“Closing the Gap”
The Euromissiles and President Carter’s Nuclear
Weapons Strategy for Western Europe (1977-1979)
By William Leonard
1
Introduction
Shortly after entering the Oval Office for the first time in January 1977, U.S.
President Jimmy Carter and his top foreign policy aides – including National Security
Advisor Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Deputy National Security Advisor David Aaron –
were immediately confronted with a serious threat to the security of the Western
European members of the NATO Alliance. The threat came in the form of a Soviet force
of long-range theater nuclear missiles – called “SS-20s” – that the Soviets deployed
within striking distance of Western Europe. The Soviet Union’s growing superiority in
long-range theater nuclear missiles (LRTNF) relative to the NATO Alliance worried
Western European political and military leaders, particularly West German Chancellor
Helmut Schmidt. Schmidt claimed that the combination of SS-20 deployments within
striking distance of Western Europe and the advent of “strategic parity” in the early
1970s revealed the existence of a serious “gap,” or vulnerability, in NATO’s “flexible
response” deterrence strategy. 1
2
The presence of a gap in NATO’s flexible response deterrence strategy meant that
NATO lacked the capability to credibly respond to a Soviet SS-20 nuclear attack of
Western Europe. Since NATO lacked a long-range theater nuclear forces, Schmidt
claimed that NATO would be unable to respond in kind to a Soviet SS-20 strike on
NATO military sites with a corresponding NATO strike on Soviet military targets.[2] In
turn, Schmidt feared that if the Soviets were to perceive that NATO lacked the capability
to respond to Soviet SS-20 strikes on Western Europe, then the Soviets would no longer
be deterred and would initiate a SS-20 attack. Concerned about the security of West
Germany, Schmidt demanded that Carter and his advisors devise a strategy that would
close the perceived gap in NATO’s deterrence strategy.
In August 1978, President Carter, with the strong backing of Brzezinski and
Aaron, approved a plan that he hoped would assuage the Western European concern that
NATO’s deterrence strategy had grown deficient in light of SS-20 deployments and
strategic parity. The plan called for NATO to deploy a contingent of 572 long-range
1
SCC, "Summary of Conclusions: PRM/NSC-10 Comprehensive Net Assessment,"
July 7, 1977, NLC-31-56-7-3-6, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta.
2
Strategic parity meant that both superpowers held an “essentially equivalent” number of nuclear
weapons that were capable of striking the territory of the other superpower.
2
single-warhead nuclear Euromissiles into the territories of America’s NATO allies by the
end of 1983. On December 12, 1979, the NATO Alliance, with President Carter’s strong
backing, approved the plan to deploy 108 Pershing II-XR ballistic and 464 groundlaunched cruise missiles in the United Kingdom, West Germany, and Italy. In addition to
approving a Euromissile deployment plan, NATO Ministers extended an offer to
commence arms control talks with the Soviets focused specifically on reducing NATO
and Soviet theater nuclear forces. The combined NATO Euromissile deployment plan
and TNF arms control offer is known as NATO’s 1979 “double-track decision.” 3
This essay offers three explanations as to why the Carter Administration
supported Euromissile deployment, the first track of NATO’s December 1979 doubletrack decision.
First, President Carter supported Euromissile deployment in order to reassure the
worried Western Europeans that no gap existed in NATO’s deterrence strategy. By
supporting the installation of a new long-range theater nuclear missile contingent in
Western Europe, President Carter and his advisors hoped to assuage Schmidt’s concern
that NATO did not have the capability to credibly respond to limited SS-20 strikes on
Western Europe. During their meetings with the Western Europeans before December 12,
1979, Aaron and other American diplomats asserted that new missile deployments in
Western Europe would close the gap in NATO’s deterrence strategy and equip NATO
with the ability to conduct limited nuclear strikes against Soviet military targets in
response to Soviet SS-20 strikes on Western Europe, should they occur. West German
and British military strategists believed that equipping NATO with a limited nuclear
response option outside of traditional NATO strategic forces would enhance the
credibility of the American threat of nuclear retaliation and more effectively deter the
Soviets from attacking Western Europe with SS-20s in the first place. 4 5 Even though
3
"The 'Double-Track' Decision on Theatre Nuclear Forces," December 12,
1979, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_27040.htm (accessed
August 27, 2010).
4
"Bilateral with the FRG on TNF Issues," October 16, 1978, National
Security Archive, George Washington University, Washington, DC,
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb301/doc04.pdf (accessed August 27,
2010).
5
"TNF Bilateral with UK," October 11, 1978, National Security Archive,
George Washington University, Washington, DC, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
nukevault/ebb301/doc03.pdf (accessed August 27, 2010).
3
Carter and his advisors believed that the Soviets were already deterred from attacking
Western Europe by previously existing NATO strategic forces, Carter supported
Euromissile deployment because he wanted America’s NATO allies to feel assured that
NATO had the capability to credibly respond to all types of Soviet aggression, including
Soviet long-range theater nuclear missile strikes on Western Europe.
The second reason why President Carter supported Euromissile deployment was
to prevent the Soviet Union from using threats of limited SS-20 strikes against Western
Europe as a means to intimidate and coerce political concessions from America’s NATO
allies. 6 Brzezinski and Aaron did not want to give the Soviets free reign to intimidate the
Western Europeans with their SS-20s, and thereby allow the Soviets to undermine
Alliance cohesion. A particularly worrisome prospect for President Carter and his
advisors was that unchecked Soviet threats of SS-20 strikes against Western Europe
would cause the NATO Alliance to disintegrate and catalyze a process of
“Finlandization” in Western Europe. Finlandization meant that the Western Europeans
could be coerced, under threat of SS-20 nuclear strikes, into adopting a more neutral
foreign policy, as opposed to a foreign policy strictly aligned with the United States. 7
Euromissile deployment, in Carter’s mind, would reassure America’s NATO allies that
NATO’s deterrence strategy was credible and thus prevent the Soviets from believing
that they could intimidate and exact political concessions from the Western Europeans
with impunity.
The third reason why President Carter supported the deployment of new longrange theater nuclear forces was to give the United States bargaining leverage if the
Soviets accepted NATO’s offer to commence TNF arms control talks. President Carter
and his advisors calculated that the only way to convince the Soviet Union to reduce the
size of its SS-20 long-range theater nuclear missile contingent would be for the NATO
Alliance to threaten the Soviet Union with a plan to introduce a long-range theater
nuclear force of its own. President Carter reasoned that the Soviet Union would have no
incentive to engage in TNF arms control negotiations if NATO had no corresponding
theater nuclear force of its own that it could bargain away during arms control
6
Zbigniew Brzezinski, telephone interview by author, June 25, 2010.
David Aaron, interview by author, RAND Corporation, Arlington, VA, June
29, 2010.
7
4
negotiations. 8 President Carter and his advisors hoped that deploying nuclear missiles in
Western Europe would induce the Soviet leadership to engage in arms control
negotiations with the Alliance and consequently reduce its own SS-20 theater nuclear
forces in exchange for reductions in NATO’s Euromissile force.
Before detailing why President Carter supported Euromissile deployment, it is
necessary to answer the following question: Why did some prominent Western European
political and military leaders – most importantly West German Chancellor Helmut
Schmidt – publicly question the credibility of America’s nuclear umbrella over Western
Europe in the late 1970s?
The advent of strategic nuclear parity in the late 1970s combined with the Soviet
Union’s decision to deploy SS-20s within striking distance of Western Europe prompted
Schmidt to worry that a gap had been created in NATO’s flexible response deterrence
strategy. Originally articulated by NATO in 1967, the flexible response deterrence
strategy was meant to convey to the Soviets that NATO was determined to “resist Soviet
aggression at any level” and “willing to escalate a conflict to whatever degree necessary
to bring it to an end.” 9 With the concept of an “escalation ladder” in mind, the NATO
Alliance created a number of response options to complement NATO’s already-existing
strategic nuclear forces stationed in Western Europe – including forward-based nuclear
bombers and Poseidon nuclear armed submarines – so that NATO had the capability to
respond to different types of Soviet aggression with its own response options.
In order to deter the Soviets from starting a European theater nuclear war in the
first place, NATO’s flexible response strategy depended on a “Soviet perception that its
use of nuclear weapons at any level would result in a certain [NATO] nuclear response
that would frustrate achievement of the military objectives of the initial strikes.” 10 By
equipping itself with other response options outside of strategic systems, NATO
strategists calculated that the Alliance would have the capability to respond to all types of
8
Richard A. Ericson Jr. and George S. Vest, "SCC Meeting on PRM-38,
August 23," August 23, 1978, National Security Archive, George Washington
University, Washington, DC, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb301/
doc02.pdf (accessed August 27, 2010).
9
Cartwright and Critchley, 6.
10
RAND Corporation, NATO Long-Range Theater Nuclear Force Modernization:
Rationale and Utility, 3, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/
GetTRDoc?AD=ADA227477&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf (accessed August 26, 2010).
5
Soviet aggression without immediately being forced to escalate to the strategic nuclear
level as its initial response option. NATO strategists believed that having a wide array
of possible response options would “make the threatened use of nuclear weapons
believable and provide possibilities other than the unthinkable and therefore incredible,
option of all-out nuclear response.” 11 However, “in the event of a major [Soviet] nuclear
attack [on Western Europe], NATO would maintain a capability for a massive strategic
nuclear response” against the Soviet Union itself. 12 Under the flexible response strategy,
employing strategic nuclear forces on a massive scale against the Soviet Union itself was
the ultimate response option if Soviet aggression against Western Europe could not be
countered with conventional or battlefield nuclear forces.
Chancellor Schmidt believed that the advent of strategic parity and SS-20
deployments revealed that NATO was losing its ability to respond to a Soviet nuclear
attack on Western Europe. Schmidt argued that strategic parity “neutralized” the strategic
nuclear capabilities of both superpowers. 13 Since both superpowers possessed “securesecond strike capabilities” as a result of strategic parity, Schmidt believed that neither the
United States nor the Soviet Union would be willing to employ its strategic nuclear
systems against the other superpower, because such a use of strategic systems by one side
would invite the other side to massively retaliate with their own strategic forces. 14
According to James Thomson, a National Security Council staffer serving under
President Carter, “Western strategic analysts believed that in Soviet eyes, strategic parity
would reduce U.S. willingness to use its strategic nuclear forces in contingencies short of
nuclear attack on the United States itself, therefore sharply reducing the credibility of the
American nuclear umbrella over Europe.” 15
11
Cartwright and Critchley, 6.
J. Michael Legge, Theater Nuclear Weapons and the NATO Strategy of
Flexible Response, International Security and Arms Control (Santa Monica: RAND,
1983), 9.
13
Helmut Schmidt, "The 1977 Alastair Buchan Memorial Lecture" (lecture,
International Institute of Strategic Studies, London, October 28, 1977),
http://www.iiss.org/EasysiteWeb/ getresource.axd?AssetID=17434&type=full&servicetype=Attachment
(accessed August 27, 2010).
14
"Statement for the November NAC on TNF Issues," November 17, 1978,
National Security Archive, George Washington University, Washington, DC,
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb301/doc05.pdf (accessed August 27,
2010).
15
Thomson, 602.
12
6
The Western Europeans were also particularly frightened by the counterforce
capabilities of the SS-20: a SS-20 strike could cripple NATO by destroying “military
installations that supplied NATO’s conventional and nuclear forces in Central Europe.” 16
The SS-20 was mobile, highly accurate, and had the range to strike any target in Western
Europe. 17 Gregory Treverton, another former National Security Council staffer serving
under President Carter, stated that the Western Europeans feared that “the new Soviet
theater nuclear weapons (SS-20s) posed the possibility of limited Soviet nuclear attacks
on Western Europe, or threats thereof. The only Western response might be from the
central American strategic arsenal, an escalation that would risk the destruction of
American cities.” 18 Western Europeans feared that if NATO did not have the means to
respond to a Soviet SS-20 strike outside of Poseidon submarines, then the Soviets would
perceive this gap in NATO’s deterrence strategy and would no longer be deterred from
attacking Western Europe. 19 According to RAND analyst J. Michael Legge, the Western
Europeans demanded that NATO “maintain a complete spectrum of deterrent options so
that the Warsaw Pact should not be able to escalate the conflict to a level where the
Alliance would have no credible response.” 20 Schmidt feared that if NATO did not
maintain a complete spectrum of deterrent options, and if the Alliance had no nuclear
capability between U.S. strategic systems and medium-range systems only capable of
striking the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact countries, then “Soviet leaders might conclude that
they could launch widespread nuclear attacks against Western Europe from a sanctuary
inside the USSR.” 21 Schmidt believed that equipping NATO with a long-range theater
nuclear missile contingent of its own would give NATO “the capability to strike back
against Soviet territory from NATO territory in Europe and thereby gainsay any Soviet
perception that its homeland might be preserved as a sanctuary.” 22 Moreover, by
16
RAND Corporation, NATO Long-Range Theater Nuclear Force Modernization:
Rationale and Utility, 1.
17
CIA Report on Soviet Theater Nuclear Forces, NLC-8-16-3-1-2, Jimmy
Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta.
18
Gregory F. Treverton, "Nuclear Weapons and the 'Gray Area,'" Foreign
Affairs 57, no. 5 (Summer 1979): 1076, http://www.jstor.org/stable/
20040273 (accessed June 26, 2010).
19
"Bilateral with the FRG on TNF Issues.”
20
Legge, 36.
21
Legge, 36.
22
RAND Corporation, NATO Long-Range Theater Nuclear Force Modernization:
7
equipping itself with new long-range theater nuclear missiles, NATO would be able to
respond to Soviet nuclear strikes without being forced immediately to escalate to the use
of NATO’s strategic systems as its initial response option. 23
President Carter’s Three Reasons for Euromissile Deployment
Reason 1: Reassuring America’s NATO Allies
A number of unpopular political and diplomatic actions on Carter’s part – most
famously his unilateral decision to defer production of the neutron bomb in March 1978
and his decision to impose restrictions on cruise missile deployments in SALT II –
increased Western European concerns that Carter was closing off response options and
opening more gaps in NATO’s deterrence strategy. 24 In August 1978, President Carter
agreed with his advisors that there was a need for limited increases in long-range theater
nuclear systems capable of striking the Soviet Union from Western Europe. 25 The
documentary evidence – including transcripts of bilateral and multilateral meetings
between American and Western European diplomats that occurred between August 1978
and December 1979 – offers one story as to why President Carter supported Euromissile
deployment. However, interviews with former American principal policymakers –
including Brzezinski and Aaron – who were involved in the crafting of the Euromissile
deployment plan offer a different story as to why President Carter supported Euromissile
deployment.
Analyzing the transcripts and notes of bilateral and multilateral meetings between
the United States and its Western European allies might lead one to conclude that after
August 1978, Carter and his aides were convinced by the Western Europeans that a gap
did in fact exist in NATO’s deterrence strategy, which needed to be closed in order to
deter a Soviet SS-20 attack. For example, during his meetings with the Western
Europeans, Aaron articulated the same Western European “gaps in deterrence” argument
to justify American support for Euromissile deployment. In a series of March 1979
Rationale and Utility, 3.
23
"Bilateral with the FRG on TNF Issues.”
24
Treverton, “Gray Area,” 1082.
25
SCC, "Summary of Conclusions: SCC Meeting on PRM-38," September 2,
1978, NLC-31-147-7-22-4, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta.
8
bilateral meetings with the NATO allies, Aaron asserted that new missile deployments
were necessary in order to close the gap in NATO’s deterrence strategy.
“The U.S. considers that improvements in Soviet theater nuclear forces constitute
a deterrent problem for the Alliance in real terms, because it creates a gap in the
deterrent spectrum, and Soviet modernization suggests the Soviets are considering
taking advantage of this gap to enhance their nuclear warfighting capability.” 26
Similarly, in a June 1979 personal note to Chancellor Schmidt, Jimmy
Carter himself said that one the main reasons why he supported the deployment of a new
long-range missile contingent into Western Europe was because new missiles would
“strengthen deterrence by providing credible escalation options” for the NATO
Alliance. 27 Deploying the new missiles would close the gap in NATO’s deterrence
strategy and provide the Alliance with the capability to respond to limited SS-20 strikes
on NATO military installations without immediately being forced to escalate to the use of
NATO strategic forces as an initial response option. Likewise, during a November 1979
multilateral meeting with the NATO allies, Aaron stated, “the deployment of the Pershing
II and Ground-Launched Cruise missile will close the gap in the ladder of deterrence.
This step will ensure the necessary military capability to deter a [Soviet] attack.” 28
Analyzing the documentary evidence would lead one to conclude that after August 1978,
President Carter and his advisors were in fact convinced that a gap existed in NATO’s
deterrence strategy and that it was imperative from a military perspective to deploy new
missiles in order to close the gap and provide NATO with credible response options.
In spite of the documentary evidence, however, Brzezinski and Aaron stated that
neither they, nor other Carter advisors, actually ever believed that a gap existed in
NATO’s deterrence strategy in the first place. 29 30 Even though Aaron and other
American diplomats told Western European diplomats in their August 1978-December
26
James Thomson and David Aaron, Cable from James Thomson to U.S. Mission
NATO regarding David Aaron's meetings with NATO Permanent Representatives, March
22, 1979, NLC-16-127-3-44-3, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta.
27
Jimmy Carter, "Presidential Letter to Chancellor Schmidt," June 1,
1979, NLC-16-116-6-5-5, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta.
28
"TNF: Permreps 6 November Discussion of Integrated Decision Document Detailed Report," November 7, 1979, National Security Archive, George Washington
University, Washington, DC, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb301/
doc10.pdf (accessed August 27, 2010).
29
Aaron, interview by author.
30
Brzezinski, interview by author.
9
1979 meetings that they believed that there was a gap in NATO’s deterrence strategy that
increased NATO Europe’s vulnerability to a Soviet attack, they did not really believe that
the “gaps in deterrence” argument had merit.
The Americans had a markedly different perspective than the Western Europeans
on the condition of NATO’s deterrence strategy and Soviet military objectives. First,
Carter’s advisors did not believe that NATO’s flexible response strategy had grown
deficient as a result of strategic parity and SS-20 deployments. There was thus no
military imperative to deploy a new set of long-range theater nuclear missiles into Europe
to repair any deficiencies in NATO’s deterrence strategy, because NATO’s strategic
nuclear forces already deterred the Soviets from attacking Western Europe with
SS-20s. 31 32 Moreover, whereas Schmidt believed that strategic parity neutralized
Carter’s ability to use NATO’s strategic forces against the Soviet Union in retaliation for
a Soviet SS-20 attack on Western Europe, Aaron stated that he and other Carter
Administration officials did not think that strategic parity had in fact neutralized
President Carter’s ability to use NATO’s strategic forces as a response option. In fact,
Aaron emphasized that Carter could and would likely employ NATO’s strategic forces
against the Soviet Union in response to a limited Soviet SS-20 strike on Western
Europe. 33
Whereas the West Germans believed that the Soviet Union was going to exploit
NATO’s lack of response options and attack Western Europe with its SS-20s, Brzezinski
believed that the Soviets were not risk-takers and would not be willing to strike Western
Europe with their SS-20s. 34 The smallest possibility of an American retaliatory strategic
nuclear attack on the Soviet Union already deterred the Soviets from attacking Western
Europe with SS-20s in the first place. Therefore, based on the presumption that the
Soviets were already deterred from attacking Western Europe by American strategic
forces operating in Western Europe, some American policymakers – such as ACDA
31
Aaron, interview by author.
Richard N. Gardner, Mission Italy: On the Front Lines of the Cold War
(Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 227.
33
Aaron, interview by author.
34
Zbigniew Brzezinski, interview by John G. Hines, November 20, 1991,
National Security Archive, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb285/
vol%20ii%20Brzezinski.pdf (accessed August 26, 2010).
32
10
Director Paul Warncke – believed that it was strategically redundant to add more nuclear
missiles to Europe as a means of strengthening NATO’s deterrence strategy. 35
However, even though some American policymakers believed that European fears
of a Soviet SS-20 attack on Western Europe were somewhat exaggerated, Brzezinski and
Aaron believed that there was a political imperative to deploy a new contingent of longrange missiles capable of striking the Soviet Union from Western Europe. 36 37
Reassuring the Western Europeans that no gap existed in NATO’s response options was
one of President Carter’s primary motivations for supporting Euromissile deployment. If
the Euromissiles were going to make the Western Europeans feel more secure, then
Carter and his advisors decided that it would be best to give the Western Europeans what
they wanted. President Carter and his advisors did not want the Western Europeans to
believe (and publicly proclaim) that serious deficiencies and vulnerabilities existed in
NATO’s deterrence strategy: doing so risked creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. 38 The
reason that Aaron said that a gap existed in NATO’s flexible response strategy during his
August 1978-December 1979 meetings with the Western Europeans (even though he did
not actually believe that a gap existed in the first place) was to reassure them that
President Carter understood and was devising a solution that would resolve their security
concerns. Carter and his advisors envisioned that new Euromissile deployments would
demonstrate the solidarity of the NATO Alliance to the Soviets and would further deter
the Soviets from launching their SS-20s against Western Europe. Furthermore, taking
concrete steps to make the Western Europeans feel less vulnerable would encourage
Alliance unity. 39
Reason 2: Prevent Soviets from Intimidating Western Europeans with SS-20s
Whereas Chancellor Schmidt had always argued that the Soviets would exploit
the gap in NATO’s deterrence strategy and attack Western Europe with SS-20s, the West
Germans indicated to American diplomats during their August 1978-December 1979
meetings that the Soviets might not strike Western Europe with SS-20s and use them
35
Gardner, 227.
Aaron, interview by author.
37
Brzezinski, interview by author.
38
Treverton, “Gray Area,” 1080.
39
Ericson and Vest, "SCC Meeting on PRM-38, August 23."
36
11
instead as a means to intimidate the Western Europeans: “[T]he Soviets might regard
political coercion as less risky and offering higher payoffs” than an actual SS-20 strike on
Western Europe. 40 Brzezinski said that he worried that the Soviets would use their SS20s to “intimidate” and “exert political pressure” over the Western Europeans. 41 The
Soviets could use the SS-20s as one military instrument in a wider campaign of political
coercion directed against Western Europe. Brzezinski and Aaron feared that during a
crisis, the Soviets might use threats of SS-20 attacks on Western Europe to exact valuable
political concessions from the Western Europeans. In a 1991 interview, Brzezinski said
that the perception inside the Carter White House was that the Soviets “sought to win
through intimidation rather than warfighting.” 42 The Soviets would not risk launching
SS-20s against Western Europe, but they would play upon European fears of
vulnerability in order to obtain valuable political concessions from the Western
Europeans. Given American concerns that the Soviets might try to exact political
concessions from America’s NATO allies with their SS-20s, Brzezinski and Aaron
believed that the Euromissiles would prevent the Soviets from believing that they could
intimidate America’s allies with impunity. 43 44
In one February 1979 meeting with David Aaron, the West Germans also argued
that threats of SS-20 strikes on Western Europe, if left unchecked by NATO, would
catalyze a process of Finlandization in Western Europe: “[West German Minister]
Juergen Ruhfus and other senior West Germans spoke frankly about what they called
‘Soviet efforts to Finlandize the Federal Republic.’ They expressed concern that the
failure to respond to the SS-20 will be exploited by the USSR to that end.” 45 David
Aaron said that he and other Carter aides did not consider as exaggeration the possibility
that the Soviets would try to intimidate and Finlandize West Germany and other Western
40
Leslie Gelb, "US Objectives Paper for the Fall Bilaterals on Theater
Nuclear Issues," September 8, 1978, NLC-31-147-7-14-3, Jimmy Carter Presidential
Library, Atlanta.
41
Brzezinski, interview by author.
42
Brzezinski, interview by John G. Hines.
43
Brzezinski, interview by author.
44
Aaron, interview by author.
45
David Aaron, "Long-Range Theater Nuclear Forces and Gray Areas,"
February 13, 1979, Declassified Documents Reference System (accessed August 27,
2010).
12
European allies with threats of SS-20 strikes on Western Europe. 46 In short, Brzezinski
and Aaron wanted to prevent America’s strong NATO allies, like West Germany, from
becoming more like Finland, which in the late 1970s was a neutral state neither aligned
with the United States nor with the Soviet Union. Brzezinski and Aaron feared that if
NATO failed to counter SS-20 deployments with its own missile deployments, then the
Western Europeans would be forced to shift away from their pro-U.S. political and
military alignment to a non-aligned political orientation in order to protect themselves
from a Soviet SS-20 attack. American policymakers envisioned Euromissiles as a means
of “maintaining NATO solidarity” among the Western European members of the
Alliance and preventing the Soviets from exacting political valuable political concessions
from the Western Europeans with threats of SS-20 strikes. 47
Reason 3: Bargaining Leverage for TNF Arms Control Negotiations
A number of Western European leaders – including Chancellor Schmidt and
Dutch Prime Minister Dries Van Agt – said that it was imperative that the Alliance
develop a theater nuclear weapons arms control negotiating posture in tandem with a plan
for new missile deployments. Without a firm arms control posture in place, new missile
deployments would not receive popular and parliamentary support throughout a number
of Western European nations, and might be rejected altogether. 48
49
Carter and his
advisors supported the formulation of an arms control track together with a missile
deployment plan because they believed that the arms control track could “help improve
the political climate [in Western Europe] for NATO [missile] deployments” and
46
Aaron, interview by author.
David Aaron, "Report on Consultations with the Belgian, Dutch, and
Italian Governments," March 20, 1979, Declassified Documents Reference System
(accessed August 27, 2010).
48
Memorandum of Conversation between President Carter and Prime Minister
van Agt, December 7, 1979, Cold War International History Project,
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/va2/docs/Doc12_VanAgtCarter120779.pdf
(accessed August 27, 2010).
49
Stephen Larrabee, Memorandum of Conversation between Zbigniew
Brzezinski and Helmut Schmidt, July 25, 1979, NLC-23-64-14-6-5, Jimmy Carter
Presidential Library, Atlanta.
47
13
“strengthen Alliance cohesion through Allied participation in managing the arms control
component of Alliance security.” 50
However, when some Alliance members – including Denmark – suggested that
NATO initiate TNF arms control talks with the Soviets while deferring a decision on new
missile deployments, American diplomats responded that a TNF arms control track had
to be a “complement to, not a substitute for, TNF modernization.” 51 President Carter
supported the first track of the double-track decision – new long-range missile
deployments in Europe – in order to provide NATO with bargaining leverage in case the
Soviets accepted NATO’s offer to commence arms control negotiations on long-range
theater nuclear weapons. American diplomats told the Western Europeans during their
August 1978-December 1979 meetings that developing a TNF arms control negotiating
posture without a firm missile deployment plan approved by the NATO Alliance would
not be a realistic strategy aimed at reducing the SS-20 threat to Western Europe. The
Soviets would have no incentive to engage in any TNF arms control negotiation with
NATO if the Soviet Union itself was not directly threatened by a NATO long-range
theater nuclear weapons force. The best way to exert leverage over the Soviets into
constraining and reducing the size of their SS-20 force would be for NATO to create a
long-range theater nuclear force of its own, which directly threatened the Soviet Union.
The idea was that only when the Soviets felt directly threatened by a NATO long-range
theater nuclear force would they come to the negotiating table willing to put restrictions
on their own SS-20 force in exchange for corresponding restrictions on NATO’s
Euromissiles. David Aaron said in November 1979, “only if the Soviet Union is faced
with concrete action in the deployment area will they agree to reduce and limit their own
forces.” 52 While the NATO Alliance said that “concrete arms control achievements
which reduce the Soviet threat could reduce [NATO’s] own TNF requirements,” the
NATO Alliance also affirmed that that some missile deployments were going to be
necessary irrespective of any outcome on TNF arms control agreements, in order to
50
SCC, "Summary of Conclusions: Theater Nuclear Forces Arms Control,"
April 12, 1979, NLC-31-148-2-11-0, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta.
51
SCC, “Theater Nuclear Forces Arms Control,” NLC-31-148-2-11-0.
52
Permreps 6 November Discussion of Integrated Decision Document.
14
restore Western European “confidence in the viability of NATO’s spectrum of
deterrence.” 53 54
Conclusion
During my interview with David Aaron at RAND in June 2010, the former
Deputy National Security Advisor repeatedly emphasized that in the case of the
Euromissiles, reassurance of America’s NATO allies, not deterrence of the Soviet Union,
was the primary objective of Euromissile deployment. President Carter’s support for
Euromissile deployment should be viewed and regarded by historians as an Americanbacked measure designed to rebuild European confidence in the credibility of NATO’s
deterrence strategy. From the American perspective, there was primarily a “political and
psychological” need, as opposed to a military need, to deploy new long-range theater
missiles into Western Europe. 55 According to Brzezinski and Aaron, even though the
Americans believed that the NATO already possessed a sufficient number of response
options to deter a Soviet attack of Western Europe, the Western Europeans did not share
this same sentiment. The Western Europeans believed that deployment of a new longrange theater nuclear missile contingent was required in order to equip NATO with more
response options, enhance the credibility of the American threat of nuclear retaliation,
and deter the Soviets from attacking Western Europe with their own SS-20 long-range
theater nuclear missiles. Acquiescing to the Western European demand for new missile
deployments would encourage Alliance unity and minimize Western European feelings
of insecurity. Moreover, President Carter and his advisors supported Euromissile
deployments in order to prevent the Soviets from playing on the Western European
feelings of insecurity, and using threats of nuclear missile strikes as a means to compel
valuable political and military concessions from the Western Europeans.
53
"TNF Modernization -- Detailed Report of Discussion on IDD at 28
November Session of Reinforced Permreps," November 29, 1979, National Security
Archive, George Washington University, Washington, DC, http://www.gwu.edu/
~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb301/doc11.pdf (accessed August 27, 2010).
54
Briefing Book for CIA Director Stansfield Turner on TNF Arms Control
Objectives and Principles, April 12, 1979, National Security Archive, George
Washington University, Washington, DC, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/
ebb301/doc07.pdf (accessed August 27, 2010).
55
Gardner, 227.
15
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