SOVIET GAS FOR EUROPE

And how much have the Europeans learned in their repeated travels on the road from "Never again!" to the next bloodbath?

Not much. The current issue of Public Opinion surveys the results of polls in NATO countries; they can perhaps best be summarized by "Better Red than dead." Only a minority still sees what can be seen across the Elbe: that Red is dead.

And now continental Europe is about to put a significant fraction of its energy sources into the trustworthy and benign hands of the Soviet politbureau; Europe will supply both the funds and the technology for a 3,600 mile gas pipeline from Siberia, hoping for repayment in natural gas that will, one day, flow through the pipeline.

And hoping that the flow will be from east to west.

Why not go nuclear (with the German HTGR eventually capable of substituting for gas by "chemical pipeline" [AtE Jan 81])? Because politicians do not think beyond the next election; they prefer to retreat before public hysteria. Then why not gas from the British and Norwegian gas fields in the North Sea? (And quite possibly from deep drilling in Europe itself?.)

Partly because of the $10 to $15 billion that the line will cost. Not cost the Soviets, but the European taxpayer, whose governments will extend the credits. West European industry is now wildly scrambling for contracts to provide the technology. The most lucrative chunks have already been awarded to Germany's Mannesmann to supply the pipes, France's Creusot Loire and Italy's Nuovo Pignone for compressor stations, and Britain's John Brown for turbines; among the lesser ranks is America's Caterpillar (100 pipelayers for $40 million).

But that may be only part of the answer. The other is the idea that you have to humor aggressors in order to live in peace with them.

Chamberlainism? Let's not be unfair: Sir Neville, after all, had but one million dead and but one world war of experience to guide him.

There is, however, a partial exception to this re-enactment of insanity:

France. As we predicted after his election [AtE Aug 81], Mitterand has canceled a few planned nuclear plants as sops to les ecologistes, but has pressed on with the French nuclear program, including the new La Hague reprocessing plant. The latest monthly figures available (August) show France producing no less than 43.9% of its electricity from nuclear plants, a record to which no other country comes close (US: under 12%). In October, the French National Assembly overwhelmingly approved the government's energy policy, the first principle of which is to "limit the energy dependence of the country by diversification of resources, in particular, by installing a nuclear capacity sufficient to avoid risking ni la penurie d'energie, ni l'exces de dependance."

Moreover, it seems probable that Mitterand's government will cancel the $350 million deal approved by its "conservative" predecessor, by which Thomson-CSF was to supply computerized control equipment for the Soviet gas line. The French fear the Soviets would copy the equipment and put it to military use.

But for West Germany the gas deal has become only an issue of the budget, not one of policy. So it grieves us to report that Helmut Schmidt's "respectable" and "middle of the road" government lacks the prudence and guts of Mitterand's socialist-communist coalition.

[Sources: Der Spiegel, Frankfurt; The Economist, London (particularly 31 Oct 81); Inter-Info, France; Public Opinion, Aug/Sept 81 (a very informative bimonthly, $18/year, AEI, 1150 - 17^th St NW, Washington DC 20036]