Abstract
Two principal factors were at the crux of the formulation of NATO’s nuclear strategy: the changing threat perception and image of a future East-West war, and the US commitment to the defence of Western Europe (and as a crucial part of that, US readiness to resort to nuclear weapons for the defence of Europe). Other factors (such as economic constraints, or technological developments) were also important, but not as consistently so as these. The subject of this chapter is the development of NATO’s defence strategies, which were successive attempts to find compromises between the increasingly divergent geostrategic concerns of the US and of NATO Europe.
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Notes
David Maclsaac, unpublished conference paper of 1979, quoted in Aaron L. Friedberg: ‘The evolution of US strategic “doctrine”—1945 to 1981’, in Samuel P. Huntington (ed.): The Strategic Imperative (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1982), p. 57.
David Alan Rosenberg: ‘US Nuclear War Planning, 1945–1960’, in Desmond Ball and Jeffrey Richelson (eds): Strategic Nuclear Targeting (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 35–56.
For a discussion of British thinking — and the British were at the time the only Europeans who had thoughts on this matter — see Alan Macmillan: ‘British Atomic Strategy, 1945–52’, in John Baylis and Alan Macmillan (eds): The Foundations of British Nuclear Strategy, 1945–1960, International Politics Research Papers No. 12 (Aberystwyth: Department of International Politics, University College of Wales, 1992), pp. 41–5.
‘Overall strategic plan’, text in Julian Lewis: Changing Direction: British Military Planning for Post-war Strategic Defence, 1942–1947 (London: Sherwood Press, 1988), p. 371.
Cf. Beatrice Heuser: ‘Covert action within British and American concepts of containment, 1948–51’, in Richard Aldrich (ed.): British Intelligence, Strategy and the Cold War, 1945–51 (London: Routledge: 1992), pp. 65–84.
Cf. the US short-range emergency plan DOUBLESTAR of 21 June 1948, JCS 1844/10, on microfilm No. 63 in Liddell Hart Archives, King’s College London [henceforth LHA-MF]; Anthony Cave Brown (ed.): Operation World War III: the secret American plan ‘DROPSHOT for war with the Soviet Union, 1957 (London: Arms & Armour Press, 1979), for DROPSHOT, dating from 31 January and 19 December 1949. For the December version, after the first Soviet nuclear test, see LHA-MF 65, JCS 1920/5. See also LHA-MF 38, JSPC 876/38, ‘Short-term strategic concept and emergency war plan as related to the North Atlantic Pact, OFFTACKLE’ of 7 September 1949, and LHA-MF 39, JCS 1868/136 ‘Strategic Guidance for the initiation of regional planning’ of 25 October 1949; and USA, National Archives (NA), CCS 471. 6 USSR (11–8–49) Sec. 2, JCS 2081/1 ‘Implications of Soviet possession of atomic
On Western strategy and on the military build-up of the Satellite countries, see Beatrice Heuser: Western Containment Policies in the Cold War (London: Routledge, 1989), pp. 112–17, 216–18,
and Beatrice Heuser: ‘NSC 68 and the Soviet threat’, Review of International Studies Vol. 17 (1991), pp. 17–40.
NSC 68, Section IX, Thomas Etzold and John Lewis Gaddis: Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy, 1945–1950 (New York: Columbia UP, 1978), p. 422.
Text in full in Alan Macmillan and John Baylis: A Reassessment of the British Global Strategy Paper of 1952 International Politics Research Papers No. 13 (Aberystwyth: University of Wales, Department of International Politics, 1993), pp. 58–89,
and in excerpts in John Baylis: Ambiguity and Deterrence: British Nuclear Strategy, 1945–1964 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 405–14.
Aaron L. Friedberg: ‘The evolution of US strategic “doctrine” — 1945 to 1981’, in Samuel P. Huntington (ed.): The Strategic Imperative (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1982), p. 58f.
Apparently LeMay had earlier in the 1950s opposed counter-force targeting as he regarded it as technically unfeasible, see David Alan Rosenberg: ‘US Nuclear War Planning, 1945–1960’, in Desmond Ball and Jeffrey Richelson (eds): Strategic Nuclear Targeting (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 40f.
David Elliot: ‘Project Vista and Nuclear Weapons in Europe’, International Security, Vol. II, No. 1 (summer 1986), pp. 163–83.
Jane Stromseth, The Origins of Flexible Response, (London, Macmillan, 1988), p. 18.
John Foster Dulles: ‘The evolution of foreign policy’, printed in Philip Bobbitt, Lawrence Freedman and Gregory Treverton (eds): US Nuclear Strategy: a Reader (London: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 122–30.
John Lewis Gaddis: Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American Security Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, pp. 127–97.
John Foster Dulles: ‘Policy for Security and Peace’, Foreign Affairs Vol. 32 No. 3 (1954), pp. 353–64.
John Baylis: ‘Anthony Buzzard’, in John Baylis and John Garnett (eds): Makers of Nuclear Strategy (London: Frances Pinter, 1991), pp. 136–152.
Ian Clark & Nicholas J. Wheeler: The British Origins of Nuclear Strategy, 1945–1955 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 186–7.
‘Himmelroder Denkschrift’ of 9 October 1950, in Klaus von Schubert (ed.): Sicherheitspolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Dokumentation 1945–1977 Vol. 2 (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft & Politik, 1979), p. 97.
David Alan Rosenberg: ‘US Nuclear War Planning, 1945–1960’, in Desmond Ball and Jeffrey Richelson (eds): Strategic Nuclear Targeting (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986); Scott D. Sagan: ‘SIOP 62: the nuclear war plan briefing to President Kennedy’: International Security Vol. 12 No. 1 (1987); Desmond Ball: ‘Development of the SIOP, 1960–1983’, in Ball and Richelson (eds): Strategic Nuclear Targeting.
Cf. Wolf Mendl: Deterrence and Persuasion: French nuclear armaments and the context of national policy, 1945–1969 (New York: Praeger, 1970).
See Leopoldo Nuti: ‘Jupiter in Italy: a risky shortcut to prestige’, in Leopoldo Nuti and Cyril Buffet (eds): Nuclear Proliferation and Non-Proliferation, 1956–1964 (forthcoming 1998).
Cf. Fred Kaplan: The Wizards of Armageddon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983).
Lawrence Freedman: The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (London: Macmillan, 2nd edn 1989), p. 292f;
Robert Wampler: NATO Strategic Planning and Nuclear Weapons 1950–1957, Nuclear History Program Occasional Paper No. 6 (University of Maryland: CISSM, 1990), p. 43.
Susanne Peters’s argument that the GPGs and the INF are above all a German contribution to NATO strategy is thus somewhat misleading, see Susanne Peters: The Germans and the INF Missiles: Getting their way in NATO’s strategy of Flexible Response (Baden Baden: Nomos, 1990).
Cf. for example Paul Buteux: The Politics of Nuclear Consultation in NATO, 1965–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1983), pp. 89–92.
J. Michael Legge: Theater Nuclear Weapons and the NATO Strategy of Flexible Response, RAND Paper R-2964-FF (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, April 1983), pp. 17–21.
‘Deutsches Strategisches Konzept: Führungsweisung Nr. 1 Teil I’, Bonn Doc. 173 (26 January 1967), pp. 8, 15f; see also Catherine M. Kelleher: Germany and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), p. 217 and, with some minor reservations,
in Ivo Daalder: The Nature and Practice of Flexible Response (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), pp. 40–66; see Beatrice Heuser: ‘European defence before and after the “turn of the tide”’, Review of International Studies Vol. 19 No. 3 (October 1993).
Helga Haftendorn: ‘Das doppelte Missverständnis: Zur Vorgeschichte des NATO-Doppelbeschlusses von 1979’, Vierteljahreshefte für Zeit-geschichte Vol. 33 No. 2 (April 1985), p. 247f. Lawrence Freedman describes the guiding principle of any follow-on use as ‘the way in which people talk to foreigners if these don’t understand what has been said: they repeat exactly the same words, except louder’; see also Lynn Davis: ‘Limited Nuclear Options’, Adelphi Paper No. 121 (London: IISS, 1975/76).
Helmut Schmidt: Menschen und Mächte (Berlin: Goldmann, 1991, originally Berlin: Siedler Verlag, 1987), pp. 89–125;
Margaret Thatcher: The Downing Street Years (London: Harper Collins, 1993), p. 239; John Nott in an interview, ‘Nott speaks out’, International Defence Review (December 1981); Michael Heseltine in interview with Anthony Bevins: ‘2001: a nuclear strategy for Britain’, The Times (2 December 1983); Douglas Hurd, Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, ‘The debate we must win’, speech to the Tory Reform Group annual conference at Oxford (22 March 1981), p. 4, IISS press archives.
Holger Mey: NATO Strategie vor der Wende: Die Entwicklung des Verständnisses nuklearer Macht im Bündnis zwischen 1967 und 1990 (Baden Baden: Nomos, 1992), pp. 70–1. For a translation of his summary of the GPGs, see Heuser: ‘European defence before and after’, pp. 412–13.
This was also rejected by the NATO nuclear study group on Warsaw Pact nuclear forces, see Lothar Rühl: Mittelstreckenwaffen in Europa (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1987), pp. 144–7.
Sir Michael Quinlan: ‘Nuclear Weapons — the Basic Issues’, Lecture of November 1982, The Ampleforth Journal Vol. XCI Part II (1986), p. 66.
For example Robert C. Aldridge: First Strike! The Pentagon’s Strategy for Nuclear War (Boston, Mass: South End Press, 1983);
Alfred Mech-tersheimer: Zeitbombe NATO: Auswirkungen der neuen Strategien (Cologne: Eugen Diederichs, 1984), p. 14;
Ulrich Albrecht: Kitndigt den Nachrüstungsbeschluss! Argumente für die Friedensbewegung (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1982), p. 17.
quoted in John Roper: ‘Nuclear policies: different approaches to similar objectives’, in Boyer, Lellouche and Roper (eds): Franco-British Defence Cooperation (London: Routledge for the RIIA, 1989), p. 12.
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© 1997 Beatrice Heuser
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Heuser, B. (1997). NATO’s Nuclear Strategy: Compromises. In: NATO, Britain, France and the FRG. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377622_2
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