NATO's New Look

With his new suggestions for NATO strategy last week, Secretary of State Dulles showed that the Administration feels compelled to alter its foreign policy in the face of caustic foreign and domestic criticism. The new twist, although laudable passes only as a beginning and cannot be interpreted as a major revision of policy. The altered attitude should be extended, enlarged, and made a permanent part of United States foreign outlook.

Dulles intends to "advance NATO from its initial phase into the totality of its meaning." The accent is to shift from a military emphasis to development of the Alliance's economic and political potentialities. Dulles suggests that NATO should assume a shape similar to the Organization of American States, with full economic as well as military cooperation among the member nations. Although Drlles refused to be specific about the nature of NATO's new complexion, he did imply that the Alliance would become a sort of giant trading corporation. It would offer economic assistance, eased trading terms, and extended credit to underdeveloped and economically faltering states outside of the European area.

This new interpretation of a "regional defense area" is, for the Administration, a much-delayed step in the right direction. It indicates a recognition that armaments are not the primary defense against Communism. The redefinition is a frank if belated acknowledgement that NATO can never hope to attain its original objective, to become a major deterrent force in Europe. It is a confession that NATO cannot be a military garrison which could contain and repel any sustained large-scale Soviet land attack Westward. No European army raised by the NATO countries within the limits of their economic and military capabilities could long stand up to an all-out Soviet march to the Channel.

By abandoning the chimerical hope of Continental defense and assuming a larger economic role, NATO is to become the free world's distributing agency. Although the U.S. will continue to foot ninety percent of the bill, NATO will now, nominally if not actually, be the benefactor.

The new role provides, ostensibly, multilateral economic assistance, rather than the unilateral type of Point-Four or Marshall Plan aid. As such, it will be more palatable to the recipients of the aid. It contributes to that spirit of willing cooperation and mutual self-help between non-Soviet nations which is vital to free-world cohesion. In its new role NATO would accent multilateral, inter-regional economic assistance rather than attempt to defend absolutely the indefensible land mass of Western Europe. This should go far to better political and economic relations between the NATO states and other non-Soviet nations.

As a by-product of helping underdeveloped areas, the establishment of a worldwide trading corporation centered in and operated by Western Europe could spark the sagging economics of industrial European states by opening up for them new markets and sources of raw materials. In addition, cooperative economic aid activity in Western Europe would bind even more closely together the countries of the North Atlantic area, enhancing that solidarity which is the most potent obstacle to Red political inroads in Western Europe. It might also reduce the fierce export rivalries between the nations of Western Europe.

Finally NATO could become an agency for political consultation and mutual policy determination between non-Soviet states, a multilateral agency for multilateral direction of non-Soviet international affairs. This would satisfy many European critics who resent the U.S. directing world economic and military aid by itself. Mutual defense requires mutual consultation.

NATO might meet with some difficulty in executing its economic role. Non-Atlantic nations might find it difficult accepting aid from a previously military defense region. Previously mentioned export rivalries might also prove obstructive. These must be overcome.

In initiating these changes, Dulles has shown himself willing to admit that an enlightened foreign policy must consider the fears and uncertainties and jealousies of the so-called "lesser" nations, and cannot sacrifice economic assistance to military overconcentration. This new attitude should become the basis of American policy for the future. It combats the real Soviet threat which is currently economic rather than military.