VIII the Brussels Treaty and the Western Union

VIII The Brussels Treaty ana the Western Union .LJURING the year 1947 it became evident that Communist Russia showed little signs of being satisfied with the limits of her tremendous postwar expansion. In the Balkans the Communists had extended their influence without regard for the peoples' right to choose freely their government and institutions. In Germany, Russia refused to cooperate in the shaping of a democratic Germany capable of peaceful international cooperation. In Greece and Turkey, Soviet Russia attempted to broaden her influence and draw those countries into the communist orbit. And the communist rule of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other countries behind the Iron Curtain alarmed the free nations throughout the world. On January 22 of the following year, Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Minister, in a major foreign policy address to the House of Commons, called attention to the danger of continuous Soviet expansion and appealed for consolidation of Western Europe. Following his initiative, the Brussels Treaty establishing the "Western Union" was concluded on March 17,1948, by Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The stated purpose of the Treaty was closer collaboration in economic, social and cultural matters and collective selfdefense.1 Functions. The principal function of the Western Union was to provide permanent consultive machinery for joint defense against armed aggression. But it also set up a goal to collaborate in economic, social and cultural matters. Automatic military and other assistance in case of armed attack, no matter from what source, was i Department of State, Bulletin, May 9, 1948, pp. 600-602.

268 BRUSSELS TREATY AND THE WESTERN UNION 269 provided for in its Article 4 in which no mention was made of a definite aggressor. It provided simply that "an armed attack in Europe" shall bring the mutual obligation into effect. The Brussels Pact also provided for consultation on a wide range of problems, including "a threat to peace, in whatever area this threat should arise/' In agreement with Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, Article 5 of the Brussels Pact provided for immediate reporting to the Security Council of all measures taken and for their termination as soon as that body "has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security." Organization. The Treaty set up a "Consultative Council" composed of the five foreign ministers which was so organized "as to be able to exercise its functions continuously." This Council was a toplevel political organ composed of the foreign ministers on a basis of equality. At the first meeting of the Council in Paris in April 1948 it decided: 1. To set up a permanent Commission in London that would meet monthly and act in behalf of the Council. It was to be assisted by a permanent Secretariat; 2. To bring together periodically the ministers responsible for economic and military matters; 3. To set up a permanent Military Committee under the direct authority of the Consultative Council.

In addition, several subordinate committees, boards, and subcommittees of ministers or experts on military, economic, social, and cultural questions were established, all being responsible to the Consultative Council. One Year of Operation. During their first year of operation the several committees and commissions immediately got to work planning the defense of the West, sharing responsibilities, studying problems of logistics, working towards standardization of arms and equipment, and coordinating production of war materials. In the social and cultural fields, the Brussels Treaty Organization has taken credit for several achievements by its various commissions, the most important of which are: multilateral conventions on social security, agreements on the exchange of student employees, on government regulation of wages and conditions of frontier workers living on one side of a national boundary and working on the other, on social and medical matters, and on public health. Furthermore, its commissions have also taken credit for the fact that visas have been abolished among the Bve member countries and "cultural identity cards" have been substituted. Agreements have been reached 270 STEPS TOWARD UNION on the exchange of students, young laborers, and university professors. All these measures are said to build up good will step by step and thus contribute to the establishment of a solid foundation on which it will be easier to build a permanent structure of a European union.2 Inactivation of the Western Union. The Western Union has served as a forerunner of other European organizations and of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which are now pursuing its purposes on a broader basis. With the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty and the activation of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers, Europe (SHAPE), the military importance of the Brussels Treaty Organization temporarily passed into the background. The members of the commissions and committees were assigned to other missions. As a result of the formation of the "Organization for European Economic Cooperation" (OEEC) embracing all the Brussels powers only one month after the Brussels Pact was signed, the economic provisions of the Western Union Treaty lost their significance and never became a major concern of Western Union. In addition, the Council of Europe assumed its social and cultural functions on a much broader basis.

A Treaty on a European Defense Community. For more than four years following the establishment of the Western Union, the imagination of world public opinion was caught by another defense treaty—the treaty constituting a European Defense Community. This Community was envisaged as another link in the chain of European integration. In the opinion of the French government, which advanced the plan, the creation of a European army was desirable for the common defense of a unified Europe. It was the French government's answer to the request by the United States government that Germany participate in Atlantic defense. The rearmament of Germany, unpopular as it is in Europe and especially in France, was to be made acceptable to the European countries. It was with the hope of accomplishing this that the French government proposed a European formula, which was to make it possible to include German army units in a common army and to bind Germany to common duties and interests to European solidarity.3 2 John Goormagthigh, European Integration, International Conciliation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, New York, 1953, pp. 88-90. See also Jane Perry Clark Carey, "Western European Union and the Atlantic Community," Foreign Policy Reports, June 15, 1950.

3 Rene Pleven's declaration of October 24, 1950, to the French National Assembly. Service de Press et Information, Embassade de France, New York, N. Y., Document No. 23, p. 5.

BRUSSELS TREATY AND THE WESTERN UNION 271 The fundamental principle of the Defense Community plan was the creation of an army that was to be common to the six participating countries—France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. In this European army the manpower and material resources from the member states were to be merged into a homogeneous whole in which all commands, all staffs, and all the attached services were to be integrated, i.e., composed of officers and men of various member states. The finishing work on the draft treaty was done by experts from the member countries at a Paris Conference which opened in February 1951. Then followed meetings between the Foreign Ministers of these countries in November and December 1951 and in January 1952, which contributed to the elaboration of the Treaty finally accepted and signed by representatives of the six governments concerned on May 27, 1952.4 In the following two years the parliaments of Western Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg ratified the Treaty. The parliaments of Italy and France continued to discuss all aspects of the Defense Community. In September 1954, finally, in the French Assembly, EDC came to an early end. The French representatives voted down their own project. The European Defense Community proved not to be the answer to the problem of the defense of Europe and its civilization.

Towards a "Western European Union." After the sudden death of EDC, the governments of the free nations in Europe and of the United States made another attempt at the common goal of unity and security. On October 23, 1954, in Paris, they signed a set of agreements which brought West Germany into the Western Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Also Italy, being already a member of NATO, was invited to join the expanded Brussels pact organization officially called "Western European Union." Thus the Western nations tentatively agreed to a new approach to rearm West Germany under the joint control of the Brussels powers and of NATO. The Western European Union received authority to set ceilings on all armed forces maintained by the member states. It also was given authority to control the manufacture of armaments by its members—especially West Germany—within agreed limits. The NATO powers then invited West Germany to raise a 500,000-man national army and join the North Atlantic Community. To prevent an independent deployment of the German 4 La Documentation Frangaise, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Traite Instituant la communaute europeenne de defense, Paris, 1952.

272 STEPS TOWARD UNION forces, or even their employment against the Western democracies, increased powers were given to the supreme NATO commander over the German and all other NATO continental forces and over their placement, logistic provisions, and supplies.5 Mutual Security or Economic Nationalism? The endless negotiations on common European defense and the multiplicity of apparently insurmountable difficulties on the road to European unity induce us here to refrain from analyzing them in detail. However, we would like to present a short condensation of essential defense problems of the West. First, the preservation of peace, security, and freedom of Western nations from potential outside aggression is of pre-eminent importance. Through mutual defense they must seek to remove the danger of attack by any outside aggressor who might otherwise hope to succeed in overcoming them one by one. A mutual defense treaty makes it clear, in advance, that any armed attack affecting the security of one member state will be met immediately by the collective defense of all member states. It is hoped that a war can thus be prevented. The problem, therefore, is the achievement of alliances and military preparedness in order to repel outside aggression. Second, Western civilization may also perish by reason of destructive forces within the Western nations themselves. The keystone of our civilization is the freedom of the individual and the safety of his property. Both factors have enabled Western man to achieve great industrial productivity which has raised the standard of living to a level heretofore unknown. If these fundamental factors are greatly curtailed or destroyed, through internal forces based on collective ideologies, this civilization will vanish by its own hand.

The nineteenth century witnessed an irresistible advance of the civilization of capitalist nations into all parts of the world. A healthy civilization was firmly founded on individual liberty and property, bringing law and order to nations to whom these concepts were unknown. The economic and military strength of European nations was by far superior to that of any other nation; and outside aggression against one or several of the European powers was suicidal and usually resulted in the aggressor state being incorporated into the empire of the European nation. During this period it was evident that a capitalist nation is a formidable match to any would-be aggressor. For many decades the European nations have traveled the road to selfdestruction—individual liberty is greatly curtailed and indi5 The New York Times, October 24, 1954, p. El.

BRUSSELS TREATY AND THE WESTERN UNION 273 vidual property is superseded by the rights of the state and society. The keystones of our civilization have been removed and replaced by the doctrines of collectivism. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the standard of living of European nations has not only remained stagnant, but in some states it has even declined materially with the reduction of productivity. In addition, the sagging strength of European nations was freely used in wars and dissipated in economic policies against each other. The final, inevitable outcome of this road to collectivism must be the downfall of Europe. Economic nationalism is the international aspect of collectivism. It is a government policy that discriminates in favor of its own citizens to the detriment of citizens of other states. As has been demonstrated repeatedly, governments, aiming at national welfare and other collectivist schemes which bring about socialism, necessarily conduct a policy of economic nationalism. The European governments on their road to national and social welfare inevitably must wage economic wars upon each other. It is inherent in the system.

The domestic regulation of prices necessitates the regulation of imports and exports; the manipulation of interest rates presupposes foreign exchange control; and the manipulation of wage rates requires migration barriers. Whatever economic policy we may analyze, European governments are committed to a policy of economic nationalism, which sooner or later must result in selfdestruction. The two concepts, "survival through mutual security" and "selfdestruction through economic nationalism," are diametrically opposed to each other. It is obvious that there cannot be survival where there is selfdestruction. And the degree of selfdestruction determines the point at which the security from outside aggression is lost. The nations of Europe undoubtedly have passed this point; without an alliance with the United States and other nations of the West, Europe would be an easy prey to communist Russia and her satellites. With the assistance and protection of capitalist America, Europe, at the present, may still enjoy security. But as long as the process of selfdestruction continues, Europe's value as an ally to the capitalist nations continues to decline correspondingly.

The preservation of Western civilization depends upon the Western nations themselves. If the keystones of our civilization—the freedom of the individual and the safety of his property—are safeguarded, there is no reason for fear, no mentionable threat from outside aggressors. If the Western nations choose to destroy this foundation, there is no hope for survival, whether or not there are outside aggressors.