Trick or truth? The British ANF proposal, west Germany and US nonproliferation policy, 1964-68

The deployment and control of nuclear weapons in Europe was a major aspect of Cold War diplomacy. The Multilateral Force (MLF) is a prime example. First proposed in 1960, the MLF attempted to reconcile European demands for collective alliance control within the broader framework of US nonproliferation policy. The MLF was opposed by both Britain and France, who feared the proposal would lead to a nuclear armed West Germany. To counter the MLF, the Wilson government advanced an alternate scheme - the Atlantic Nuclear Force (ANF). This article examines British objectives in advancing the ANF. It contends that the ANF was not a cynical attempt to frustrate the MLF, as suggested by previous commentators, but embodied a serious attempt by the Labour government to implement a nonproliferation regime.     

'Not Proficient in Table-Thumping': Sir Ernest Satow at Peking, 1900-1906

The deployment and control of nuclear weapons in Europe was a major aspect of Cold War diplomacy. The Multilateral Force (MLF) is a prime example. First proposed in 1960, the MLF attempted to reconcile European demands for collective alliance control within the broader framework of US nonproliferation policy. The MLF was opposed by both Britain and France, who feared the proposal would lead to a nuclear armed West Germany. To counter the MLF, the Wilson government advanced an alternate scheme ‐ the Atlantic Nuclear Force (ANF). This article examines British objectives in advancing the ANF. It contends that the ANF was not a cynical attempt to frustrate the MLF, as suggested by previous commentators, but embodied a serious attempt by the Labour government to implement a nonproliferation regime.     

Transatlantic cooperation,alliance politics and extended deterrence: European perceptions of nuclear weapons

This article discusses the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) debate regarding American nonstrategic nuclear weapons (NSNW) in Europe, given the broad spectrum of views on nuclear issues when comparing individual member states. What is striking is the gap between public attitudes – which are broadly hostile to keeping NSNW in Europe – and elite opinion, which privileges the maintenance of NATO commitments to preserve alliance cohesion. To better understand this tension, this article dissects the elements of extended nuclear deterrence in Europe, addressing the difficulties associated with current nuclear-sharing arrangements. For some NATO states, the alliance's nuclear weapons are a political liability, since nuclear sharing clashes with international disarmament and nonproliferation commitments. For other NATO members, maintaining the status quo is preferable, as long as there is no alliance-wide consensus on the question of NSNW. These debates have been put to rest, for now, with NATO's Deterrence and Defense Posture Review, which reaffirmed the purpose of the alliance's nuclear weapons. However, these divisive debates point to more fundamental issues in alliance management, namely the credibility of American commitments, the sustainability of extended nuclear deterrence in Europe and the inevitable political tensions these questions provoke at the domestic level for NATO allies.     

Soviet propaganda and the neutron bomb decision

Abstract

In July 1977, newly elected President Jimmy Carter suddenly found himself confronted with a difficult neutron bomb decision. With a narrow victory in Congress, pro neutron‐bomb forces had successfully presented the President with the authority to proceed with production. Unfortunately, as the months passed, Carter failed to move swiftly with production of the neutron warheads which many NATO alliance members saw as a much needed deterrent to the Warsaw PACT'S massive armor superiority.

Confronted with mounting international and domestic opposition to the neutron weapon, Jimmy Carter, in the fall of 1977, insisted that the NATO allies officially support American production of the warheads before the United States would produce it. Spurred on by Carter's indecision and by certain NATO members’ reluctance to officially support the weapon, the Soviet Union shifted its propaganda machine into high gear in a massive effort to sway international opinion against the weapon.

During the first few months of 1978, Western Europe saw a flood of protests against this so‐called “inhumane” weapon. Domestic communist and left‐wing socialist opposition to the neutron bomb precipitated a precarious right‐left split within many Western European socialist parties. Nowhere was this split more graphically illustrated than within the ruling West German Social Democratic Party (SPD). Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and his moderate technocrats basically favored the neutron bomb, but feared crippling left‐wing SPD opposition and possible defections if West Germany complied with American demands to break with over 30 years of U.S.‐West German nuclear precedent and agree officially to American production of a nuclear weapon, the neutron bomb.

Only after much American cajoling did the allies move toward official NATO support for production. Carter had failed to understand the disastrous political implications which left‐wing opposition had created within the NATO countries and refused to let Schmidt and other leaders off the hook. And then in an amazing move, after Schmidt and the NATO allies had risked political ruin to reach an agreement to support the neutron bomb, President Carter pulled the rug from under them on April 7,1978, when he indefinitely delayed a decision on the weapon.

With this decision, Carter had set a dangerous precedent by yielding to Soviet pressure and had missed an opportunity to win the favor of skeptical NATO allies and critics who asserted he was too weak and indecisive. But above all, Carter had unnecessarily alienated and angered NATO leaders like Schmidt who risked possible political ruin by supporting the neutron bomb.     

The construction of NATO's medium term defence plan and the diplomacy of conventional strategy, 1949-50

This article examines NATO's first strategic project, the Medium Term Defence Plan (MTDP) of 1950, and the plan that led to the 1952 Lisbon Force Goals, a landmark in the evolution of NATO's strategic thinking because the failure to reach the Lisbon goals allegedly drove NATO into its subsequent dependence on nuclear weapons from which it has never been weaned. The article disputes this interpretation by showing that the MTDP was conditioned by the desire of the United States to maintain its autonomy over the use of atomic weapons, and its freedom from the constraints of the new alliance. The MTDP was a paradox: a conventional strategy designed to mask the rules governing the balance of decision-making power within NATO which maintained American peripheralism against the integrative pressures of the alliance. Lisbon was actually part of a deepening nuclear commitment on the part of the United States, sustained by the willingness of the Europeans to endorse the rearmament plan in exchange for promises of further economic assistance.     

Difficult Europeans: NATO and Tactical/Non-strategic Nuclear Weapons in the Cold War

This analysis examines NATO’s tactical/non-strategic nuclear weapons in the Cold War both for their perceived deterrent value against the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact and as potential war fighting weapons. Within this debate lay questions related to extended deterrence, security guarantees, regional or theatre conflict, and escalatory potential. A central tenet that emerged in Europe was that nuclear weapons needed emplacement on the territory of non-nuclear NATO members to make deterrence more tangible. It raised huge questions of consultation. Once the Soviet Union had intercontinental missiles, the credibility of American readiness to use nuclear weapons in defence of its allies came into question. European alternatives and different consultation mechanisms to facilitate nuclear use became central to intra-NATO relations. Actively debated across NATO, they directly concerned above all the United States, Britain, and France—the nuclear weapons states in the NATO area—and West Germany, the potential main battleground in a Warsaw Pact invasion. Although dormant in NATO since the end of the Cold War, these issues will likely see revisiting in both Europe and other regional trouble spots.     

Being Nuclear on a Budget: Churchill,Britain and “Atoms for Peace,” 1953–1955

This analysis critiques the impact of President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1953 “Atoms for Peace” initiative on Washington’s alliance with Britain, itself a newly crowned nuclear state. Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s taste for personal diplomacy led him to support his friend’s proposal without real consideration for how the contributions of fissionable materials and manpower demanded by the scheme would damage Britain’s overstretched domestic nuclear project. Membership of an international atomic agency allowed Britain to reaffirm its global status whilst depleting the resources needed to develop its native technology. In turn, the article discusses the commercial challenge posed by American nuclear firms and highlights how reactor exports quickly became a contest between the quality of British research and the quantity of American subsidies. In this way, it establishes how “Atoms for Peace” prejudiced both Britain’s domestic nuclear effort and export potential, in turn shedding light on Washington’s relations with an ailing Great Power.     

The Making of an Accidental Crisis: The United States and the NATO Dual-Track Decision of 1979

This analysis re-examines the Carter Administration’s formulation of policy on the theatre nuclear force issue following the neutron bomb affair. It demonstrates that European leaders did not foist the arms control component of the NATO dual-track decision on Jimmy Carter. Rather, the Carter Administration understood the merits of an arms control component following the August 1978 PRM-38 review and thought that Soviet–American arms control negotiations would play a crucial role in resolving the conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact over theatre nuclear forces. This analysis also considers the previously unexamined interactions between the United States and the Soviet Union in the months leading to the dual-track decision. It reveals that American officials underestimated the degree of Soviet anger over the dual-track decision, believing that arms control negotiations with the Soviets on theatre nuclear forces would be possible and productive. The Carter Administration did not foresee the Euromissiles crisis.     

NATO Special Operations: Promise and Problem

NATO special operations forces (SOF) are at a crossroads as the NATO role in Afghanistan winds down. After more than a decade of development, NATO SOF have greatly increased their ability to operate together in the field and in headquarters. If the alliance continues to emphasize SOF development, these forces can play a major role in future NATO campaigns, particularly outside Europe. Moreover, SOF can be maintained effectively in times of austerity. Yet intelligence sharing, particularly in real time, is currently one of the major limitations on NATO SOF, creating divisions between United States and United Kingdom on one hand and much of the rest of NATO on the other. In order to make truly effective use of SOF the alliance needs to make fundamental changes to its decades old system for sharing intelligence.     

Security Studies and the Use of History: Neville Chamberlain's Grand Strategy Revisited

In The Gathering Storm, Winston S. Churchill claimed that during the 1930s British leaders were willfully blind to the German threat and failed to meet it by rearming. Accepting the Churchillian narrative, leading IR scholars regard British grand strategy during the 1930s as glaring example of strategic adjustment failure. This article reappraises British grand strategy during the 1930s and rejects both the Churchillian narrative, and the scholarly claims that Britain did not adjust its strategy to the German threat. In the 1930s, Britain did balance against Germany and focused on countering what policy makers perceived as the key threat facing Britain: its vulnerability to German air attack. Britain's grand strategic options were limited by external conditions and by domestic economic constraints. Neville Chamberlain, therefore, was playing a weak hand, and did the best that he could with the cards he was dealt. Britain's 1930s grand strategy is one of the historical cases most frequently used by IR scholars for theory testing. For that reason alone, it is important to get the history right. This is not the only reason, however. The 1930s have provided many of the concepts, images, and metaphors that have dominated the discourse about American foreign policy since World War II. Because scholarship about the events of the 1930s shapes the discourse about real-world policy, getting the history right matters.     

The Capability–Capacity Crunch: NATO's New Capacities for Intervention

Abstract

In September 2006 NATO's role in Afghanistan expanded to cover the whole of the country. With 32,000 troops under NATO command Stage 4 of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) represents an open-ended commitment to rebuilding a country long torn by war and instability. The Alliance's showpiece for advanced military transformation, the the NATO Response Force (NRF) represents a down payment on the future of transatlantic military co-operation. Taken together these two developments reflect the reality of NATO's new interventionism of an Alliance that bears little or no resemblance to that which won the Cold War. NATO today is an organisation designed for global reach and global effect, undertaking operations at their most robust. Unfortunately, the re-design of NATO's architecture has not been matched by a parallel development in Alliance military capabilities. NATO's big three, the US, Britain and France, have taken steps to improve their military capabilities. However, the transformation of NATO's other militaries has proved slow and uneven, leaving many members unable to fulfil any meaningful role. Thus, as NATO today plans for both robust advanced expeditionary warfare and stabilisation and reconstruction vital to mission success in complex crisis management environments a gap is emerging. Indeed, in an Alliance in which only the Americans can afford both military capability and capacity most NATO Europeans face a capability–capacity crunch, forced to make a choice between small, lethal and expensive professional military forces or larger, cheaper more ponderous stabilisation and reconstruction forces. This article explores the consequences of the crunch and the implications for NATO's current and future role as the Alliance struggles to find a balance between fighting power and staying power.     

Power,contribution and dependence in NATO burden sharing

This article offers three new types of variables for computation of the share that NATO countries should contribute to the common defence. I use Uppsala conflict data (UCDP) on conflict participation to reveal how the asymmetry in power that allows the US to define most of the framings on which NATO’s utility calculations are based, compensates for the greater material contribution made to NATO by the US. Then I follow Ringsmose’s model of NATO burden sharing and create two types of variables crucial to the calculation of burden sharing. One reveals the share of US military protection aimed at protecting its NATO allies. The other measures how much US global security efforts against tyranny and terror are dependent on NATO allies. These two variables are developed by means of computer-assisted discourse analysis of US Presidential Papers. The three new variables contribute to a more complex mathematical model on fair burden sharing, indicating at the same time that the imbalance between US and allied contributions is declining. If European allies have ever exploited the United States in the past, then at least the relationship has become more even during the past two decades.     

Separable but not separate forces: NATO's development of the combined joint task force

This article argues that the Combined Joint Task Force has profoundly affected the European security architecture. The CJTF structure shifted the terms of the European security debate from whether NATO should have a role in the post‐Cold War world to how NATO should act in this new security environment. The CJTF therefore helped NATO to survive its post‐Cold War existential dilemma, and to emerge with the same level of cohesion and cooperation that it possessed during the Cold War.     

Human Rights and Foreign Policy: Wilson and the Greek Dictators, 1967–1970

The military coup of 21 April 1967 brought to power a repressive dictatorship in Greece. It proceeded to deprive Greeks of their human rights and civil liberties, outraged international public opinion and strained transatlantic relations during the Cold War. The “Greek case” culminated in the withdrawal of Greece from the Council of Europe and calls for its expulsion from NATO. This article will analyse the foreign policy considerations that determined British policy towards the Greek junta during 1967—such as Cold War realities, alliance dynamics, economic and commercial imperatives, regional instability in the Mediterranean and domestic pressures. It will look at how these factors coalesced into shaping British policy towards the Greek junta into one in which human rights had little bearing. The article will also consider the impact of the “Greek case” on the image and credibility of the Labour government of 1966–1970 and explain why vociferous anti-junta activities in London were to create such policy difficulties for the British government.     

The Spirit of Ulysses? Ideology and British Appeasement in the 1930s

The British government's appeasement of fascism in the 1930s derived not only from economic, political, and strategic constraints, but also from the personal ideologies of the policy makers. Widespread guilt about the terms of the Versailles Treaty and tensions with France created sympathy for German revisionism, but the Cabinet properly recognized that Nazi Germany represented the gravest threat to peace in the 1930s. Fear of war and the recognition that Britain would have to tolerate peaceful change underlay attempts to appease the dictators, culminating in the Munich agreement in September 1938. After Munich, continued German belligerence, the Kristallnacht, and British intelligence assessments indicating that Hitler was prepared to attack the Western powers led to a reassessment of appeasement. The British government gave security guarantees to several European countries, seeking to deter future aggression and to lay the groundwork for a successful war against Germany should it prove necessary. While most of the British elite detested communism, anti-communist views did not govern British policy; security considerations required Soviet support in Eastern Europe, and Britain and France made a determined effort to secure Soviet support for the Peace Front.     

Anglo-American relations after Suez,the rise and decline of the working group experiment,and the french challenge to NATO, 1957-59

This article explores the establishment of a number of Anglo-American working groups at the Washington Conference of October 1957, and explains how the British regarded the groups as an attempt to institutionalize the principle of consultation in Anglo-American relations. American and British officials were anxious that the existence of the groups be kept secret for fear that they would be a cause of resentment to other close allies. De Gaulle's attacks on an Anglo-American monopoly within NATO, and disruptive calls for institutionalizing tripartite cooperation following his assumption of power in June 1958 underlined this point, and helped to cool US attitudes to any notion of formal machinery that by-passed established alliance structures. Practical problems associated with the functioning of the groups, as well as the potential for political embarrassment they could represent, meant that their role had largely by the spring of 1959, yet their brief history was illustrative of the tensions that exclusivity in ANglo-American relations could bring to the Western alliance.     

Anglo-American relations after Suez, the rise and decline of the working group experiment, and the french challenge to NATO, 1957-59

This article explores the establishment of a number of Anglo-American working groups at the Washington Conference of October 1957, and explains how the British regarded the groups as an attempt to institutionalize the principle of consultation in Anglo-American relations. American and British officials were anxious that the existence of the groups be kept secret for fear that they would be a cause of resentment to other close allies. De Gaulle's attacks on an Anglo-American monopoly within NATO, and disruptive calls for institutionalizing tripartite cooperation following his assumption of power in June 1958 underlined this point, and helped to cool US attitudes to any notion of formal machinery that by-passed established alliance structures. Practical problems associated with the functioning of the groups, as well as the potential for political embarrassment they could represent, meant that their role had largely by the spring of 1959, yet their brief history was illustrative of the tensions that exclusivity in ANglo-American relations could bring to the Western alliance.     

Human Rights and Foreign Policy: Wilson and the Greek Dictators, 1967-1970

The military coup of 21 April 1967 brought to power a repressive dictatorship in Greece. It proceeded to deprive Greeks of their human rights and civil liberties, outraged international public opinion and strained transatlantic relations during the Cold War. The “Greek case” culminated in the withdrawal of Greece from the Council of Europe and calls for its expulsion from NATO. This article will analyse the foreign policy considerations that determined British policy towards the Greek junta during 1967—such as Cold War realities, alliance dynamics, economic and commercial imperatives, regional instability in the Mediterranean and domestic pressures. It will look at how these factors coalesced into shaping British policy towards the Greek junta into one in which human rights had little bearing. The article will also consider the impact of the “Greek case” on the image and credibility of the Labour government of 1966-1970 and explain why vociferous anti-junta activities in London were to create such policy difficulties for the British government.     

In Defence of the West: General Lauris Norstad,NATO Nuclear Forces and Transatlantic Relations 1956–1963

In the history of NATO, lack of Atlantic communality is a recurring theme. Atlantic cohesion was constantly challenged. However, the discord among NATO members rarely threatened the very existence of the Alliance. The late 1950s and early 1960s witnessed such a rare occurrence. In Europe the question of nuclear sharing triggered the development of blue-prints for a step-by-step replacement of the Atlantic security co-operation by a European Security Community. These blueprints were discussed among the EEC member-states and within the forum of the WEU. This study analyses not only those concepts, but also the role of the SACEUR, General Norstad, in defending NATO from external threats and internal decay. By studying the leeway of the SACEUR, this study tries to establish whether the subsystem of the international system, formed by the nations of the North Atlantic area after the Second World War, should be characterised as a system of hegemonic stability or as a pluralistic security community. The article is based on recently declassified archival material from both sides of the Atlantic.     

In Defence of the West: General Lauris Norstad, NATO Nuclear Forces and Transatlantic Relations 1956-1963

In the history of NATO, lack of Atlantic communality is a recurring theme. Atlantic cohesion was constantly challenged. However, the discord among NATO members rarely threatened the very existence of the Alliance. The late 1950s and early 1960s witnessed such a rare occurrence. In Europe the question of nuclear sharing triggered the development of blue-prints for a step-by-step replacement of the Atlantic security co-operation by a European Security Community. These blueprints were discussed among the EEC member-states and within the forum of the WEU. This study analyses not only those concepts, but also the role of the SACEUR, General Norstad, in defending NATO from external threats and internal decay. By studying the leeway of the SACEUR, this study tries to establish whether the subsystem of the international system, formed by the nations of the North Atlantic area after the Second World War, should be characterised as a system of hegemonic stability or as a pluralistic security community. The article is based on recently declassified archival material from both sides of the Atlantic.