NARRATOR: ...1949 -- A new military alliance, NATO, is born.

...1955 -- The Soviet Union and seven Eastern European nations conclude the Warsaw Pact Treaty.

...1956 -- Warsaw Pact forces suppress popular uprisings in Poland and Hungary.

...1961 -- The Berlin Wall is erected, dividing a city and a continent.

...1968 -- Soviet forces roll into Czechoslovakia and crush the reformist government of Alexander Dubcek.

Former President RONALD REAGAN: "Let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world."

NARRATOR: ...1989-90 -- Formerly communist-controlled Eastern European nations hold free elections. The iron curtain rises. Germany is reunified.

...1991 -- The Warsaw Pact is disbanded. The Soviet Union is dissolved.

The map of Europe and its institutions have been remade, except for one, NATO.

["AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" program introduction.]

Admiral GENE LaROCQUE: Welcome once again to "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR."

During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were allies in our war against the Germans. Shortly after that war, however, we had a falling out with the Russians and we became enemies. We were fearful that the Soviets were going to take over Europe, spread communism and, as a result, we formed the NATO alliance, North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The purpose of this organization was to keep the Russians out of Central Europe.

Since that time, a lot has changed. Now the Americans and other countries are trying to help the Russians rather than defeat them. We've become friends, in short. As a result, many people are questioning whether or not the NATO alliance itself ought to be scrapped, or at least the troops from foreign coun-tries be returned to their own countries. Our program is about that today and I think you'll find it surprising and interesting.

NARRATOR: Fourteen western European nations plus the United States and Canada make up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, NATO has civilian and military personnel numbering nearly three million, comparable in size to the population of the city of Los Angeles.

NATO's military command structure covers the United States and Canada eastward to Turkey. A promotional tape by NATO in the mid-1980s described NATO's missions.

From NATO Video:

"And so, in April 1949, ten European countries, together with Canada and the United States, signed the North Atlantic Treaty, binding together each of their nations in a system of coordinated defense and collective security. From that time onwards, an attack against any one of them would be regarded as an attack against all."

NARRATOR: But from what or whom is NATO safeguarding Western Europe today?

Secretary of Defense LES ASPIN (Pentagon briefing):

"There are certain things that have changed that are irreversible here. The Warsaw Pact is gone. There's no way that 'Humpty-Dumpty' is going to be put back together again. The former Soviet Union is broken into lots of republics. There's no way that's going to be pulled back together again. The Communist Party has lost its ideology. The Russian military is going through some really very, very hard times."

JONATHAN CLARKE: The threat that we've all been afraid of for the last 40 years, a massed heavy armored attack through Germany from the Warsaw Pact, has now disappeared.

NARRATOR: Jonathan Clarke recently retired from the British Foreign Service after twenty years. He now advises American businesses on European affairs.

Mr. CLARKE: I believe the United States has a great oppor-tunity here to shed a defense burden which is no longer really applicable in today's world, which is costing the United States a great deal of money.

NARRATOR: Mr. Clarke's compatriot, Sir Nicholas Bonsor, has a different perspective. Sir Nicholas is chairman of the British House of Commons Select Committee on Defense.

Sir NICHOLAS BONSOR: NATO's future is essential for the security of all our peoples, the United States just as must as for Europe. And the presence of United States' troops in Europe helps to cement that relationship. I think without it, there would be a danger of Europe drifting away, trying unsuccessfully to do its own thing, and the United States becoming, consequen-tially, more isolationist. And that would pose a serious threat to the future security of the world.

NARRATOR: Although no treaty binds the United States to station forces abroad, American troops have been in Europe for so long that their presence is viewed by many as normal. No European nation pays a cent to the US treasury for the presence of US troops.

The United States pays 28 percent of NATO's shared administrative costs. The US tab is roughly $600 million annually. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. The NATO budget only includes shared expenses for the bureaucracy. It does not include what individual nations pay to field a military force or pay their own troops' salaries.

At the height of the cold war the United States spent $160 billion each year, more than $3 billion every week, to defend Europe. Today, the United States still spends roughly

$100 billion every year, more than $2 billion every week, to help defend Europe. This includes the cost of buying weapons and main-taining troops both in Europe and the United States for fighting a war in Europe. By comparison, all European NATO nations com- bined spend only $180 billion on their own defense.

At the height of the cold war, the United States stationed 350,000 troops in Europe. Today, the United States still stations 205,000 -- 60 percent of all US overseas troops -in Europe.

More than 275,000 civilian Pentagon employees and dependents raise the total number of military-related Americans in Europe to 480,000.

American troops were not meant to stay in Europe forever. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who served as NATO's Supreme Allies Commander, Europe, before becoming president, wrote in 1951:

"If, in ten years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project will have failed."

However, President Clinton, over 40 years later, plans to keep up to 100,000 US troops in Europe.

The United States has 57 major military complexes, composed of hundreds of smaller separate facilities, in Europe. Closing these bases and withdrawing and either demobilizing troops or shifting them to reserve status could save the United States hundreds of billions of dollars.

WOMAN-on-the Street: It does bother me to pay money to have people sitting on military bases in Europe doing nothing.

MAN-on-the-Street: Well, I think that's still a sphere of our influence and we probably should continue to have a presence in Europe to protect our interests there.

MAN-on-the-Street: I think really we should keep little bit of troops there and be part of the NATO. For instance, if it's 20 countries, let Americans share only one-twentieth of the cost.

NARRATOR: The economically feeble and militarily weak European nations that signed the NATO treaty are now our economic trade competitors. Britain, Germany, France, Italy and the others have the money, military personnel and weapons to field whatever force they deem necessary to provide for their own security.

The 14 European NATO nations, without help from the United States and Canada, have more than two million active duty military personnel. They could mobilize an additional five million troops should a crisis arise. Yet, many Europeans want to see a US-backed NATO continue indefinitely, even at a time in which they feel comfortable enough to downsize their own militaries.

Mr. CLARKE: In general, Europeans are still very much sup-portive of NATO. Especially the British and the Dutch, still see it's extremely important to have a transatlantic connection by which the United States is bound into Western security. There are a number of reasons for this.

One of the particular reasons is, of course, the fact that the United States spends a great deal of money in Europe enables European defense budgets perhaps to be a little less high than they would otherwise be.

NARRATOR: Sir Nicholas Bonsor argues that US troops are needed to deter aggression and demonstrate US commitment to NATO and the defense of Europe.

Sir NICHOLAS: If there were no troops in Western Europe, then I think that the potential aggressor might not believe the sincerity of a United States administration that merely threat-ened to come back in in the event of an attack.

KURT KISTER: If any aggressor knows that, in an attack, he will kill Americans, then he also knows that the Americans are going to be engaged. And this is basically also what a lot of Germans think. So, we have to have Americans there just in case.

NARRATOR: Kurt Kister is the Washington correspondent for the German daily newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung.

Mr. KISTER: It doesn't matter whether there are ten or 50,000, so it could be something like a division or so. But there has to be a military presence, yes.

NARRATOR: US forces were sent to Europe originally to defend countries against a Soviet and Warsaw Pact invasion. But what is the threat to Europe today?

Sir NICHOLAS: The regimes in Russia and the Ukraine are not necessarily going to remain, and neither are they necessarily going to be friendly.

MICHAEL ZANTOVSKY, Ambassador of Czechoslovakia to the US: ...Refugees, of the potential of mass migrations throughout Europe.

Mr. KISTER: ...Coup d'etat in Russia or a spreading of ethnic violence from the Balkans.

NARRATOR: Neo-Nazi violence against immigrants in Germany. Refugees fleeing war and poverty. The recession. All of these have created a sense of instability in Europe.

Mr. KISTER: In the years till the downfall of communism, it was quite easy to cope with the big threat because it basically was a military threat. Now all the threats you mentioned are there and you can do nothing against poverty in the southern regions with a strong army. And we can seal off our borders with an army to prevent refugees from the Balkans or even from Africa coming in.

NARRATOR: Although there are no military answers to these political and economic problems, instability has led many Euro-peans, both East And West, to cling to the security blanket of NATO and the presence of US troops.

Rear Admiral EUGENE CARROLL, Jr.: The question which arises, however, is to what extent is NATO, the military alliance, relevant to these violent situations?

NARRATOR: Retired Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll served as director of military operations for all US forces in Europe and the Middle East from 1977 to 1979. Admiral Carroll is now deputy director of the Center for Defense Information.

Adm. CARROLL: The rationale for NATO absolutely disappeared three years ago. There is no threat to Western Europe and no requirement for American troops to protect anybody there against a military threat.

It's amazing that we're still occupying Europe, 48 years after the end of World War II, and not getting a lot more flack from the European citizens than we are.

NARRATOR: Kurt Kister points that not everyone in Europe is comforted by American troops and a strong NATO.

Mr. KISTER: Something like 25, 30 percent of the East Germans are thinking that it's important to have the Americans in Germany. And I think the majority in East Germany doesn't think it is necessary to have any foreign troops on German soil.

NARRATOR: The governments of other former Warsaw Pact nations, including the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, see value in linking themselves to the politically and economically stronger West. Some have tried to join the NATO alliance and favor a symbolic US troops presence in Europe.

Amb. ZANTOVSKY: The fact of the presence and the political will for the presence are perhaps more important than the numbers themselves.

NARRATOR: In the center of Europe lies the Czech Republic. At the end of 1992, the "velvet divorce" was finalized and Czechoslovakia was peacefully divided into two separate nations: Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

Michael Zantovsky is the Czech Ambassador to the United States.

Amb. ZANTOVSKY: Many people back home would be quite nervous if they saw a lack of political will on the American side to stay in Europe, or the lack of political will on the part of the Europeans to see Americans in Europe.

NARRATOR: Admiral Carroll argues that the United States can stay involved with Europe without basing troops there.

Adm. CARROLL: Once they are all gone, we are by no means isolated or insulated from Europe. We should remain actively engaged politically, economically, socially, technically. There's all sorts of ways in which we use American strength to represent our interests and maintain a tight alliance with Europeans, but military troops aren't part of that requirement.

NARRATOR: European support of NATO and of US troops on their soil go beyond a symbolic commitment. Some Europeans have a vested interest in keeping American troops there.

Mr. KISTER: There are a lot of small towns in Germany that have their American garrisons, where the Americans are the major purchasing power in this town. And if you take away only, let's say, a battalion of Americans somewhere in a small town in Bavaria or Hesse, then you take out something like 50 percent perhaps of the purchasing power in this region. So, for certain regions, it has a lot of impact if the Americans are withdrawing.

NARRATOR: It's not just some Europeans who want to continue basing US troops in Europe and to keep NATO alive and relevant.

General COLIN POWELL, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (at Naval Academy, Annapolis MD, 1993):

"This is not the time to forget the lessons of history, which we have done so often in the past, to our great subsequent regret. And so, we made the case to the Congress and to our poli-tical leaders over the last several years that we should keep forces forward-deployed. Forward presence remain a major part of strategy. In Europe, only half as many, come down from 315,000, but for God's sakes, don't abandon NATO."

DAVID SHORR: NATO is a key political forum in which the United States is dominant. So, there's nervousness in Washington about losing that.

NARRATOR: David Shorr is the associate director of the British American Security Information Council, a private inter-national research organization.

Supporters of NATO are now scrambling for missions that will keep it in business and keep US troops in Europe.

Adm. CARROLL: Let me tell you one of the reasons you hear so many contrived arguments for continuing the NATO alliance. It has been very, very good for the militaries of the countries involved -- the United States, Britain, Germany, Norway, and so on.

The United States alone, for example, almost 25 percent of all of the admirals and generals on duty today owe their stars to their NATO assignment. If NATO goes away, all those jobs go away, all those lovely chateaus, and chauffeurs, and railroad cars go away. It's something that has been very enjoyable for a good many years and the fact that there's no longer any require- ment for it doesn't mean they don't want to keep a good thing going.

NARRATOR: Officials in Europe have tried reshaping NATO's military forces to rely less on heavy armor to thwart invasions and more on rapid reaction forces to intervene in future crises.

Mr. CLARKE: NATO has been giving a very considerable amount of thought to the end of the cold war. It has had all manner of summit meetings to come up with what's called the "new strategic concept," which has produced a more lightly armed, a more mobile version of NATO ready to be deployed towards -- in crises throughout the NATO area.

Nonetheless, NATO, as a treaty organization, still really exists, is still in the same sort of formations which were intended to cope with the cold war.

Mr. SHORR: NATO is in a real crisis of identity. You can see that it is casting about for a role, but it's clear that it hasn't found it yet.

NARRATOR: Officials in NATO are recasting it as a polit-ical, rather than military, alliance and are looking to expand its missions. But David Shorr points out that these NATO offi- cials are having some difficulty in achieving this transition.

Mr. SHORR: As much as NATO likes to think of itself as an essentially political structure, as making necessary modifica-tions to the post-cold war world, it hasn't had much to offer with the real security issue of the conflicts in places where people are dying.

Adm. CARROLL: The Yugoslavian situation illustrates the irrelevance of NATO, the military alliance NATO today. It was created to address one threat 40 years ago. It is totally irrelevant with respect to the internal social and political disorders in Europe today.

NARRATOR: The bloody conflict in Bosnia raged in NATO's backyard for more than a year before NATO nations acted. These nations have now taken on the job of enforcing the UN's no-fly zone over Bosnia.

This move in primarily political. Serbian helicopter flights over Bosnia have been averaging three a day with very limited military significance. Even if these flights could be intercepted, there would be no corresponding weakening of the Serbian ground forces. And NATO military action in the skies could endanger international humanitarian missions on the ground.

NATO has also agreed to help enforce a peace plan in Bosnia, if agreed to by all warring parties. That agreement is not in sight. Nonetheless, support for NATO as a peacekeeper continues.

Amb. ZANTOVSKY: The post-communist world is no longer a bipolar world. It's a multipolar world with the possibility of a number of small, local conflicts, where NATO could fulfill a very strong role as a peacekeeping arm or body.

NARRATOR: NATO nations have a command structure and a great deal of experience working and training together. War plans are crafted with the weapons and troops of the 16 nations in mind.

Jonathan Clarke argues that a UN force, not a NATO or US-led force, should be sent to Bosnia.

Mr. CLARKE: I think that we should be trying to reach out towards the future, rather than always going back towards the past in Bosnia. Therefore, I really think that what we need in Bosnia, if we are going to put troops on the ground there, is a United Nations force.

NARRATOR: Sir Nicholas Bonsor disagrees.

Sir NICHOLAS: At the moment, there is no adequate United Nations military command structure and, therefore, the military operation has to be run using the NATO mechanisms.

NARRATOR: Admiral Carroll argues that while NATO could serve as a peacekeeper, there are alternatives.

Adm. CARROLL: You can have British troops, French troops, American troops just as easily without sustaining the fiction of NATO.

NARRATOR: And there are alternatives to NATO in the broader field of European security. One is the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, or CSCE, which was established by the landmark 1975 Helsinki Accords.

All the nations of Europe, plus Canada, the United States, and the countries of the former Soviet Union are included in CSCE on an equal footing. The CSCE offers a forum in which members can mediate disputes among themselves and address con-cerns such as ethnic conflict in the Balkans.

Amb. ZANTOVSKY: Oh, yes, CSCE should play a role in the prevention of conflicts in the humanitarian aspects of interna-tional situations, and the question of refugees comes well under the subject.

NARRATOR: However, some NATO nations have resisted strengthening the CSCE.

Mr. SHORR: In 1990 and '91, the first couple of years after the fall of the Wall, there was such suspicion by the major Western powers of the CSCE, they saw it as such a threat to the North Atlantic Alliance, that they were very slow in putting any political energy into building the CSCE up politically.

NARRATOR: Strong NATO supporters have also viewed other European defense initiatives and organizations with suspicion.

Mr. CLARKE: The French and the Germans have put together something called the -- or are assembling something called the Euro-Corps, which is designed for three or four years hence to constitute a European force.

NARRATOR: Despite calls by many in the United States for the European NATO countries to share more of the burden of defending Europe, US leaders opposed the Franco-German initiative.

Mr. CLARKE: There was great concern in the United States that somehow the Euro-Corps was intended to force the United States out of Europe.

NARRATOR: The United States is clinging to its dominant role in Europe. It has hampered the development of international organizations which could help Europe move toward new ways to resolve conflicts.

David Shorr suggests keeping the North Atlantic Treaty, but disbanding the costly NATO military organization.

Mr. SHORR: Perhaps it's time to declare victory and close down, because the problem is not only how many financial resources get consumed by this overblown military alliance, but also there's a real diversion of political energies.

NARRATOR: The United States has a great opportunity to help forge a new Europe and to save billions of dollars by negotiating an end to the NATO military alliance and closing US bases in Europe.

Mr. CLARKE: Given that these rather large sums of money are available at I think no risk, in terms of security, either of the United States or of Europe, my recommendation to the United States would be to think positively and to welcome new develop-ments in European strategic thinking.

NARRATOR: The enemy is gone. NATO's mission has been accom-plished. It's time to look ahead, not backward.

Adm. LaROCQUE: Well, it's pretty obvious there are some reasons for maintaining NATO and also keeping US forces in Europe, but mostly they're flimsy arguments and have very little military validity. Now the European nations today are rich and powerful and they're not threatened, so there's very little reason, it seems to me, to continue the NATO organization or to maintain US forces in Europe.

After nearly a half a century, we ought to be thinking about bringing those forces home, particularly now that we are closing many military bases in the United States and maintaining nearly 57 military bases in Europe. It's a problem that is before us, that demands solution, and we have to make up our minds in the near future just what is best for this country and for Europe.

Until next time, for "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I'm Gene LaRocque.

[End of broadcast.]