Introduction

The United States has reached an important policy crossroads in the maintenance of its European and Asian collective defense arrangements. Increasingly, Western strategists are urging the Reagan administration to reexamine the purposes and structure of America's alliance systems which originated largely during the Cold War years to determine their current relevance and utility. Many of these analysts advocate the merging of such postwar alliances into a more comprehensive and integrated global arrangement. ¹ Such a structure might incorporate not only a myriad of non-communist actors but could tacitly include the People's Republic of China, Yugoslavia, and/or other communist powers which share strategic perceptions and objectives similar to those held by the West and/or non-communist Third World nations. The rationales and designs of this macro-security framework would extend beyond the regional context within which current collective defense treaties operate to those reminiscent of the approach which was unsuccessfully attempted after the Versailles Conference by a League of Nations deprived of an American presence. Widespread concern over the emerging strategic capabilities of the Soviet Union, it is thought by those who now advocate a global collective security system, would lend a more unifying, effective, and enduring sense of purpose to this updated arrangement.