[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 6 (Wednesday, January 11, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E82-E83]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


              NO MORE TAXPAYER SUBSIDY FOR WESTERN EUROPE

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                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, January 11, 1995
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the biggest single mistake 
we are making in public policy today is to continue to spend far more 
on the military than is necessary. We have not responded responsibly to 
the collapse of the Soviet Union and our victory in the cold war. In 
particular, we continue to act as if Western Europe is in need of 
subsidy for its defense from the American taxpayers.
  During our recess, on December 3, Jack Beatty, senior editor at the 
Atlantic Monthly, wrote an excellent essay in the Boston Globe pointing 
out the irrationality of our current policy. I was flattered to read 
Mr. Beatty's forthright assertion that ``NATO is an exorbitant 
anachronism'' and I ask that his very persuasive essay be printed here. 
I hope that Members will read and think about it as we prepare to vote 
on the fiscal 1996 budget.
                 [From the Boston Globe, Dec. 3, 1994]

           NATO: It's Time the Europeans Found Their Own Way

                            (By Jack Beatty)

       NATO is an exorbitant anarchronism. Widely regretted by 
     columnists and editorial writers, the current rift among the 
     NATO allies over Bosnia should instead be seen as a welcome 
     development, a chance to reorder national priorities. We can 
     no longer afford to defend countries with higher standards of 
     living than our own against a vanished threat. The Cold War 
     is over, but the peace dividend has been swallowed up by 
     NATO.
       We continue to spend $75 billion to $100 billion annually 
     on the defense of Western Europe--this largely to maintain 
     the 150,000 US troops stationed there. The Clinton 
     administration wants to cut that force by 50,000 by 1999. 
     What is the rationale for keeping 100,000 troops in Europe 
     into the next millennium? To repel any future Russian 
     invasion of Lithuania. Unbelievably, that was the sole 
     European case offered in the seven possible war scenarios 
     leaked from the Pentagon two years ago.
       We have no treaty commitments to Lithuania. For 50 years we 
     tolerated the Soviet occupation of Lithuania without harm to 
     our national well-being. Lithuania is to Russia as Haiti is 
     to us, a small country within a big country's sphere of 
     influence. Yet the Pentagon expects US taxpayers to fork over 
     more than $50 billion every year to preserve a free 
     Lithuania.
       Military welfare to Europe should be as hot a political 
     button as domestic welfare to women and children, and perhaps 
     it would be if the British, Danes and Germans we are saving 
     from the costly inconvenience of defending Lithuania all by 
     themselves were--how to put it?--stigmatically nonwhite. But 
     with the elites of both parties under the platitudinous spell 
     of the foreign policy establishment, it will probably take a 
     third party to raise the issue.
       Counter-arguments? Two are usually cited. First, we would 
     lose influence within the alliance if we had no ground troops 
     stationed on alliance soil. Second, only isolationists could 
     advocate abandoning the forward-deployment strategy taught by 
     the bitter experience of two Europe-made world wars.
       Lose influence within the alliance? What influence? The 
     Clinton administration's fruitless efforts to change alliance 
     policy on Bosnia shows how little influence we have. To be 
     sure, we might have had more if, like the British and French, 
     we had dispatched peace-keepers to Bosnia, a place with no 
     peace to keep. But influence at the price of folly is a bad 
     bargain.
       The idea that we should ``lead the alliance,'' that the 
     European powers have grown soft behind the generous welfare 
     states our defense spending has let them afford, has surface 
     plausibility. Certainly the British and French have not shown 
     much spine in Bosnia. But unpack that word ``lead'' and 
     you'll find it means something like this: If we continue to 
     spend more to defend Europe than the European countries spend 
     to defend themselves, and if we are willing to station 
     [[Page E83]] peace-keepers in powderkegs like Bosnia, the 
     allies will suffer us to lead them, yes, but only where they 
     want to go, as Lyndon Johnson discovered over Vietnam. 
     Leadership means pointless, unending subsidy.
       Moreover, it is insulting to the Europeans to carry on as 
     if they are cock-a-hoop without us. Just as a welfare check 
     can inhibit your will to work, so being led by others can 
     inhibit your will and weaken your capacity to lead. The 
     Europeans must find their own way.
       Is it ``isolationist'' to leave them to it? No. It is 
     realism. We should trade places with the French: They are the 
     major land power in Europe. Let them lead; it will do wonders 
     for their hauteur. Our political role should be as a French-
     like kibitzer around the edges of NATO, ready to build up in 
     Europe, if necessary, to answer any buildup from a 
     nationalist Russia. Our proper geostrategic role is offshore, 
     as a maritime power. Walter Lippmann called this the ``blue 
     water strategy.'' Unlike the continuance of forward 
     deployment against a phantom enemy, it has the merit of being 
     sane.
       Besides, as conservatives will soon be warning in Congress, 
     we face security threats that the cost of forward deployment 
     in Europe simply won't permit us to address. It is, for 
     example, just a matter of time before some rogue regime or 
     stateless band of terrorists learn how to make and transport 
     nuclear weapons. We have no defense against such threats now. 
     The Republicans want to revive the Strategic Defense 
     Initiative, but even if that celestial Maginot Line could be 
     constructed for less than hundreds of billions of dollars, it 
     would only work against ballistic missile attack. A border 
     patrol scaled to national security dimensions would make far 
     more sense as protection against bomb-carrying terrorists. 
     Estimates are that $20 billion annually, about half what NATO 
     will cost in the year 2000, would pay for a real military-
     style border between the United States and Mexico. That would 
     also keep out both illegal immigrants and drug traffickers, 
     which would benefit both our lowest wage earners and inner-
     city kids. What a novelty that would be: American defense 
     spending defending Americans.
       In short, getting Europe out of our pockets is a 
     requirement of both economic and national security. The 
     burden should be on those who want to maintain the 
     somnambulant commitment to NATO.
     

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