Finlandizing Europe.

FINLANDIZING EUROPE

'ASK A GERMAN under the age of 45 whether Reagan or Gorbachev is a greater threat to peace," observes a former top Reagan aide recently returned from Western Europe, "and the answer is invariably Reagan." This despite the fact that the U.S. forces based in West Germany are arrayed defensively, whereas Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces in East Germany are arrayed offensively. The uneasy truth is that the younger generations in Central Europe--with no distinct memory of American largesse after World War II--now cope with the psychological tension of the postwar era by trusting their neighbors to the East more than their allies to the West. "Just as Gorbachev represents the power shift of the postwar generation in the USSR," adds the Reagan insider, "so these younger Europeans represent changed attitudes toward the superpowers. They're soft on Gorbachev."

So Europe, if you believe it, is slipping toward East-West accommodation, despite the admonitions of Great Britain's Margaret Thatcher and West Germany's Helmut Kohl. Research carried out by the U.S. Information Agency tends to confirm this: reports on public attitudes in Europe toward the U.S. and the USSR show America losing in the polls. It is this central phenomenon that is likely to dominate the American debate over INF ratification.

As the focus of that debate narrows further, the lens will pinpoint conventional weaponry. The Western European governments need popular support within their own countries to redress their conventional-force imbalance with the Warsaw Pact countries. But a public that increasingly sees the U.S. as threatening, and the USSR as benevolent, will not approve shifts in spending from the welfare state to Fortess Europe. Nor can America, living under the Damoclean sword of Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, promise to make up the shortfall. All of which leaves the Western Europeans relying uncomfortably on the old doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction: if Warsaw Pact forces cross the line, the U.S. retailates against the USSR directly with ICBMs, or with cruise missiles launched from sea and air.

"Europeans are uneasy," says a Republican senator, "not because the nuclear umbrella is unworkable, but because they fear we would keep it furled"--precisely the fear that led to the deployment of the cruise and Pershing II missiles in the first place. Hence the increasingly vocal demands for a linkage between the dismantling of short- and medium-range nuclear missiles and a reduction in Warsaw Pact conventional forces.

In the debate over ratification, the Senate will echo the worries of the Western Europeans. That debate will have prodigious implications for the 1988 presidential campaign, with possibly three of the candidates--Dole, Bush, and Gore--forced into active participation, voting for or against the treaty. Not since the ratification debate over the 1978 SALT II accord has a treaty been destined to command such a place in presidential politics.

How to arrest the Finlandization of Europe? It may be impossible. Rejecting the treaty would reassure older European leaders, who are taking their last steps on the public stage. But it would also persuade the European postwar generations that the U.S. is indeed an aggressive power, uninterested in peace with the Soviets. Ratifying the treaty, on the other hand, subtly legitimizes the growing belief that the Soviet Union poses no threat to Europe. After all, if Reagan can trust Gorbachev, why shouldn't Europe?

Paradoxically, the best hope for Western European defense planners, one may argue, is perestroika--Gorbachev's stated aim of social and economic restructing. After a year of raising the Soviet public's expectations, Gorbachev may find himself forced to choose between high defense-spending levels and domestic demands for a rising standard of living. That's good for Free Europe.

Unfortunately, though, the timing is wrong. In June, Gorbachev has a crucial Party plenum where challenges to his reforms, even his rule, seem to be in the making. But by then, the imperatives of the American presidential campaign will probably have dictated action on ratification, which means that the Senate may be forced to act before it has a chance to see whether Gorbachev can succeed. So we are gambling. If we ratify, and Gorbachev's reforms are slowed by the plenum's intransigence, the imbalance between NATO and Warsaw Pact conventional forces will continue indenfinitely.

PEACE IN OUR TIME, therefore, hinges on Soviet receptivity to perestroika and American willingness to retaliate against breaches of Western European borders. But SDI adds nuances of its own. The Soviets understand this, and understand how the new order in Europe makes SDI pivotal. If SDI works, then the American nuclear umbrella can be unfurled at little cost to the United States. American hesitancy over striking Soviet territory during hostilities in Europe decreases in direct proportion to the efficacy of SDI. Europe can continue to spend on social welfare, ignoring the conventional-force imbalance.

Europe's Finlandization will not be stopped, but its consequences can be contained. Reagan, by stubbornly clinging to his vision of a Strategic Defense, may keep Europe at peace despite doubts about his intentions. But if he wants gratitude, he will have to look in the dictionary. For the indefinite future, postwar Europe has turned its gaze to the East.