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

78. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Scowcroft) to President Ford¹

Washington, December 22, 1975.

SUBJECT

• NATO Standardization

Introduction

A principal U.S. objective within the NATO Alliance is the realization, in concert with our Allies, of a more effective and credible conventional defense capability. To achieve this goal, the United States has renewed efforts within NATO to standardize military armaments and equipment, doctrine, tactics, procedures and training.

At the May 1975 NATO Summit in Brussels, you identified the need to improve the standardization and interoperability of NATO military equipment as one of the primary tasks facing the Alliance, and you called for Allied agreement on a more sensible division of weapons development programs and production responsibilities. At the December NATO Ministerial meetings, Secretaries Kissinger and Rumsfeld again stressed the importance the United States attaches to standardization, and the Alliance agreed on further procedural arrangements to facilitate progress.

NATO standardization involves large and complex military, economic and political considerations of great importance collectively for the nations of the Alliance and domestically for the United States.

—Militarily, there is now growing agreement among NATO members on the desirability of standardization. Its anticipated contributions to the military effectiveness of the Alliance are even reflected in negative statements from the USSR and Eastern European press charging that standardization runs contrary to CSCE and détente.

—Economically, as the multi-billion dollar F–16 sale demonstrates, standardization involves major budgetary decisions for the Alliance members at a time of economic difficulties for the West.

—Politically, standardization involves a measure of will and commitment within the Alliance—a test not only of the member nations resolve to create more effective defense forces, but also a test of the member nations willingness to share defense production so as to advance both U.S. and European economic interests.

—Domestically, we must pursue our interest in improving standardized weapons development and production programs for all members of the Alliance while at the same time ensuring desired U.S. defense production capacity and capability; and

—Congressionally, we must give attention to the many “buy American” defense procurement laws already enacted which must be modified if more recent legislation endorsing standardization is to be effective.

The following paragraphs review the progress toward standardization thus far, the major weapons and weapons systems presently under consideration for standardization, the Alliance institutional arrangements being considered to facilitate the standardization process, and the major problems which have to be addressed by the Alliance as it moves in the direction of standardization.

Progress Toward Standardization

The efforts to standardize in NATO have been given renewed impetus in the past several years by a number of political, military and economic conditions. The improvement of Warsaw Pact conventional capabilities has highlighted the need to strengthen NATO’s ability to resist a conventional attack from the East. Additionally, present economic conditions in the West, coupled with the rising cost of military hardware, have made the concept of standardization more attractive than in the past.

Increased standardization will entail the procurement of equipment from both sides of the Atlantic—the so-called “two-way street” concept. The European members of NATO have a legitimate interest in seeing their defense industries benefit from the increased markets which standardization would bring. The selection of equipment to be standardized must be made on the basis of combat effectiveness and overall cost efficiency on a NATO-wide basis while at the same time maintaining to the degree possible an equitable balance of payments for all NATO members. The “cartelization” of defense industries must also be avoided. U.S. agreement on these principles will go a long way toward allaying the fear of many European leaders that NATO standardization threatens to reduce Europe to a state of total dependence on the United States in matters of defense.

Additionally, understanding must be reached from the start that winning a research and development competition does not necessarily mean a monopoly on production by a particular nation. In many cases, there will be co-production or production under license on fair and equitable terms. Such arrangements should considerably reduce the perception of national economic risk resulting from standardization.

The case of the F–16 light-weight fighter aircraft illustrates some of the trans-Atlantic difficulties involved in standardization. Under the “two-way street” concept, the Europeans can be expected to push for the United States to “reciprocate” on the F–16 contract with procurement of a major weapons system in Europe. For example, the LEOPARD II tank, a German design, could for some Europeans develop into a test of American commitment to fair and equitable sharing of research, development and production of major weapons systems between the United States and Europe.

—U.S. Adoption of Foreign Developments. The Department of Defense is now considering, in competition with U.S. system development programs, a number of weapons systems developed by our NATO allies. Systems presently being evaluated include the German-Italian-British 155mm howitzer, the British advanced HARRIER vertical take-off and landing aircraft, Belgian-developed light machine guns, a non-ferrous minesweeper of British design, and the German LEOPARD II tank.

The United States and the FRG have already agreed to conduct a comparative evaluation of the US XM–1 main battle tank and the LEOPARD II tank. The evaluation is scheduled to be held in the fall of 1976.

— NATO Adoption of U.S. Developments. Many systems developed by the United States meet the needs of our NATO allies and efforts are underway to promote adoption of these systems. In many cases, it will be necessary to offer production opportunities to our allies. U.S. systems which potentially could have wide NATO appeal and on which we are placing primary emphasis include the F–16 light-weight fighter, AWACS (airborne warning and control system housed in a Boeing 747), the HARPOON surface-to-surface missile system, the XM–1 main battle tank, anti-ship missile defense systems, advanced shipboard surface-to-air missile systems, tactical voice communications, and electronic warfare equipment.

—Cooperative Development Efforts. The United States is participating in a number of bilateral and multilateral programs with our NATO allies to reduce unnecessarily duplicative efforts and to achieve standardization or, at the minimum, interoperability/interchangeability of weapons systems. The principal ongoing efforts of this type include 155mm howitzer ammunition, tank gun armament, the NATO PHM hydrofoil motor gunboat, the NATO SEASPARROW anti-ship missile defense system, and shipboard light-weight gun mounts and ammunition.

The NATO hydrofoil motor gunboat is among the most successful of these projects. The lead ship in this group effort (built by the Italians from a U.S. design and with funding by the United States, the FRG and Italy) began test and evaluation in February 1975 in the Mediterranean. This ship could prove highly effective for certain NATO naval operations in the Baltic, North and Mediterranean Seas.

We are also seeing progress in other areas of standardization where the economic implications are not so great and where agreement among the allies is therefore easier to achieve—training, interoperability of U.S. and NATO communications systems, logistics support (including ammunition and fuels), operating doctrine and tactics. Defense, in cooperation with NATO military authorities, is engaged in identifying expanded programs in these basic areas which may be susceptible to standardization efforts within the Alliance.

Arrangements for Cooperation on Standardization

The Europeans have welcomed a recent U.S. proposal in NATO that not only endorses joint arms procurement under common specifications but foresees eventual trans-Atlantic competition between the United States and a fully developed European arms industry. The European reaction has been understandably enthusiastic because the proposal suggests a U.S. willingness to purchase more from them than we have in the past, thus reducing our domination of the trans-Atlantic arms trade.

There is nevertheless considerable uncertainty on the part of the Europeans as to how much the United States would buy abroad. The Europeans are concerned over U.S. insistence that European produced equipment meet strict standards of quality and economy that may not be attainable.

Britain and France rely heavily on arms exports to improve their balance of payments and maintain employment. They insist that realistic arms purchase requirements must recognize this and that the emphasis on cost-effectiveness be qualified accordingly.

The French also argue that U.S. superiority in high technology areas means that under present standards of competition Europe would gradually be reduced to sub-contractor status and left to produce only low-level conventional armaments. These arguments have special significance because they are being made by the French. France has not participated in the military activities of the Alliance since 1966, but French cooperation is important to the development of improved conventional forces in Europe. With this in mind, France agreed in September to participate in NATO arms discussions. French spokesmen, however, are insisting that any discussions of arms standardization in NATO be carried out in such a way as to preserve France’s independence on military matters. They have taken a similar stance on standardization discussions in the Eurogroup—the informal caucus of most European NATO members. They have made three points:

—All discussions must be informal and in ad hoc groups.

—Europeans must organize themselves first before engaging in an Atlantic dialogue with the U.S. in NATO.

—Until then, NATO should concentrate on interoperability of existing equipment, not major standardization projects.

As a concession to France and in order to maintain momentum on the issue within the Alliance, the NATO defense ministers recently approved establishment of an ad hoc steering group under the aegis of the NATO Council to coordinate standardization efforts but limited initially to the more modest interoperability issues, delaying approval of any overall standardization policy until the Europeans, including France, have had a chance to organize themselves. At that time, broader discussions within the NATO framework can be undertaken, possibly as early as next summer.

Congressional Considerations

There is strong support in the Congress for NATO standardization. The Nunn Amendment to the FY 75 Military Appropriations Act (MAA) endorsed the concept as a major goal for the United States in the Alliance. The Culver-Nunn Amendment to the FY 76 MAA establishes as the sense of the Congress that equipment, procedures, ammunition, fuel and other military hardware for our land, air and naval forces stationed in Europe to fulfill NATO obligations should be standardized or made interoperable with that of our allies to the maximum extent feasible. It also directs that U.S. military procurement be directed toward achievement of that goal.

Even with this strong Congressional mandate, we must overcome the numerous statutory and administrative restrictions currently in effect which are at least potential constraints on standardization actions. These restrictions are generally imposed on Defense procurements and greatly favor the purchase of products made in the United States. The Congress has noted the general inconsistency between the “Buy America” policy and NATO standardization, but has not been asked as yet to move to take remedial action to relax the restrictions. In addition, because we have not made a major European procurement, Congress has not had to face up to the fact that increasing standardization on a “two-way street” basis means some loss of defense contracts in at least some Congressional districts. During 1976, we can expect very close attention by any Member of the Congress whose District or State might be affected by an Administration decision to buy from a European source in the interests of standardization.

This memorandum is forwarded to provide a brief overview of the progress thus far in NATO standardization and the prospects and problems to be expected in the coming months. I will forward updated reports as noteworthy developments occur.

1. Summary: Scowcroft reported the status of the NATO standardization initiative.

   Source: Ford Library, National Security Adviser, Presidential Agency Files, Box 13, NATO, 12/1/75–12/31/75. Secret. Sent for information. A stamped notation on the memorandum indicates the President saw it. Ford initialed the memorandum.