Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–15, Part 2, Documents on Western Europe, 1973–1976

39. Memorandum Prepared in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research¹

Washington, November 24, 1973.

US PRESSURE POINTS ON WESTERN EUROPE

Present and Prospective US-European Interrelationships

Western Europe is now at a difficult transitional state in its evolution to cohesion and greater assertion of independence from Washington on basic policy issues. On the one hand, all major West European governments are acutely conscious of fundamental economic, political, and diplomatic interests which they share with each other but not with the US. On the other hand, they are unable to overlook the large political and latent military challenge to them posed by the USSR, with which they cannot successfully cope except through cooperation on security matters with the US. The current dilemma for West Europeans is how to get over the next 8 to 15 years without sacrificing major interests to pressures from their American protector, while they go about working out the compromises, new institutional arrangements, and defense measures which can alone give them feasible options for eventually standing up to the US as full equals.

The converse American dilemma is not only how to elicit European support for critical American policy objectives, but also how to accomplish this without so antagonizing the Europeans that they accelerate the trend toward an independent, and perhaps partially unfriendly, policy. Indeed, the larger challenge implicit in the Kissinger April 23 speech is how to redefine the goals and purposes of the two sides of the Atlantic so that a reasonable degree of harmony and cooperation can prevail both during the transitional period of the 1980’s, and even after the Europeans have created the political and military power bases which will allow them an independent course of action.

It is possible to enumerate a number of issues on which the American and West European divergence is either potentially great or already quite substantial.

First—There is the question of European political integration itself. Whereas Washington’s formal position has always favored European political unity, whether or not in the framework of an explicit Atlantic partnership, the Europeans are increasingly suspicious that the US may in fact prefer to deal with each country separately for as long as possible. This European perception has grown in parallel with Europe’s realization that the gap between European and American interests on economic and foreign policy may be substantially larger than earlier assumed.

Second—Although West European governments still believe unanimously that the American nuclear force and European-based US ground and air forces are indispensable elements for balancing Soviet military power, there is a growing awareness of the disadvantages of this arrangement for Europe. For one thing, the lack of equivalent European nuclear muscle denies to European nations the kind of intimate dialogue on global politics and bilateral relationships with Moscow which Washington is able to conduct. For another thing, European military deficiencies make Western Europe beholden to US–USSR decision-making on a wide variety of political, political-military, and security questions (MBFR, CSCE, SALT, and the Middle East) which directly involve major European interests.

Third—On the economic front, the West Europeans acknowledge a general interest in overall understandings with the US about mutually acceptable operational rules and procedures for the prosperous functioning of the non-Communist portion of the world’s economy. Nevertheless, events since 1971 have brought home to them both the increasingly serious nature of the competition between Western Europe and the US and the manifold issues on trade, investment, monetary, commodity, and fiscal policies which put the two areas at odds with each other. They also resent greatly efforts by the US to use Europe’s security dependence on Washington as leverage for American efforts to gain advantages in the economic realm.

West European Divergence from the US on the Middle East

The Middle East crisis has exacerbated all of these problems to an unprecedented degree. The US has sought to enlist Western Europe in a policy of facing down the Arabs on oil supply, of jointly confronting the Soviet Union to the extent unavoidable, and of maintaining an even-handed stance between the Arabs and the Israelis on peace-settlement questions. The Europeans, however, who have long differed with the US over past American unwillingness to bring pressure to bear on Israel to compromise with the Arabs, strongly resent US attempts to force them to accept the superpower context, as well as many of the specific measures, of American crisis management in the Middle East since early October.

Not only have many West European governments felt considerable sympathy for Arab political and security demands, but, whether sympathetic or not, they feel unable to risk policies that would bring about a total cessation of Arab oil shipments to Western Europe and consequent disaster to the economic, political, and social fabrics of their societies. They cannot conceive of any joint policy of challenge or opposition to the Arabs, even in collaboration with the US, that would not bring much greater damage to Western Europe than to the Arab states—and in a much shorter time-frame.

Scope of this Paper

American efforts are now being directed at making the Arab states, particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia, realize that progress toward a satisfactory peace settlement—which necessarily involves American pressure on Israel—is being, and will continue to be, handicapped by the embargo of oil shipments to the US imposed by Arab producers (mainly in the Persian Gulf). These efforts would be significantly furthered if the US could generate sufficient counter-pressure on the Arab governments concerned to induce them to drop the embargo. A separate paper examines the possibilities for direct US pressure against the Arabs; this paper addresses the prospect for European cooperation in such pressure.

Balance of Economic Pressures Between the Arabs and Western Europe

With the lesson of the Arab oil boycott of Holland much in their minds, the West Europeans are convinced that any joint action by them against the Arabs—and all the more so if the action is taken conjunction with the US—will lead to an immediate further drastic Arab cut in oil shipments or to a total embargo. European oil reserve stocks are already declining, and, even on the assumption of large-scale and effective oil conservation measures in Europe and of the import of some crude oil from non-Arab suppliers, it is doubtful that the European economies could function in even a minimally satisfactory way for more than 4 to 6 months following the start of a complete embargo. To be sure, this period could be somewhat extended if the US were willing to ship a good portion, at least one-third, of American domestic petroleum production to Western Europe, but this would, of course, have drastic repercussions on the US home front, while not doing much more than to postpone disaster for the European economies for another 2 or 3 months.

Nonetheless, even if such a joint European confrontation with the Arabs were realizable—which must remain highly improbable in view of both European vulnerabilities and partial European sympathy with the Arab diplomatic position—the West European governments would have to ask themselves what kind of joint measures might influence the Arab states. Apart from direct military intervention in North Africa and the Persian Gulf, which could not be contemplated except as a combined operation with the US, and which, since the Suez adventure of 1956, has been virtually banished from European thoughts, the Europeans have only the weapon of their export of goods and technical know-how to the Arab countries to bring to bear.

In this connection, it is true that most Arab countries and above all, the small Persian Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, are highly dependent on imports from the US, Western Europe and Japan to keep the modern sector of their economies in operation. By themselves, the Arabs do not have adequate quantities of skilled manpower or indigenous production of either industrial machinery or consumer durables to maintain the Westernized portions of their societies, and especially to fulfill the tastes and needs of the “establishment” and elitist groups which run the Arab governments concerned.

At the same time, the real question is the relative staying power of the Arab states deprived of Western imports on the one hand, and, on the other, Western Europe and Japan deprived of 75 percent and 45 percent of oil supplies respectively. Insofar as Western exports to the Arab lands involve luxury or semi-luxury items for the upper crust, it is clear that these can be dispensed with for quite a long time, certainly for more than the 4 to 8 months (depending on the degree of sharing of US domestic oil production) which will be required to strangle the economies of Western Europe and Japan for lack of oil. Insofar as Western exports involve other types of manufactured products, much of this will no longer be needed by the modern sector of the economy if oil production is cut off, since it consumes a good share of such imports from the West. And, of course, the reduction of imports will mean that the foreign exchange reserves of Arab governments, already quite high, will last even longer (unless the West Europeans managed to seize them). Insofar as imports from the Western countries involve arms and military-related hardware, the Arab governments can either postpone further expansion of their armed forces or, as is already the case with Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, they can turn to the USSR for substitute equipment. Finally, insofar as Arab imports from the West relate to capital equipment and technical know-how, a Western boycott could force the cancellation of investment projects and the deterioration of services, but, here again, this would be more an annoyance than a severe blow to the Arab governments.

It is undoubtedly a valid point that most Arab governments do not wish to become more beholden to the Soviet Union than some of them already are. However, under extreme pressure from the OECD countries, the Arabs would, in due course probably go much further than they would otherwise like; and the USSR will be ready to meet their requirements with a full line of military supplies, as well as with the most critically necessary economic and industrial support for the modern sector of the Arab economies. To be sure, this will cause Arab dislocations, since the modern sectors of their economies are primarily geared to Western technologies, equipment, and suppliers, but a shift to much greater reliance on the USSR will certainly be workable in the light of their relatively modest requirements. The same will be generally true of relatively small scale Arab food import needs. Though on a smaller scale, the Soviet experience with Cuba is a valid analogy in all these import sectors.

American Capacity to Change West European Policy on the Middle East

It is unlikely that the West European perception of its interests in and its influence over the Middle East can be changed by American diplomatic entreaties and arguments at any level. The Europeans probably recognize that a united stand of the OECD countries against Arab oil policy would arouse concerns among the Arab leaders, whose states are weak and whose self-confidence is often lacking. However, the Europeans fear that the Arabs, with Soviet backing, would ultimately manage to remain resolute, and that, in any case, the Europeans have too much at stake in the viability of their societies to test out the American hypothesis that the Arabs will retreat before Europe is prostrate. Even a US offer to share indigenous US oil production would probably not change this result, given the inadequacy of the quantities that Washington can feasibly offer.

To have any chance at all of altering this European approach, the US would have to make it evident that continued refusal to follow the American policy lead would be even more painful and more risky to the Europeans than an all-out stand against the Arabs. To bring Western Europe to this realization, Washington would have to wheel out its heaviest artillery—with much attendant chance that the cannonade would backfire. Lesser pressures—control and curtailment of US exports to and imports from Europe, abandonment of certain multilateral and bilateral negotiations involving the West Europeans, denial of advanced civilian and military technologies, etc.—would anger the Europeans but not cause them to budge.

All-out, big gun US tactics, to have a chance of success, would have to concentrate on the individual vulnerabilities of each West European country. A focus on security issues—troop levels, nuclear commitment, American readiness posture—would, for example, have the most effect in West Germany. The UK might be most sensitive to economic countermeasures affecting trade, the stability of sterling, and capital movements. France might respond most to signs that Washington was trying a vigorous divide and rule policy among the EC countries, i.e., a conscious US effort to play one off against the other, on many issues, to undermine the Common Agricultural Policy, or to disturb the common float (the “snake”) of six EC currencies.

Above all, the US would have to make clear that the West European governments might be facing a watershed decision. If they continued to defy Washington on the Middle East, they would visibly and dramatically begin to find themselves alone in dealing with the USSR. In other words, they would be deciding whether they preferred knuckling under to the US or to the USSR—the choice would be posed as a renewal of meaningful NATO solidarity or the start of “Finlandization.”

Consequences of All-out US Pressures

It cannot be predicted that a cascade of American signals that this degree of policy brutality was impending would not work; it might. But, even if it did, and even while Washington would see this as bringing the Allies to their senses, they would interpret it as a confrontation with the US in which they had been treated much more like enemies than allies.

In fact, this is the overriding difficulty with such US activity. Whatever its consequences in the immediate Middle Eastern crisis, it would surely shake the Alliance more than any act in its history and, in the long run, would probably prove a fatal blow. Apart from humiliating US allies, it would convince them as nothing before that their only salvation in terms of being able to pursue their several and joint national interests must be a rapid movement toward a form of union involving some sacrifices of sovereignty and many common policies in defense and foreign affairs.

Moreover, whether the ultimatum to the West Europeans proved a success or failure in Middle East terms, most or all of the steam might well go out of efforts to launch international trade negotiations and to conclude arrangements for a new international monetary system. Protectionist measures would probably blossom in Europe, and discrimination against American investments and the operations of large US corporations would undoubtedly grow by leaps and bounds.

Finally, the new opportunities handed to Moscow for meddling in West European affairs would be unprecedentedly large. For the first time since the 1940’s, the question of whether the USSR might acquire effective influence or even, in due course, control over the economic power and technological skills of Western Europe would be real and open. Thus, in an acute sense, it might soon become possible to ask whether the two superpowers were indeed maintaining approximate equality of strength and international weight, or whether one, the Soviet Union, was now clearly forging ahead.

1. Summary: The memorandum analyzed U.S. pressure points on Western Europe.

   Source: National Archives, RG 59, Records of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Entry 5403, Box 13, Misc. Docs, Tels, Etc., 1975, Folder 5. Secret; Sensitive. Drafted by David E. Mark in INR.