The U.S. Print Media and the Conventional Military Balance in Europe

Abstract

Many analysts of the conventional military balance between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in Europe argue that the U.S. press presents an unduly pessimistic picture of NATO's capability to withstand an invasion by Soviet-bloc conventional forces. This article seeks to substantiate and to explain this alleged incongruity between strategy experts and the American media. The first section presents the findings of a quantitative study of four influential publications over a three-year period. These findings indicate that the U.S. press does indeed underrepresent the more optimistic assessments of NATO's conventional military capability. The second section offers a twofold explanation for this phenomenon, arguing that the media's pessimism stems from the complexity of the issue and from the inherent advantages held by the conventional wisdom promulgated by self-interested U.S. government officials.