Conflict and Cooperation in Intra-Alliance Nuclear Politics: Western Europe, the United States, and the Genesis of NATO's Dual-Track Decision, 1977–1979

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Spohr Readman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conflict And Cooperation ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Missiles ◽  
East West

On the basis of recently released archival sources from several member-states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), this article revisits the making of NATO's landmark 1979 dual-track decision. The article examines the intersecting processes of personal, bureaucratic, national, and alliance high politics in the broader Cold War context of increasingly adversarial East-West relations. The discussion sheds new light on how NATO tried to augment its deterrent capability via the deployment of long-range theater nuclear missiles and why ultimately an arms control proposal to the Soviet Union was included as an equal strand. The 1979 decision owed most to West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's political thought and initiative. Intra-alliance decision-making, marked by transatlantic conflict and cooperation, benefitted from the creativity and agency of West German, British, and Norwegian officials. Contrary to popular impressions, the United States did not truly lead the process.

Shaping the postwar balance of power: multilateralism in NATO

1992 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 633-680 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Weber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
Multilateral Organization ◽  
John Ruggie

At the end of the 1940s, the United States and several West European states allied to defend themselves against invasion by the Soviet Union. Balance-ofpower theory predicts the recurrent formation of such balances among states. But it says little about the precise nature of the balance, the principles on which it will be constructed, or its institutional manifestations. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been a peculiar mix. As a formal institution, NATO has through most of its history been distinctly nonmultilateral, with the United States commanding most decision-making power and responsibility. At the same time, NATO provided security to its member states in a way that strongly reflected multilateral principles. Within NATO, security was indivisible. It was based on a general organizing principle, the principle that the external boundaries of alliance territory were completely inviolable and that an attack on any border was an attack on all. Diffuse reciprocity was the norm. In the terms set out by John Ruggie, NATO has generally scored low as a multilateral organization but high as an institution of multilateralism.

From Helsinki to “Mars”

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 34-94
Author(s):  
Douglas Selvage
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The One ◽  
East West

Abstract After the signing of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) at Helsinki on 1 August 1975, the Soviet Union sought to compel the West to accept its vision for détente. This meant, on the one hand, the acceptance of the political and social status quo within the Soviet bloc and, on the other hand, the “completion” of the existing political détente with “military détente”—namely, East-West arms control agreements that preserved or augmented existing Warsaw Pact advantages. To this end, the KGB and its Soviet-bloc partners undertook two parallel campaigns of active measures, “Synonym” and “Mars.” Despite tactical successes, both campaigns failed to achieve their goals. The United States, supported by other Western governments, continued to pressure the Eastern-bloc governments on human rights violations, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) continued to modernize its forces in Europe, most importantly with the stationing of U.S. Euromissiles in 1983 in accordance with NATO's dual-track decision of December 1979.

NATO-US Relations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Colbourn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Leadership Role ◽  
European Continent ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The North Atlantic

On April 4, 1949, twelve nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty: the United States, Canada, Iceland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Portugal, Italy, Norway, and Denmark. For the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty signaled a major shift in foreign policy. Gone was the traditional aversion to “entangling alliances,” dating back to George Washington’s farewell address. The United States had entered into a collective security arrangement designed to preserve peace in Europe. With the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United States took on a clear leadership role on the European continent. Allied defense depended on US military power, most notably the nuclear umbrella. Reliance on the United States unsurprisingly created problems. Doubts about the strength of the transatlantic partnership and rumors of a NATO in shambles were (and are) commonplace, as were anxieties about the West’s strength in comparison to NATO’s Eastern counterpart, the Warsaw Pact. NATO, it turned out, was more than a Cold War institution. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Alliance remained vital to US foreign policy objectives. The only invocation of Article V, the North Atlantic Treaty’s collective defense clause, came in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Over the last seven decades, NATO has symbolized both US power and its challenges.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

1961 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 524-526
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
North Atlantic Treaty Organization ◽  
The United States ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
High Urgency ◽  
Nuclear Missiles

The Ministerial Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) held its spring ministerial meeting in Oslo, Norway, from May 8 to 10, 1961, under the chairmanship of the new Secretary-General of NATO, Mr. Dirk U. Stikker. United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk announced to the assembled Ministers of the fifteen-member alliance that his government was prepared, in pursuance of the plan announced to the NATO Council by his predecessor, Mr. Christian A. Herter, to commit five Polaris nuclear missile submarines to forces assigned to NATO. The Herter plan had been contingent upon agreement by the European members to purchase an additional 100 nuclear missiles for NATO, but according to the press, this part of the proposal was understood to have been abandoned because of European objections to the cost of such an undertaking. The submarines were to be assigned to the command of Vice-Admiral George W. Anderson, who held the dual role of Commander of the United States Sixth Fleet, based in Naples, and of the NATO Strike Force South, it was also made known. Ultimate control of the eighty Polaris nuclear warheads would, however, revert to the President of the United States. A plan for the Permanent Council of the treaty powers to review the alliance's total military situation as a matter of high urgency was tied to Secretary Rusk's announcement on the Polaris submarines. The United States Secretary of State, in addressing the Council, gave his government's views on the situation in Cuba, the Congo, Laos, and South Vietnam and stated that the United States would consider it a violation of the legal situation in Berlin if the Soviet Union signed a peace treaty with East Germany. Should the Soviet Union proceed to sign such a peace treaty the allies would insist on continued Western rights of access to West Berlin and would make it clear that they were prepared to resist encroachment on their position, Mr. Rusk declared.

Trust, but Verify

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This book uses trust—with its emotional and predictive aspects—to explore international relations in the second half of the Cold War, beginning with the late 1960s. The détente of the 1970s led to the development of some limited trust between the United States and the Soviet Union, which lessened international tensions and enabled advances in areas such as arms control. However, it also created uncertainty in other areas, especially on the part of smaller states that depended on their alliance leaders for protection. The chapters in this volume look at how the “emotional” side of the conflict affected the dynamics of various Cold War relations: between the superpowers, within the two ideological blocs, and inside individual countries on the margins of the East–West confrontation.

The continuing threat of nuclear war

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Cirincione
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
The North ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Nuclear Winter

The American poet Robert Frost famously mused on whether the world will end in fire or in ice. Nuclear weapons can deliver both. The fire is obvious: modern hydrogen bombs duplicate on the surface of the earth the enormous thermonuclear energies of the Sun, with catastrophic consequences. But it might be a nuclear cold that kills the planet. A nuclear war with as few as 100 hundred weapons exploded in urban cores could blanket the Earth in smoke, ushering in a years-long nuclear winter, with global droughts and massive crop failures. The nuclear age is now entering its seventh decade. For most of these years, citizens and officials lived with the constant fear that long-range bombers and ballistic missiles would bring instant, total destruction to the United States, the Soviet Union, many other nations, and, perhaps, the entire planet. Fifty years ago, Nevil Shute’s best-selling novel, On the Beach, portrayed the terror of survivors as they awaited the radioactive clouds drifting to Australia from a northern hemisphere nuclear war. There were then some 7000 nuclear weapons in the world, with the United States outnumbering the Soviet Union 10 to 1. By the 1980s, the nuclear danger had grown to grotesque proportions. When Jonathan Schell’s chilling book, The Fate of the Earth, was published in 1982, there were then almost 60,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled with a destructive force equal to roughly 20,000 megatons (20 billion tons) of TNT, or over 1 million times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. President Ronald Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ anti-missile system was supposed to defeat a first-wave attack of some 5000 Soviet SS-18 and SS-19 missile warheads streaking over the North Pole. ‘These bombs’, Schell wrote, ‘were built as “weapons” for “war”, but their significance greatly transcends war and all its causes and outcomes. They grew out of history, yet they threaten to end history. They were made by men, yet they threaten to annihilate man’.

15. The Return to Confrontation, 1979–80

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Short Range ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Slow Progress ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This chapter examines why the United States and the Soviet Union returned to confrontation during the period 1979–1980. Despite the slow progress of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), there were at least some efforts to control strategic weapons. Short-range and intermediate-range nuclear weapons, in contrast, continued to grow in number and sophistication, particularly in Europe, where NATO and Warsaw Pact forces still prepared for war against each other, despite détente. The failure to control theatre nuclear weapons led to a new twist in the European arms race at the end of the 1970s which helped to undermine recent improvements in East–West relations. The chapter first considers NATO’s ‘dual track’ decision regarding theatre nuclear weapons before discussing the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. It concludes with an assessment of the revival of the Cold War, focusing on the so-called Carter Doctrine.

6. Maintaining the Spheres of Influence

2020 ◽  
pp. 159-177
Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
Nikita Khrushchev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This chapter examines how the United States and the Soviet Union tried to maintain their respective spheres of influence during the Cold War, especially in three regions: Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Latin America. The death of Joseph Stalin and the assumption of power by the triumvirate of Lavrenti Beria, Nikita Khrushchev, and Georgi Malenkov resulted in a fresh approach to domestic issues and to the nature of Soviet control over its European satellites. The apparent change produced a new Soviet approach to East–West relations. The chapter first considers how the new Soviet leadership addressed the crisis in East Germany before analysing American influence in Western Europe and US relations with Latin America. The discussion covers themes and events such as the Soviet policy on Hungary and Poland, the Messina Conference and the Spaak Committee, nuclear cooperation and multilateral force, and the US response to the Cuban Revolution.

The Rise and Decline of NATO

Worldview ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
William Pfaff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union

NATO was born of a crisis, and its trouble today results from the fact that the crisis is gone. The ruins of war have been cleared away. The drama of 1949—of a clash between Germany's conquerorshas faded. The ambition of the Soviet Union to dominate Western Europe undoubtedly still exists, but it is a passive threat, a latent threat which no longer has in it an immediacy and power sufficient to compel great measures of defense, The states of Western Europe are no longer the unconfldent nations they were in the last years of the 1940's; they no longer need rely upon the United States to defend them from the Soviet Union; and the Soviet Union is no longer quite the bizarre society it was in those years of menace.

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