Nuclear Quarantine : Do Americans Owe Dissenting Allies Risk-Free Protection?

“Frankly, I don’t see how in the long run we can ask the American people to bear the risks of war . . . to defend allies who will have nothing to do with us when delicate issues like the movement of nuclear weapons are involved.”

The quote is from Assistant Defense Secretary Richard N. Perle, who is not everybody’s favorite Pentagon official. But his point is right on target.

The Reagan Administration is concerned, and irritated, by the growing tendency toward “nuclear allergy” among some of this country’s allies.

The most highly publicized case in point is the decision a few weeks ago by New Zealand’s new Labor government not to allow a port visit by the U.S. destroyer Buchanan because Washington refused to certify that the warship did not carry nuclear weapons.

The southern periphery of the Atlantic alliance, meanwhile, is threatening to come unglued as a result of developments in Greece, where a rabidly anti-American prime minister is on the loose, and in Spain, where a referendum on withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will be held next year.

The anti-nuclear movement in West Germany has receded, now that the initial deployment of U.S.-made cruise and Pershing 2 missiles is an accomplished fact. But a sizable minority of West Germans continue to harbor neutralist tendencies.

Let’s face it: Not many people anywhere, the United States included, feel comfortable with The Bomb. Nor should they. But risk-sharing is an inescapable responsibility of membership in an alliance.

America’s alliances are voluntary associations of mostly democratic peoples; nobody has to join. The purpose of the alliances is to provide collective deterrence against military aggression or political bullying by the Soviet Union. And, since the Soviets have nuclear weapons aplenty, a major ingredient of that deterrent is the nuclear umbrella provided by America at the active behest of its major allies.

In cold reality, this means that if deterrence fails, the United States is pledged to defend its friends from Soviet attack, using nuclear weapons if necessary, even if it brings the nuclear destruction of America.

When allied countries say that they want U.S. protection but no part of the nuclear weapons that are a necessary part of that protection, they are asking that Americans risk nuclear incineration for folks unwilling to share the perils. It won’t wash.

Through the years the United States has actually demonstrated a great deal of sensitivity and flexibility in dealing with allied countries where nervousness about nuclear weapons is especially pronounced.

American nuclear weapons are based in certain countries--West Germany, Britain, the Philippines and Greece, among them--by mutual agreement.

But Washington respects Japan’s aversion to any basing of nuclear weapons on its territory. The Japanese government, in turn, assumes with a straight face that U.S. warships entering Japanese waters do not carry nuclear weapons, and it doesn’t ask for documentation of that assumption. The same formula is accepted by Norway.

Because of these arrangements, the United States steadfastly refuses to say which warships carry nuclear weapons and which don’t. Once the distinction was made, the Japanese and some other host governments would come under great pressure to bar their ports to American naval vessels. And that would seriously undermine the ability of the United States to help defend the countries involved.

In the case of New Zealand (a member, along with Australia and the United States, of the ANZUS defense pact), U.S. forces have no military bases in that country, nuclear or otherwise, and want none. All that was involved in the recent flap was the continued right of U.S. warships to make occasional port calls in New Zealand.

David Lange, the New Zealand prime minister, purports to believe that once-in-a-blue moon visits by nuclear-armed warships would make his country a target for atomic attack in event of war. That’s about as silly as you can get.

Even if it were true, however, either New Zealand wants U.S. protection or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, fair enough. If New Zealanders are not worried by the steady southward movement of Soviet naval and air power in the Pacific, the United States, preferably in concert with Australia, can soldier on without them. There is no cause for hard feelings.

But while New Zealand has a right to refuse the visitation of U.S. warships, Washington was right to insist that New Zealanders could not at the same time expect to retain a claim on U.S. protection, nuclear or otherwise. If the United States had given in on this point, the governments of Japan and other key allied countries would have come under enormous pressure to similarly bar U.S. warships.

In the case of Greece, Socialist Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou may well be reflecting public opinion when he snuggles up to Moscow, castigates the United States and talks about closing U.S. bases. Opinion polls indicate that only a fourth of the Greek people hold a favorable view of America, and that an overwhelming majority are deeply hostile to the West.

Obviously Washington should try to avoid making things worse than they have to be. But if these polls accurately reflect Greek public opinion, America in truth has no business keeping nuclear weapons in Greece and Greece probably has no business in NATO.

If the situation continues to deteriorate, an obvious alternative is to negotiate new base rights in Turkey--and adjust the relative levels of military aid to Greece and Turkey accordingly.

Successive U.S. Administrations have allowed the idea to grow in some countries that their alliances with America serve U.S. purposes but not their own. Obviously the alliance system is in the U.S. interest, but there is hardly a case where we need them more than they need us.

There is, or should be, plenty of room in NATO and other U.S. alliances for divergent roles and opinions. But, as the man said, there is really no reason for the American people to put themselves at risk for people who only want to hold the coats.