The fulda gap is not on the Laffer curve; exit from NATO?

THE FULDA GAP IS NOT ON THE LAFFER CURVE 

I HAVE BEEN thinking about the NATO problem since 1983, when The American Spectator hosted a journalistic junket to Rome, Paris, and London. Tom Bethell went along on that trip too, and for a group of conservatives it was pretty grim. We did manage to find one free-market economist in Italy, but he assured us that, apart from ideological singularity, as a Sicilian he was regarded in Rome, and certainly in Milan, as barely human. There were more free-marketeers in France, but not many, for the intellectual tradition of the French governing classes for the last three hundred years has been colbertisme, named after Louis XIV's controller general who believed that the art of taxation consisted in plucking as many feathers from the national goose as possible without making it squawk. Charles de Gaulle's view of the economy and economists was that "the quartermasters' would follow him. Only in Thatcherite England did we find significant soulmates, but even they were hummed in by socialists and wets. Late one night at a dinner at the Turf Club, one young economist confided to me that the only hope for England's prosperity was for Englishmen to develop the habit of breaking the law.

We didn't spend all that much time talking about NATO. But I think experiences like these play a large role in shaping conservative attitudes on the subject. We, and the anti-NATO crowd in particular, apply judgments and analogies drawn from domestic affairs to an international problem. And I say that's a hell of a way to run a foreign policy.

At the lowest level, the economic critique of the Alliance is based on a desire to punish wastrels. The extravagances that we condemn are not booze and floozies, but Europe's welfare states. If the nations of Western Europe wish to scant their defense budgets for the sake of bloated social programs, that is their business. But America should no longer be expected to foot the bill.

This rough-hewn conservative impulse runs at cross-purposes with one of the favorite arguments of NATO's opponents --that, of all the Western European countries, only France has more spine than an eclair. Considering the etatisme of de Gaulle, Pompidou, and Giscard d'Estaing, and the outright socialism of Mitterrand, France's assertiveness in foreign affairs, and its willingness to pay for the means of making its assertions good, must be related to something other than its position on la courbe Laffer.

The punitive form of the economic critique collapses altogether when we consider the percentages of the budget and the GNP that Washington spends on the domestic side--percentages with which European spending does not compare unfavorably. A country that can't get rid of the Small Business Administration is in no position to lecture the Europeans on prudence.

But the most important use of the welfare state in the NATO debate is metaphorical. The metaphor is psychological, for it is addressed to the all-important question of national will.

We observe that the United States and its allies are often at loggerheads. In many cases--Central America, Grenada, terrorism, arms control, SDI--our allies take the softer line. Their softness infects the whole political culture, not just the foreign offices. Their "moderates' are more detentist than ours; their Left oppositions are further left. Their peace movements are

bigger, and their peacenik demonstrations are larger. The cause of European weakness, according to the NATOphobe, is American strength. By guaranteeing Western Europe's defense, we have deprived Europeans of the incentive to guarantee it themselves. America's nuclear deterrent, and the American troops that serve as its trip wire, are Europe's safety net. The Europeans, relying on its presence, have become an international underclass--demanding, dispirited, and irresponsible.

Supporters of this view cite France as their exhibit A. France, even though it is no longer a great power, alone among the nations of Western Europe behaves like one. When there is strife in Zaire, it flies in Moroccan troops to quell it. It props up an odious client like Bokassa I in the Central African Empire, and then, when he becomes too embarrassing, topples him. It tests atom bombs in the South Pacific, and blows up environmentalists who get in the way. On a continent paralyzed with fear about nuclear power, it has bulled on ahead with its reactor program. Not all of these policies are prudent, and some of them are unjust; but they are the actions of a "great'--that is, willful--power.

The reason France behaves this way, suggest the NATOphobes, is that, in 1966, de Gaulle took it out of the military-command structure of NATO. Because France cut the apron strings to America, it is now willing to stand on its own two feet.

But this argument, far more cogent than the first, also has its flaws. In the specific instance of France, there is a chicken/egg problem. France's exit from NATO surely bolstered its own self-esteem. But without self-esteem, how could it have left NATO in the first place?

The whole welfare analogy is shakier still. Conservatives oppose welfare essentially because we believe that all men are created equal. Apart from idiots and some cripples, and assuming the state has not regulated the economy to death, everyone is capable of making a living. To arrange livings for men demeans and demoralizes them by depriving them of an aspect of their humanity.

But all nations are not created equal. Before World War I, there were seven important powers in Europe. Before World War II, there were thought to be seven important powers in the world. Now there are two. Denmark is not capable of defending itself alone against Russia. Of course, it never was. But England and France are incapable as well. This is not an exercise in false pity, a suffering situation imagined by liberals. It is reality. A free Western Europe has to be a Western Europe that relies, ultimately, on American clout. No European nation can stand on its own. This is not a postwar truth, something that applied only to impoverished England, humiliated France, and occupied Germany in 1946. It is true today.

The recognition of national inequality is the queen of trumps of NATO supporters. NATO's opponents still hold the king: Europe, divided, must fall. But suppose it united?

Western Europe has more people than the United States or the Soviet Union. Its combined GNP exceeds ours; it exceeds the Russians' by a huge amount. France and England, by themselves, have forces de frappe whose only purpose is to make the Soviets think twice. (If the Soviets, having thought twice, decided to absorb the counter-blow, they could be confident of erasing France and England from the map.) But Europe together could fashion a nuclear arsenal as potent as the Soviets', possibly more so.

Standing in the way of this salutary development, once again, is the United States. Europe will never make the political and military effort, so long as the obliging Yanks spare it the necessity. By surrendering the leadership of a collection of weak and obstreperous allies, America will prepare the way for the emergence of a strong, confident ally.

What is the ace of the trumps? It is true that Europe has been successfully united before, which makes it conceivable that it might be united again. It's also true that the last time was the Roman Empire, which makes present prospects dim. The last forty years have not been encouraging. For such mountains of talk, the institutional results are mousy. In some respects, Europe has regressed: The Common Market, which was supposed to lower trade barriers, has become a collection of mutually antagonistic protectionists.

The proposed remedy begins by weakening the one hopeful symptom on the European scene. The strongest useful force, in Europe as in America, is still nationalism. We feel its power, off and on. So does France. Even sleepy England, when Argentine generals snatched the last and least scrap of the Empire, dispatched the Royal Navy and the Gurkhas and got it back. We propose subordinating these forces to grey bureaucrats in Brussels, and their journalistic claqueurs.

For if a united Europe is to defend itself effectively, the component nations must be subordinate. Commanding the resources necessary for a working strategic and conventional defense will require federalism, not a continental Articles of Confederation. If the NATOphobes see any signs of an emotional commitment to such a structure in Europe today, they must point them out. So far as I can see, only nationalism these days is warm; internationalism is cold.

I am not arguing that NATO ought to remain unchanged. The most important change would be the integration of a re-armed Japan. (Japan, it is true, does not border on the North Atlantic, but then neither does Turkey.) We will someday thank the daffy Trilateral Commission for opening this line of thought. SDI will also change the structural equation in ways I haven't yet figured out. Who knows, we may finally be able to dispense with the trip wire. More likely, we will have to make NATO a serious fighting force.

Whatever is done, it is best done as an addition to the present structure. The way to build for the future is not to create an international flux today.

Even if the Euros never read Charles Murray.