation at work,
2) to decentralize the economic decision-making process, and
3) o accept short-term sacrifices for long-term benefits. Each must be accomplished for the process to succeed.

This paper assesses the prospects for success of perestroyka by addressing three intrinsic contradictions which have emerged in the process of achieving these objectives. It will argue that these contradictions are both serious and sufficiently resilient that they will likely impair the reform process as a whole.

The first contradiction which plagues perestroyka is that its erratic development, far from stimulating the personal motivation of the Soviet citizen, hinders it at a time when such motivation would be most needed.

The second contradiction is that, while perestroyka requires a widespread decentralization of decision-making power in order to make the gargantuan Soviet economic system more flexible, ever since Gorbachev came to power he has been centralizing power in order to both dispose of personal and political opponents and push through his version of the reform process from above. The third contradiction is that, while the sheer size and comprehensiveness of the restructuring program requires that anticipation be cooled, exactly the opposite is happening today: the policy of political openness, or glasnost, is fuelling expectations and cutting people's patience short. Rampant nationalism around the country only makes these contradictions more acute.

Because of these contradictions, Gorbachev's program is contested by both the left and the right of the party. The right accuses him of leaving the old modus operandi too fast and without a clear idea of what to substitute for it. The left, on the contrary, retorts that he is being too cautious and compromising. The conclusion of this paper is that because these three contradictions are inherent in the middle-of-the-road approach of Gorbachev and his supporters, now firmly in control of the reform process, they are likely to persist. It is to be expected that they will slow down the process of perestroyka to the point that its élan might grind to a halt.

The main implication for the West which emerges from this paper is that it is no longer of paramount importance to worry about whether or not perestroyka will succeed: it is increasingly likely that it will not. Rather, the West should start thinking about what to do when it becomes clear it is not achieving its targets.

Demotivation

The cub was born in the zoo. He is aware that he is not free, but his daily ration has always been delivered to him and he can sleep securely at night. Now there is word that the management can no longer afford to keep up the zoo, and the cages will be thrown open: some already have been. His first reaction is one of excitement and anticipation. The passing of time, however, gives him a chance to reflect about his future. He begins to realize that he will be responsible for his own survival. He will have to watch out for predators and look for food day in and day out. Some among the first animals to be freed have come back with horror stories of how they were starving and preyed upon in the wilderness. The cub still knows well that he could lead a better life in the wild, but he is no longer sure he wants to try himself. Of course he would like to be free but he would rather not give up his daily ration and his secure shelter. It would be ideal if the zoo could be kept open to go there to eat and rest safely at night. No, they say that can not be done: The zoo will close down. In the meantime, he continues to wait for his turn to leave...

The main component of the reform strategy for curing the ills of the Soviet economy is the tapping of human resources--too often abused, underutilized or wasted in the past. This is to be achieved by means of a greater motivation of the individual: perestroyka aims at giving people greater motivation to put in their best effort for the development of the socialist economy through increased material incentives.6 Specifically, competition, freedom of economic choice, participation in the decision-making process at the workplace, risk-taking, individual enterpreneurship are much talked about components of the process of motivation. There is widespread consensus in the USSR that, in principle, change in this direction is needed.

The problem with the current approach to economic reform is that it is being conducted exclusively from above. The majority of the people whose motivation should be stimulated have no voice in deciding its course; they do not know where it is leading; no-one has the faintest idea of when it will reach the goal. In a word, they do not know what they are supposed to strive for. They are simply asked to bet on a better future. This is not much different from what their fathers and grandfathers had been asked by the Communist party since 1917 and it can hardly be the best the way to inject new motivation in the disillusioned minds of the Soviets.

Most Soviets do not know quite what to do to contribute to the realization of perestroyka. A common answer one gets when one asks a Soviet how he thinks he will contribute to the restructuring is "I will try to do my job as best I can". But how is this different from what they were doing before? How will this help "restructure" the system? Such an attitude might at best reduce waste and bring about some acceleration of growth. It was initiated before Gorbachev during Andropov's short interregnum. Uskorenje, or "intensification", was indeed the first international neologism that came out of the Gorbachev era, as early as 1985, before perestroyka and glasnost. But intensification is not enough. It can yield at best a one-time booster through the elimination of waste and an increase of discipline, but will not eliminate the bottlenecks which vitiate the system.

Nor do Soviets quite know what to expect from the possible success of such restructuring, or when to expect it. The only target which has been set before their eyes is a highly inchoate prospect of a better living standard to be achieved at some uncertain point in the future. What they do know is that perestroyka will chip away at their cradle-to-grave security, and in fact it is already beginning to do so.

Most in the USSR and abroad agree that motivation is the most needed ingredient for perestroyka to succeed. But few would argue with the observation that the pervasive mood in the USSR today, quite to the contrary, is one of indecisiveness and insecurity. Few dispute that perestroyka is good for the country; no-one denies that it will involve necessary hardship. This indecisiveness is flanked by great insecurity: not only do Russians not know how to go about implementing the reforms, they are not ready to accept all that comes with them. They hope that not everybody will be better off at the end of the process. In fact, they know that the criteria for coming out on top are being changed, and some kind of meritocracy will be introduced. Not surprisingly, this has already produced much resentment among those who can not take advantage of the new opportunities, by far the largest part of society. In practice, the consensus in principle on the need for reform breaks down.

This is the attitude produced by Soviet socialism, and it is a far cry from Stalin's "new Soviet man", the enthusiastic and inspired shock-worker he had in mind in the late twenties as he went about constructing the command economy.

The experience to date of the many new cooperatives which have been allowed to operate precisely with the aim of stimulating motivation is illustrative of this contradiction. Though they have been allowed to operate, government regulations do not make life easy for them. For example, unlike state enterprise, they must pay income taxes; they are obligated to purchase their raw materials in the free market, where it is many times more expensive than at the subsidized wholesale state stores. Finally, they are heavily charged for utilities, rent, operating licenses, etc. Because of these high operating costs, they charge high prices for their meals, up to 5-6 times what one would pay for comparable service at a state enterprise.

The future brings much uncertainty and few guarantees of professional stability for these entrepreneurs. Many of these private enterprises work in a low-profile mode, almost in hiding. One of the best cooperative restaurants in Moscow, is officially the "waiting room" for a tailor's shop! They have an individually selected and trusted clientele, and they have chosen to minimize their visibility, yet they are always fully booked.

While their number has steadily increased, cooperatives are still relatively few. They have not taken off in agriculture, where, if the Chinese example is of any usefulness, their contribution to society might have been faster and most efficient. They have been allowed only in a few industries, small manufacturers and services and are strictly regulated and often harassed by local party organizations, which resent the formation of economic entities they do not control. The local party organizations have many supporters in their obstructionist tactics against the cooperatives. Most Soviets can neither afford the expensive services of the cooperatives, nor can they hope to ever make as much money themselves. Quite naturally, these people believe they will not be the best at playing with the new rules, and resist changing the old ones. Not surprisingly, sometimes these are the same people who are among the best at playing with the old rules. Most, however, are not so sure either way. They may sincerely believe that change is necessary for the country, but they also know that does not mean it will necessarily improve their lot, or even that of their children.

In these conditions, the enterpreneurs fear that they will "live one day", and this makes them rather unscrupulous in trying to amass as much money as possible as fast as possible, even if resorting to dubious means and bribery. The only way to avoid this would be to provide iron-cast long-term guarantees that their entrepreneurial freedom will not be hampered with for the indefinite future, but this has not been done. Even if it were, it would take some time for any official pledge to acquire the necessary credibility.

In other words, the introduction of some enterpreneurial freedom has created an ugly vicious circle, whereby the problems and the uncertainty of managing private enterprises generate the need to resort to illicit means and high prices. The latter, in turn, generate suspicion and hostility on the part of those who can not do the same. In spite of all obstacles, cooperative restaurants are highly profitable. This has generated much envy, jealousy and resentment among the people who see this new brand of capitalists make a lot of fast money by "taking advantage" of the problems of the state sector, the limping flagship of socialism from which almost four generations of Soviets have come to expect their livelihood. This hostility, in turn, generates further uncertainty in the cooperative enterpreneurs, and so on.

The above discussion highlights the first contradition of perestroyka: economic emergency dictates economic reforms, but the success of these reforms requires the Soviets to take over precisely the kind of initiatives, responsibilities and associated risks which they have never had, or even known, and which many fear. Gorbachev is asking them to take the initiative through uncharted waters, and he is not providing navigation charts. Only a few, such as the cooperative enterpreneurs, see a credible chance to improve their lot in the short term, and take the plunge. Most others simply and genuinely do not know where to start. They know something has to be done. They find it difficult to argue against the leadership when it speaks of the need for radical transformations. No comprehensive alternatives to the program of perestroyka have been proposed by anyone and this is perhaps the greatest strength of Gorbachev. But they have only faint ideas on how to go about following through with it, and they deeply resent that only a few are visibly gaining, at least for now. The long forgotten witch-hunt for kulaks and "exploiters of the people", the motors of perestroyka, is in the making again.

Centralization

Excessive centralization of the administrative-command economy was recognized to be the most crippling heritage of the Stalinist system. Centralization exists both in the state apparatus and, most importantly, in the party which has controlled it. Democratic centralism has ensured that the party organs have performed throughout the economy the role of transmission belts for orders emanating from Moscow. A major aspect of perestroyka is the decentralization of economic decision-making power, and ir order to do so Gorbachev has indeed moved to break-up some of the traditional power conglomerates both in Moscow and in the periphery, e.g. the ministries (whose power grew enormously during Brezhnev's time) and especially the regional and local party cliques. But this kind of operation can obviously only be done from the pinnacle of power in Moscow: the very democratic centralism which should be dismantled prevents any reform initiative from the bottom.

In addition, in cases where power has indeed been decentralized, it has provided ammunition to hundreds of thousands of state and party bureaucrats who have both an interest and the capability to stop the reforms which might hurt their personal status. A major factor in the outcome of the struggle for decentralization will in fact be the perceptions of various categories of actors of what the power shift will mean for themselves. With few potential gainers in the short term, many potential losers and most genuinely confounded, the struggle for and against the implementation of perestroyka is taking place at all times, in the fog. While reforms are pushed from the political pinnacle, and passively awaited by those who are either economically desperate or idelogically disillusioned, an immense and shapeless middle stratum, which cuts across age, professional and ethnic groups, puts up a highly effective resistance.

This kind of resistance is possible because, despite democratic centralism, a sort of "negative" power is held at varying levels of authority by both state and party bureaucrats. They can not initiate policies nor even ensure the implementation of policies coming from above and handed down to them. What they can do rather well, however, is to stop, impair, dilute or otherwise neutralize those policies when it is in their interest to do so.
This kind of power is already diffusely disseminated throughout Soviet society. Numberless bureaucrats or simple workers and employees at all levels have the power to stop the reform, all in their own little niche of power. This is possible in a country where all too often nobody is responsible and nobody is guilty for what goes wrong. Rarely able to hold anybody accountable for slackness, mistakes or outright insubordination, the top leadership is not always able to influence the outcome of this struggle.

All of this results in a very tardy and sluggish response of the periphery of the Soviet system to stimuli coming from the top. This is often referred to as a problem of "inertia" of the system. In reality, it is not a question of inertia, because the latter would presuppose that some kind of direction has been taken and the system were moving at a certain speed, however difficult it may be to change either or both. The Soviet economy, on the contrary, has no definite direction and no constant speed. It is drifting, and the rudder of perestroyka is steering in fits and starts.

In sum, to implement perestroyka, widespread decentralization would be indispensable. But to decentralize, at this time, means to give additional veto power either to those who oppose change or to those who are simply indecisive because they do not know where their interests will lie in the future setting. The former group is already powerful, and the latter is enormous and unpredictable. This illustrates the second contradiction of the reform process. On the one hand the Soviet leadership needs to decentralize decision-making power in order to improve efficiency. On the other hand, the implementation of the program requires an immediate increase in centralization so that those who are capable of defeating thousands of concrete reform initiatives are blocked. Gorbachev is now doing the former; whether he will subsequently be able to do the latter, however, remains to be seen.
A comprehensive program for true and faster decentralization had been devised by Deputy Prime Minister Abalkin in December 1989. It was not approved by the second session of the Congress of People's Deputies. Instead, the Congress passed a bill based on the more cautious approach favored by Prime Minister Ryzhkov, which postpones the introduction of widespread market mechanisms until 1993. The debate on the issue is continueing both in Congress and in the Supreme Soviet, but it seems that effective legislative decentralization will have to wait.

That the centralization of power has in the last year or so been accompanied by the building up of a kind of personality cult around Gorbachev only makes one worry that, after the definitive departure of the Brezhnevite gerontocracy from the political scene, a new personal autocracy will rule over a party organization in disarray. In certain ways, Gorbachev might be trying to do what Khrushchev tried (and failed) to do: use a pretense of decentralization in order to divide the party apparatus and rule over its fragments. That gamble cost Khrushchev his post. His successor tried in turn to break up existing power conglomerates, but also in this case the result was greater centralization. Whether Gorbachev will succeed remains to be seen. Be that as it may, so far his approach has hardly been a headstart for the healthy economic decentralization required by perestroyka.

Expectations

It is undeniable that the extent to which the peoples of the USSR can express their ideas today is astounding when compared with only a couple of years ago. Glasnost, understood as freedom of political expression, is without a doubt the main result of the Gorbachevian "new political thinking" so far. In fact, perhaps the most palpable reality which strikes observers of Soviet politics today is that there is a large and widening gap between the results obtained in this process of political liberalization and those thus far achieved in the economic sphere. Soviet media today routinely discuss fundamental political, economic, ideological and historical issues which until a few months ago were simply off-limits; on the other hand, shops are as little stocked as ever, and getting emptier.

As of early 1990, glasnost is developing quickly, though at an irregular, indeed mercurial, pace. Few seem to have clear ideas of whether and to what extent it should be limited. It is growing in several different directions simultaneously, and it allows for criticism of domestic and foreign policy, history, ideology and, most importantly, of the current government and of Gorbachev himself. There is virtually no one and nothing that is spared by the trenchant articles appearing on the national press. Long-repressed frustrations are finally being vented with force. In the process, glasnost is quickly catalizing the growth of economic expectations, but this, in turn, makes the problems of implementing the economic reforms worse because it shortens people's patience.

As of early 1990, Soviet peoples have very little patience left; they want results immediately. Glasnost is appreciated because for all too long so many have yearned to speak out against the system without fear of retribution; now they can and are even encouraged to do so. But the policy of restructuring is admittedly designed to improve the system in the long-term and manifestly requires (often painful) adjustments in the short-term. It is beyond question, and it is well known to the leadership, that things must get worse, perhaps much worse, before they can get better. The success of the reform, therefore, requires that the Soviet peoples accept sacrifices for a while, perhaps a long while, and reduce expectations for improvement in their standard of living. For a people which already for seventy years has been promised the communist Eldorado and required to make hard (and, as it turns out, useless) sacrifices to get there, this is not easy to accept.

Thus, glasnost generates the third contradiction in the process of perestroyka: while there is a clear necessity to postpone political as well as economic expectations, it is contributing to make people even more impatient. Glasnost is an indispensable nourishment for perestroyka: without it it would not be possible to tap the creative potential of those who are called to change the system. But at the same time it allows the development of a chain reaction of protest and impatience which is highly deleterious to reform.

Moreover, glasnost makes it possible for those who stand to lose from the change to defeat it by powerful obstructionist operations. As discussed above, in the short run these forces might include, in one way or another, the majority of the Soviet people, who see the risks but not the benefits of change; it certainly includes all those in the establishment who stand to lose their old privileges.

In other words, while conceived as a means to foster the "new thinking", glasnost is a powerful instrument in the hands of egalitarian and pro-status quo political forces which oppose the introduction of greater amounts of meritocracy. These forces are well entrenched in their power slots and are now even represented at the highest level, since Veniamin Yarin, a metallurgical worker from the Ural region and a prominent member of the egalitarian United Workers' Front, was selected as a member of the Presidential Council in March 1990. This opposition, paradoxically, is all but consistent with the normal democratic political rules, but it is nonetheless incompatible with the necessary and painful restructuring of the Soviet system.

Nationalism

There is one additional problem which compounds the three contradictions of perestroyka discussed here: nationalism--both Russian and non-Russian--is building up on a long-term pattern everywhere around the Soviet Union. Taking advantage of Gorbachev's call for more decentralized and widespread participation in politics, and fuelled by glasnost, nationalism has become a disruptive force which is complicating Gorbachev's work considerably. Awakening nationalism fuels impatience with the progress of reform as it is directed from Moscow. As long-repressed national aspirations can now be voiced Gorbachev is seen less and less as the initiator of change and more and more as the impediment to greater national self-determination.

Gorbachev has been ambiguous with respect to the role of regional autonomy in the process of reform. He has written that "our fundamental principle of a strong center and strong republics reflects the will of all Soviet peoples." In a macroscopic way, the first part of this statement is but another manifestation of the contradiction between the need to decentralize power to gain the support of the periphery and the need to centralize in order to implement reforms against the will of recalcitrant actors.

The danger for Gorbachev is that the current partial and indecisive democratization of his nationalities policy may bring him to a no-win situation. If he lets the Republics move on toward ever greater autonomy or even independence, he will be an easy target from conservatives who will be able to accuse him of presiding over the disintegration of the Soviet state. If he represses them, he may find himself contradicting his "new thinking" and thereby killing his perestroyka as a whole.

There is another more serious,if less immediate, danger associated with nationalist movements in the USSR: the widespread tendency to blame every ill in their economies and polities on Moscow. This fuels the (false) expectation that, once greater autonomy or even total independence is achieved, these ills will soon be cured. After years of centralized and inefficient direction from Moscow, the economies of the various republics will need major adjustments before the benefits of greater autonomy from the Soviet state plan could be felt. The process will take years and, as economic restructuring in the country as a whole, will not be painless. Thus, it is advisable for nationalists around the USSR to postpone expectations for improvement. However, contrary to logic, the opposite is happening today. Therefore, even assuming that greater regional decentralization is achieved in the near future, peacefully and without endangering perestroyka, it might soon produce bitter disillusionment as it becomes clear that economic and inter-ethnic problems will not disappear with it.

Conclusions

As of the spring of 1990, there are unmistakable signs that the process of perestroyka in the USSR is in jeopardy. These signs point to contradictions which are intrinsic to the process of restructuring itself, quite aside from the debates and personal juxtapositions at the top of the Soviet leadership.

While the vast tasks of perestroyka require high motivation on the part of all concerned in its implementation, the contradictory nature of the reform initiatives undertaken by the government send ambiguous signals to those who could best contribute to its realization. In a condition of legislative and economic insecurity, most Soviets do not know whether they stand to gain from perestroyka, nor whether it will succeed at all. As one deputy from Kazakhstan put it during the debate over Gorbachev's election to the presidency in the Congress of People's Deputies, he is "putting his foot on the brake and on the accelerator at the same time." Needless to say, this is hardly a prescription for the success of an ambitious reform plan.

Second, while perestroyka requires widespread decentralization of decision-making power, the Kremlin is now centralizing power in order to push reforms through bureaucratic resistence. This approach is not new, and can be rationalized by keeping in mind that a negative power of obstruction is already widespread throughout the state and the party machines, and needs to be constrained. However, in what amounts to a vicious circle which will be difficult to break, delaying actual decentralization blocks the development of the creative forces which should produce the restructuring of the system.

Third, the sheer size and comprehensiveness of the restructuring program will make it difficult to produce results before the process is well along its way. This, in turn, requires that expectations be cooled and postponed. However, thanks to the policy of political openness, or glasnost, exactly the opposite is happening today. Freedom of speech is, predictably, producing fast rising economic as well as political (including nationalist) expectations.
The latter is in fact one additional problem which compounds all three other paradoxes: nationalism--both Russian and non-Russian--is on the rise. These nationalist forces operate beyond the struggle for power in the Kremlin, and can hardly be controlled from Moscow. Taking advantage of Gorbachev's call for popular participation, nationalism risks becoming a highly disruptive force which complicates Gorbachev's work considerably.

As of the spring of 1990, the process of Soviet reform is beginning to look more and more as if it is drifting. Barring unforeseen--and, from Gorbachev's point of view, welcome--developments, it is increasingly unlikely that the program of restructuring as it was formulated at the XXVII Congress will be carried out.

In that case, two possibile results are the most likely. The first is that perestroyka will be abruptly defeated by a sharp downturn of some of the major economic indicators, by an uncontrollable outburst of nationalism, or by a combination of the two. In these circumstances, a reaction of conservative elements is likely, and is probably inevitable if secessionist nationalism spreads from small peripheral republics to the Ukraine, whose loss could hardly be absorbed by Moscow.

Alternatively, like other Soviet reform initiatives in the past, the Gorbachev attempt will slowly run aground. The USSR could then continue to muddle through economically and to decline politically until either the next reformer or the next major crisis will come about and shake it anew. The synergy between glasnost and nationalism makes the latter possibility less likely: their mutual reinforcement increases the danger of an internal explosion. It is not clear how much time is left for Gorbachev and his allies to produce concrete results before too many people lose what little patience they have left, but it is probably not much.
The third possibility is that Gorbachev will come around to radicalize reforms, as requested by the leftist wing of the party and of the Congress, to the point where the USSR will effectively cease to be a socialist society. This would require a multi-party polity and the dismantlement of most central planning. It is early to say whether the advocates of this option might prevail, but it is certain that, if they should, they would do so only after strenuous resistence, and the process would not be smooth.

So far, the West has worried about whether and how to help the process of change in the USSR. A new and more difficult challenge for the West is soon likely to be how to maintain a stable and peaceful relationship with the Soviet Union while the latter is undergoing a process of rapid economic deterioration, social unrest and nationalistic outbursts around its periphery.

EAST-WEST COOPERATION AND SECURITY IN SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

A version of this paper was presented as part of a Joint Research Project by the Istituto Affari Internazionali, Rome, and the Institute for the World Economy and International Relations, Moscow, March 1990

INTRODUCTION
This paper will deal with the implications for security in South-Eastern Europe of those NATO and WTO forces which are excluded from the current CFE talks in Vienna. It will concentrate on two types of forces, namely naval and nuclear weapons. While not all air-forces are formally included in the CFE talks, for purposes of this project will be treated in the paper dealing with those negotiations.
The main thesis argued here is that, while negotiations on both categories of weapons would be advisable and should be encouraged, nuclear and naval weapons serve important strategic and political purposes in Europe which require their continued presence for the foreseeable future.

NUCLEAR FORCES
Nuclear forces are not formally part of CFE negotiations. "Dual capable" forces, however, have not been excluded. This is a compromise formula which was reached in order to reconcile on the one hand NATO's insistence not to initiate, after the INF treaty, a new formal negotiation on nuclear weapons before substantial results are achieved with conventional force reductions; and on the other hand, the desire of the Warsaw Pact not to exclude what is left of nuclear forces of the two alliances in Europe. The Pact did not, moreover, accept to exclude "dual capable" systems only because they had a nuclear role, among other reasons because the Soviets argue NATO has a marked superiority in this field.

This paper starts from the premise that the nuclear problem of South-Eastern Europe is not divisible from that of the rest of Europe. Because of the nature of the weapons, it does not make any strategic sense to try and devise nuclear-tight compartments among the various sub-regions of Europe. Therefore, as far as nuclear weapons are concerned, the reasoning proposed here applies to the East-West military relationship in Europe as a whole as much as to the South-Eastern region.

Nuclear weapons can be seen as accomplishing a purely deterrent or also one of warfighting in case of failure of the deterrent. The following paragraphs will briefly overview of the evolution of Soviet and NATO thinking on matter. Western (and particularly US) thinking has followed a circular development; Soviet thinking has, roughly speaking, followed in its wake, lagging behind of several years. At the beginning of the nuclear era, deterrence and warfighting were seen as strictly connected. Nuclear weapons were seen as simply the most potent explosive to be employed in otherwise conventional operations.

No later than the first studies revealed the enormity of the collateral damage that any nuclear use, even the most limited, would have caused, doctrine began to move toward a conception of nuclear war as a total war. Under this assumption, nuclear use should not so much influence the development of the battle in the field, but should have primarily served the purpose of inflicting unacceptable damage on the enemy, and thus dissuade him form attack in the first place.
Subsequently, there emerged a problem of credibility with this supreme threat against offenses which might have been serious but not threatening of the vital interests of the attackes party. Strategists returned therefore to think about ways to utilize nuclear weapons in ways somehow proportional to the possible kinds of offences, even just conventional ones. Around the middle of the sixties, both NATO and, a few years later, the USSR, moved to re-couple theater nuclear concepts to the conventional correlation of forces by introducing ever greater flexibility and selectivity in their respective doctrines and operational plans.
The main thesis argued here is that, contrary to these tendencies, it is in the interest of all Europeans to maintain, and possibly to strengthen, a conceptual as well as operational distinction between nuclear and conventional forces. The goal of this should be to retain a high degree of deterrence of any type of conflict, and that can only be associated to the risk of nuclear escalation. This distinction is coherently maintained only by the UK and France. That the US has moved to more flexible options should not come as a surprise: it has tried to minimize the dangers to its own homeland in case of war. But Europeans, including the Soviets, can not make any use of such a distinction: every war in Europe would be "strategic", even if it were not nuclear. Nuclear weapons must be seen only as an instrument to prevent it.

Yet, in an era of rapid political change in Eastern Europe, with the Soviet Union retreating politically and militarily and the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) collapsing, perhaps a few words should be said to justify the need for a nuclear deterrent within NATO. The military threat to peace in Europe is not withering away with the disgregation of the Soviet bloc. As one authoritative analyst recently put it, the capability to attack would "vanish only if weapons and soldiers ceased to exist", which is not likely to be the case for a long time indeed. In all other conceivable scenarios, the ability of nuclear weapons to make war unusable as an instrument of policy can not be replaced.

This rather simple concept, which is the basis for nuclear deterrence, has not always received the attention it deserves. Recent changes in the Warsaw Pact have highlighted the three serious mistakes which NATO has made in justifying the maintenance of nuclear arsenals in the past. At times these mistakes have been nothing but a mere bluff. First, NATO has often tied the need for nuclear weapons to the threat of Soviet nuclear weapons, e.g. during the Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) debate in the late seventies and early eighties, when these systems were presented as a counter to the Soviet SS-20. Gorbachev disposed of this rationale with relatively little effort by agreeing to sign the INF treaty. A plethora of Soviet nuclear weapons, however, continues to be capable of hitting Western Europe.

Second, NATO has long tied the need for a nuclear deterrent to the unfavorable correlation of conventional forces in Europe. Pointing to the conventional imbalance was the easiest way to win the necessary public support for nuclear weapons. However, both on-going negotiations and budgetary pressures in many countries might soon eliminate this justification as well. NATO must therefore now prepare to argue the nuclear case differently. At lower force levels, it can be argued, force-to-space ratio problems will make the need for a nuclear deterrent more and not less important.

Third, the necessity for a nuclear deterrent has been tied to the political character of the governments in the WTO. Nuclear weapons were often presented as a tool to contain otherwise unmanageable communist expansionism. The logical conclusion is that since these societies are now more pluralistic and open, they will be more peace-loving, and that therefore the West no longer needs military precautions. To varying degrees, all WTO governments are now moving away from orthodox communism toward more pluralistic forms of polities. But it is far from clear that communist ideology, and not the geopolitical preeminence of the USSR in Europe, whatever its system of government, has been the main threat to the security of post-war Western Europe. In addition, rising nationalism and resulting risks to international stability constitute a new and still imponderable menace to peace in Europe.

NAVAL FORCES
Unlike nuclear forces, the study of naval forces in the South-Eastern Europe can and must be considered separately from rest of continent. This is because of the peculiar situation which characterizes that theater of operations, the actors involves and the nature of naval forces themselves.

The Soviet Union vigorously insists that NATO--and particularly US--naval forces in the Mediterranean constitute a threat to its homeland which it can not afford not to address in the process of arms control. In addition, Moscow argues that, just as it gave in to Western requests for asymmetrical cuts on land forces where it was clearly superior, NATO should now accept asymmetrical cuts of naval forces, where the East is qualitatively and quantitatively outdone. Marshall Akhromeev, personal adviser to Gorbaciov, in a testimony to the US Congress in 1989 has even explicitely stated that the successful conclusion of the CFE talks depends upon their expansion to naval forces. It remains to be seen whether the Soviets will be so inflexible after all, but it is likely that it will be necessary to deal with the issue in the future.

The West, however, still refuses to include naval forces in any formal negotiation. As will be discussed below, this stance stems from both military and political considerations. Nonetheless, both formal and informal discussions about the issue continue, both between East and West and within the Western Alliance. It must not be forgotten that some measures of naval arms control have already been implemented for a long time (as in the case of the US-USSR agreement on the prevention of incidents at sea and, more recently, of the analogous Soviet-French and Italian-French treaties).

Aside from the two superpowers, it hardly needs to be said that naval arms control is particularly relevant for the countries at the flanks of NATO. Inasmuch as naval arms influence the conventional balance on land, they affect the riparian regions more directly. This is particularly true at the conventional level, since naval nuclear arms tend to have a longer range and are therefore less restricted to operate at the rims of the European landmass.

It is also immediately apparent that the problem of naval arms control presents not only military but also political aspects, particularly in a region like the Mediterranean where the East-West confrontation is intermingled with several other conflictual relationship between riparian and adjacent countries and where the superpowers are involved as well. In addition, the political role of the US naval presence in the Mediterranean can hardly be overemphasized.

It is less often considered, moreover, that naval arms control in the Mediterranean involves important legal aspects which stem from the fact that the jurisdiction over the seas is much more subject to controversy than the land areas which are involved in current arms control negotiations in Europe.

In light of the complex issued outlined above, the paper purports to do the following. First, it will explore the potential of naval arms control in the Mediterranean for improving military security in Europe, and particularly in Southern Europe. It will do so by assessing the naval military balance in the region and how it affects the correlation of forces on land.

Second, it will explore alternative negotiating scenarios. Should naval issues be included in the CFE talks at all? Should progress in one area be made contingent on progress on other areas of arms control?

Third, it will assess the political implications of possible East-West naval agreements for East-West relations, inter-allied relations in NATO, and relations of the members of the two alliances with other states in the Mediterranean region.

Finally, it will analyze the legal implications of possible naval arms control regimes with reference to their infringement on international customary law regarding access to and navigation through Mediterranean waters.

Military Significance Because of the inherent flexibility which stems out of fleet mobility, superpower negotiations on levels of naval weapons will necessarily have to be conducted on a global scale, though regional sub-ceilings are also conceivable. The Mediterranean region could be one of these. Regional sub-ceilings would entail negotiated limitation to fleet mobility in the region covered by the talks. This issue is particularly complicated in the Mediterranean due to the non-homogeneous claims of riparian states. Several factors contribute to make naval arms control a more complex and delicate issue when compared to other conventional arms control negotiations.

One important factor which would make any East-West naval negotiations intrinsically difficult is that the importance of naval forces for NATO is far greater than it is for the Warsaw Pact, and it is much greater for the US than it is for the USSR. This is not only a matter of force or deployment asymmetry, as for the land and air forces, but also of grand strategy. NATO is an alliance divided between two continents with many insular or peninsular member states. On the contrary, the Warsaw Pact is a geographically solid bloc of contiguous states. In addition, the US is a maritime power with vital sea lines of communication, while the USSR is a continental power with no such maritime interests. Moreover, US naval forces in the Mediterranean constitute the only effective link among the several NATO operational theaters and the bulk of time-urgent reinforcements. These forces also perform a crucial intelligence and communication mission for the whole Southern region of the alliance. This is not the case for the Warsaw Pact, which performs these same missions with land-based systems.

A paramount aim of the study should therefore be to define possible alternative goals of future naval negotiations, if any. Aside from the classical goals of arms control--save economic resources, improve crisis and arms race stability, reduce tensions--it is important to assess whether and to what extent the grand strategies of the two alliances, and of the two superpowers in particular, could adjust to possible negotiating scenarios.

A second complicating factor of naval arms control is the difficulty of verification. In order to be effective, any verification scheme would have to be extremely intrusive, much more so than either East or West would probably be willing to accept. While remote sensing might play a role as far as nuclear weapons are concerned, conventional limitations would have to be conducted through painstakingly complex fine-combing of the vessels involved.

There is also a special problem for submarines, which could easily hide in the unevenly warm, shallow and salty waters of the Mediterranean, where they can mask their sound emissions more easily than in blue-water oceans.

Another important factor of complexity is that the role of third countries in the East-West correlation of forces is more pronounced for naval forces than it is for land forces in Europe. Several Arab states possess significant naval--including submarine--forces, and so does Israel, and their weight would be significantly increased should the US and Soviet fleets in the region be substantially reduced or withdrawn altogether. In fact, naval forces in the Mediterranean are not solely oriented toward East-West missions, but also perform important crisis-management and peace-making missions.

In light of these complexities, naval arms control might initially achieve more rapid results in the field of Confidence and Security-Building Measures (CSBMs) than through actual force reductions. Naval CSBMs might differ from analogous land measures because they would have to take into account both the inherently greater mobility of naval forces and the difficulty of establishing clear-cut limits in terms of force levels participating in maneuvers and force movements.

Nonetheless, because of their lesser political sensitivity, naval CSBMs clearly represent the path of least resistance toward militarily significant naval arms control in the Mediterranean. After the US-Soviet agreement on the prevention of incidents at sea of 1972, France and Italy concluded their own agreements with the Soviet Union. This study will explore the hypothesis of making these treaties into a multilateral and homogeneous agreement, involving the largest possible number of participants.

Book Review: China - Tradition and Transformation, by J. Fairbank and E. Reischauer, *****

Synopsis
"China" divides naturally into two phases: the evolution of traditional Chinese civilization in relative isolation over three thousand years, and the upheavals and transformation of that civilization in recent times, partly in response to contact with the modern western world. "China: tradition and transformation" is essential reading for all historians of China and for anyone wishing to understand modern China. The authors have worked together as part of a remarkable team at Harvard University. Edwin O. Reischauer was US Ambassador to Japan and John K. Fairbank is Director of Harvard's East Asian Research Centre.

Inizio corso di volo in aliante

Non mi ricordo bene perché ho iniziato a volare in aliante. Non c'era un progetto, un obiettivo. Qualche anno fa avevo pensato di volare in deltaplano, ma poi mi ero convinto, chissà perché, che fosse troppo pericoloso ed allo stesso tempo limitato nelle prestazioni. Invece un aliante è un vero aereo. Non sono molto convinto che questo ragionamento abbia molto senso, anche il parapendio, che è ancora più limitato nelle prestazioni di un deltaplano, può dare grandi soddisfazioni. In un certo senso, anzi, più il mezzo è piccolo, limitato, più si è simili a veri volatili! Con un deltaplano si può andare più lenti e più vicino alla terra rispetto ad un aliante, e con un parapendio ancora di più rispetto ad un deltaplano.

Comunque sia eccomi qui, oggi si comincia, al secondo tentativo. La prima volta che sono andato all'aeroclub di Rieti con due amici pure intenzionati a brevettarsi, abbiamo trovato tutto chiuso, c'era un nebbione fitto sulla valle e non volava nessuno. Era qualche settimana fa, e finì tutto con una gran magnata al ristorante del "Nido del Corvo", a Greccio, sui monti che spero presto sorvolerò con le mie ali silenziose...



Idee di lettura sul volo a vela qui su Amazon.