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The Three Pillars of Western Security: Public Opinion and the NATO Alliance

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Public Opinion and National Security in Western Europe

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Abstract

Recent discussion of the Atlantic relationship has been preoccupied with the ‘disarray’ of the Atlantic Alliance. Pessimism about its future is the current mood. Indeed, if the standard of comparison is the Alliance in its early years, or the expectations of orthodox Alliance doctrine, the state of the Alliance is disheartening.

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Notes

  1. Harold Van B. Cleveland, The Atlantic Idea and Its European Rivals (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966).

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  2. On these elements of stability, see Stanley Hoffmann’s Foreword to Alfred Grosser, The Western Alliance: European-American Relations Since 1945 (New York: Vintage Books, 1982) pp. vii–x.

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  3. Anton W. DePorte, Europe Between the Superpowers (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979) pp. 243–4.

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  4. Pieter Dankert, “US-European Relations: Defense Policy and the Euro-missiles”, in Richard C. Eichenberg (ed.), Drifting Together or Apart? (Lanham, Md: University Press of America, 1986) p. 69.

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  5. See especially Hedley Bull, “European Self-Reliance and the Reform of NATO”, Foreign Affairs, 61/4 (Spring 1983) pp. 874–92; and

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  6. William Wallace, “European Defence Cooperation: the Reopening Debate”, Survival, 26/6 (November/December 1984) pp. 251–62.

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  7. Stanley Hoffmann, “Cries and Whimpers: Thoughts on West European American Relations in the 1980s”, Daedalus, 113 (Summer 1984) pp. 234–5.

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  8. Commission of the European Communities, Public Opinion in the European Community, 22 (Brussels: December 1984) p. 43. The “neutralist” option, so enthusiastically researched by the pollsters, never exceeded 20 per cent in any country. For complete figures from these latter surveys, see Richard C. Eichenberg, “The Western Alliance: a Three-Legged Stool?” in Eichenberg, Drifting Together or Apart?, pp. 14–15.

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  9. Support for the Community has fluctuated between 60 and 80 per cent in all Community countries except Denmark. In addition, in 1976 overwhelming majorities (except in Britain) favored the creation of a “European army”. See Commission of the European Community, Euro-Barometre: Public Opinion in the European Communities, no. 25 (Brussels: June 1986) Table 5; and

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  10. J.-R. Rabier, et al., Eurobarometer 6: Twenty Years of the Common Market (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, Study no. 7511, 1978) p. 59.

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  11. Richard Merritt and Donald Puchala (eds), West European Perspectives on International Affairs (New York: Praeger, 1968) pp. 328–9.

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  12. The complete wording of the question is as follows: “The question of the [NATO] Alliance is often debated in the Federal Republic. What is your opinion on this question: should we continue to be a member of the Alliance as it now is [unchanged], should we strive (anstreben) for a looser or a tighter Alliance? Or do you think it would be better to leave NATO?” Press and Information Office, Federal Ministry of Defense, Meinungsbild in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland zur Sicherheitspolitik (Bonn: 1 October 1984) p. 8, and

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  13. “Friedenssicherung und Bundeswehr: Ergebnisse einer Meinungsumfrage”, Material für die Presse, 23/19 (Bonn: 17 November 1986) p. 3.

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  14. Richard C. Eichenberg, “The Myth of Hollanditis”, International Security, 8/3 (Fall 1983) p. 156.

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  15. This seems to be the spirit of Henry Kissinger’s “Plan to Reshape NATO”, Time, 5 March 1984, pp. 20–4.

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  16. J.-R. Rabier, et al., Eurobarometer 17: April 1982 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, Study no. 9023, 1983) p. 106.

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  17. William Domke, Richard C. Eichenberg, and Catherine M. Kelleher, “Consensus Lost? Domestic Politics and the ‘Crisis’ in NATO”, World Politics, 39/3 (April 1987) pp. 399–400.

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  18. J.-R. Rabier, et al., Eurobarometer 11: April 1979 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, Study no. 7752, 1981).

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  19. Harald Mueller and Thomas Risse-Kappen have documented a generation gap with respect to the American image in West Germany: “Origins of Estrangement: the Peace Movement and the Changed Image of America in West Germany”, International Security, 12/1 (Summer 1987), pp. 52–88.

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  20. Consistent with the argument here, USIA reports show that this pattern also characterized opinions of NATO and of the INF deployment in 1984. That is, support for NATO and INF were strongly related to confidence in the US. See Office of Research, USIA, June 1984 Security Survey [Contractor’s Reports] (Washington, D.C.: mimeographed); and West Europeans Still Predominantly Oppose INF: Some Doubt US Commitment to Negotiation, Report M-9/19/84 (Washington, D.C.: September 1984) Table 12.

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  21. Office of Research, USIA, Differences in Some Foreign Policy Views Between Supporters of the Major West German Parties, Report N-11/7/83, (Washington, D.C.: 7 November 1983) Table 9.

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  22. Josef Joffe, “Europe’s American Pacifier”, Foreign Policy, 54 (Spring 1984) pp. 64–82.

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  23. For Helmut Schmidt’s proposal, see speech to the Bundestag, June 1984. For a French proposal, see Pierre Lellouche, L’avenir de la guerre (Paris: éditions Mazarine, 1985). David Yost has reviewed the Lellouche book and raised more general objections to such proposals in “Radical Change in French Defence Policy?”, Survival, 28/1 (January/February 1986) pp. 53–68.

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  24. Robbin F. Laird, “The Role of Conventional Forces in French Security Policy”, paper delivered to the Symposium on “The Future of Conventional Defense Improvements in NATO”, Washington, D.C., National Defense University, 27 March 1987, p. V–5.

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  25. Stephen Szabo, “European Public Opinion and Conventional Defense”, paper delivered to the Symposium on “The Future of Conventional Defense Improvements in NATO”, Washington, D.C., National Defense University, 27 March 1987, p. 12.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tufts University, USA

    Richard C. Eichenberg (Associate Professor of Political Science)

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  1. Richard C. Eichenberg
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© 1989 Richard C. Eichenberg

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Eichenberg, R.C. (1989). The Three Pillars of Western Security: Public Opinion and the NATO Alliance. In: Public Opinion and National Security in Western Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07707-6_5

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