Abstract
The role that theatre nuclear weapons in Europe played in the dynamics of East-West confrontation is the central focus of this chapter. It highlights the specific characteristics of, and the intrinsic problems associated with, theatre nuclear weapons. The chapter presents the arguments in favour of negotiating an arms control agreement for this specific category of weapons but equally the challenges to this aspiration. It also suggests that one possible way out of the difficulties is to fully integrate the negotiations of theatre systems with those on central systems.
Originally published in David Carlton and Carlo Schaerf, eds., The Arms Race in the 1980s (London: Macmillan and New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982): 235–251.
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Notes
- 1.
The present writer’s scepticism as to the approach to arms control informing these talks is expressed in Lawrence Freedman, “Time for a Reappraisal,” Survival 21, no. 5 (1979): 198.
- 2.
Uwe Nerlich observed: “To some West Europeans, FBS had taken on symbolic functions, and American handling of the FBS issue was seen as the one indicator of future accountability to European interests of American strategic power in Europe.” Uwe Nerlich, The Alliance and Europe: Part V. Nuclear Weapons and East-West Negotiations, Adelphi Papers no. 120 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1976): 4.
- 3.
See for example, Klass De Vries, “Responding to the SS-20: An Alternative Approach,” Survival 21, no. 6 (1979): 251–255. A key objection to this conciliatory approach was that it was unlikely that the US Congress would authorise funds to be spent on systems when there was a chance that they would never be deployed.
- 4.
The Netherlands’ position is that she will only consider opting into the programme in mid-1981 depending on the state of arms-control negotiations. Belgium apparently took a firmer stand in December 1979, implying that she would confirm participation after 6 months. However, the continuing political crisis in Belgium meant that a decision was postponed. In September 1980 the Belgium Cabinet announced that it would review the position every six months, monitoring the negotiations, but could on balance be expected to accept the cruise missiles : “In the event of negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union not reaching a conclusion, Belgium, in solidarity with its allies, will take all the measures agreed between the NATO partners.” International Herald Tribune, 20–21 September 1980.
- 5.
The preparation of the NATO arms-control position was the responsibility of the Special Group, up to December 1979. They operated from April 1979 in parallel to the High Level Group, which was responsible for the actual force plans. In 1980 the Special Group was reconstituted as the Special Consultative Group. It has met a number of times to refine the NATO proposal. Now that talks are to begin it will act as the main consultative mechanism to enable the American negotiators to be aware of the interests of all NATO members.
- 6.
NATO Communiqué, Special Meeting of Foreign and Defence Ministers (Brussels: NATO, 12 December 1979).
- 7.
This desire to push TNF to one side is reflected in one of the few published detailed studies on US strategies for SALT III, William E. Hoehn Jr, Outlasting SALT II and Preparing for SALT III (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1979): x; “SALT III negotiations must emphasize strategic ceilings and missile verification measures. Other important issues—the resolution of many protocol items, ‘grey area’ and theater systems, et cetera—must be the core issues for ‘SALT IV’ conducted in parallel but separately.”
- 8.
In a unilateral statement after the signing of the Interim Agreement on Offensive Arms in May 1972, the Soviet Union argued that she was entitled to increase the number of her nuclear ballistic missile-firing submarines (SSBNs) in line with any increases in those of American allies, implying that the extra numbers she was allowed under the submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) ceilings took account of British and French forces. The United States refused to accept this argument and she has not been raised again since, even when France actually brought an extra submarine into operation.
- 9.
“The progress that has been made in recent months is that the Soviet Union gradually gave up asking for compensations for the forward-based systems party because most of the forward-based systems, or I would say all of them, are not suitable for a significant attack on the Soviet Union ,” Press Conference of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Vladivostok, 24 November 1974. To be found, with a rich collection of source material, in Roger P. Labrie ed., SALT Handbook: Key Documents and Issues, 1972–1979 (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1979): 285.
- 10.
Leonid Brezhnev , speech to a meeting of the Baumansky constituency in Moscow, 2 March 1979; “[The USSR] has already repeatedly said that it stands not for the accumulation but the restriction of nuclear missile and other weapons by agreements based on full reciprocity. The same applies to medium-range weapons in Europe, taking into account the presence of American military bases there, of course.”
- 11.
There were only hints from Eastern European sources that SS-20 production might cease if the NATO programme was abandoned. See Milton Leitenberg, “NATO and WTO Long-Range Theatre Nuclear Forces,” in Arms Control in Europe; Problems and Prospects, ed. Karl E. Birnbaum (Laxenburg: Austrian Institute for International Affairs, 1980): 143.
- 12.
Pravda, 7 July 1980. The Soviet Union has argued that this was an alternative to previous proposals for the reduction of her medium-range weapons if no additional US weapons were deployed in Western Europe , or else a discussion in the framework of SALT III after the SALT II Treaty enters force. See Pravda, 15 July 1980.
- 13.
Sea-based missiles include 64 British and 80 French SLBMs and the 400 Poseidon warheads (essentially the contents of two SSBNs) assigned to SACEUR by the United States.
- 14.
It was reported in October 1980 that delays in the GLCM development programme, particularly with regard to the software and hardware for the control systems, have used up all the spare time built into the programme, so that “if further delays occur they would affect the operational commitment to NATO” in “Cruise Missile Project Delayed,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, 20 October 1980, 24–25.
- 15.
The current intention is for the 108 Pershing II to be based in West Germany, with Great Britain , Italy , Belgium and Holland respectively taking 96, 160, 112, 48 and 48 cruise missiles each.
- 16.
There was also some work on a version using the first and third SS-15 stages to produce a longer-range missile—3000 as against 1100 nautical miles.
- 17.
There may have been a sighting in the Far Eastern region close to the Mongolian border. If true, this confirms the importance of the “China threat” in stimulating Soviet MR/IRBM development.
- 18.
In the now declassified presentations of the US Secretary of Defense to Congress (from which much of the above information is taken), these SS-11s were first discussed separately from the rest of the SS-11s and other ICBMs. However, in public presentations of the “threat” they were brought together. See Lawrence Freedman, US Intelligence and the Soviet Strategic Threat (London: Wiley, 1977): 158–159.
- 19.
The relevant SS-11s, at the Derazhnya and Pervomaysk sites, are deployed in their silos at such an angle that they are clearly aimed at European targets and could not be retargeted against the United States. They have now been supplemented by 60 SS-19s at these sites and might eventually be replaced by more of this particular missile. There are reports of training exercises with the SS-19 that show it being prepared for theatre use (Armed Forces Journal International, December 1979). The point is that the SS-I9s are in vertical silos and can therefore be targeted against the United States or Europe.
- 20.
The 23 bases already operational or under construction are capable of supporting over 200 SS-20s.
- 21.
See Harold Brown, Department of Defense Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1981 (Washington, DC: US Department of Defense, 1980): 93.
- 22.
NATO Nuclear Planning Group, Final Communiqué, M-N PG-1, 80 (Bodö, 4 June 1980). As the SS-4s and SS-5s are in different sites there is no necessity for a one-to-one replacement. The most relevant considerations are manpower and maintenance requirements.
- 23.
See Brown, Annual Report, 93. He notes that this decline “is based upon current trends. It is possible, however, that the Soviet Union may wish to retain a larger proportion of the current force, perhaps for use as a bargaining chip in future arms control negotiations.”
- 24.
IISS, The Military Balance, 1980–1981 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1980). This excludes 280 Badgers, 40 Blinders and 70 Backfires attached to the Naval Air Forces.
- 25.
If the F-111 is included then there is a case for including the 370 Su-19 Fencers. This is the closest Soviet aircraft to the F-111. Furthermore, there has been a suggestion that it might be a medium bomber rather than a close support aircraft . However, while its combat radius is not dissimilar from the F-111, its weapons load at 8000 lb compares unfavourably with the F-111 at 28,000 lb and certainly does not warrant medium-bomber status (IISS, The Military Balance, 1980–1981, 90–91). Furthermore, once one starts including aircraft such as the Su-19 then it becomes difficult to exclude others essentially designed for combat support.
- 26.
However, the fractionation limit in SALT involves a move in this direction. Counting the GLCM-TEL as a single launcher might well seem contrived. The normal inclination would be to count launch tubes (as in a submarine).
- 27.
Potentially available in the United States are 44 F-111 E/F and 237 of the much older and less capable F-111 A/D. In addition there are 66 long-range FB-111s, which are part of the Strategic Air Command.
- 28.
Furthermore, if the problem it creates for the Soviet Union is reduced warning time then the only significance this might have would be in confusing any plans for launch on warning. Persuading her of the impracticality of such a dangerous plan would seem a wholly desirable objective—stabilising in the traditional arms control sense.
- 29.
One American problem is that all new missiles are likely to be MIRVed so that as old systems are phased out they will be unable to be replaced with new missiles because they will come up against the sub-ceilings for MIRVed missiles and there are no new bombers coming into production. There are plans to “stretch” 66 FB-111s and 89 F-111Ds between 1985 and 1986 and to turn them into Ersatz long-range bombers . (“FB-111 Bombers Playing Crucial Role,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, 16 June 1980, 144–145.)
- 30.
It is assumed here that GLCMs will be counted in individual tubes rather than in batches of four on TELs.
- 31.
It would obviously be very attractive for the United States if the SS-20 could be used to cut into the Soviet MIRVed ICBM (820) or even MIRVed ICBM and SLBM (1200) sub-ceilings.
- 32.
Differentiating between Soviet bombers and missiles, as discussed earlier, might be matched by differentiating between French (which are not assigned to NATO) and British (which are) forces, particularly as it is now known that Great Britain will now have no more than five SSBNs until well into the next century. Neither Great Britain nor France could prevent the United States allowing the Soviet Union a credit for their systems.
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Freedman, L. (2018). The Dilemma of European Theatre Nuclear Arms Control. In: Foradori, P., Giacomello, G., Pascolini, A. (eds) Arms Control and Disarmament. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62259-0_9
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