Defining Détente: NATO's Struggle for Identity, 1967-1984
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Defining Détente: NATO’s Struggle for Identity, 1967-1984 by Susan Colbourn A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Toronto © Copyright by Susan Elizabeth Colbourn 2018 Defining Détente: NATO’s Struggle for Identity, 1967-1984 Susan Elizabeth Colbourn Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Toronto 2018 Abstract The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defined détente as one of its central tasks with the Harmel Report of December 1967, alongside the Alliance’s traditional mission of defending the West. After a series of historic improvements in the early 1970s, however, détente’s fortunes faded. East-West relations deteriorated over the second half of the 1970s and into the 1980s, leading many to dub the period a “Second Cold War.” What, then, did this mean for the Atlantic Alliance and the double philosophy of détente and defense staked out in the Harmel Report? Defining Détente: NATO’s Struggle for Identity, 1967-1984 explores détente’s contested nature and its various meanings for policy-makers and publics in the United States, Canada, and across Western Europe. Détente was an ongoing source of tension in transatlantic relations, but neither allied disagreements nor the marked deterioration of East-West relations changed the Alliance’s overall strategy. Détente and defense remained vital to NATO’s posture for the remainder of the Cold War and well into the post–Cold War era. !ii Acknowledgments This dissertation, like so many, would not have been possible without the support of others. Many thanks to my dissertation committee: to Robert Bothwell, whose faith in me and what this project could become was unflagging; to Lynne Viola, who always encouraged me to take my ideas in new directions and to just keep writing; and, to Timothy Sayle, who listened to my ramblings and generously shared documents and ideas from his own work. I am grateful for their suggestions, advice, and encouragement throughout. Thanks also to Thomas Schwartz and John English for their comments on the final draft. Any omissions or oversights that remain are mine alone. Support from a number of institutions made it possible to undertake this project. Archival research was possible thanks to the Ontario Graduate Scholarship program, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, the Scowcroft Institute at Texas A&M University, the John A. Adams Center at the Virginia Military Institute, the Simons Foundation, and the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (now Global Affairs Canada), as well as the School of Graduate Studies, the Munk School of Global Affairs, and the Department of History (with a special thanks to the Jeanne Armour endowment) at the University of Toronto. The Summer Institute on Conducting Archival Research (SICAR) gave me tips on how to wrangle all of the documents collected along the way, while the organizers and participants of the 2015 Nuclear History Boot Camp and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR)’s 2016 Summer Institute gave me ample suggestions about where this project might go. To all of the archivists and declassification specialists who made it possible to access these records, I am very grateful. Thanks also go to Arne Hofmann and Jeremi Suri. Without Arne, I would never have undertaken this adventure in the first place. Without Jeremi, I never would have become a historian of NATO. It only seems fitting that both of their doctoral dissertations —and the books they later became—ended up shaping this project in meaningful ways. !iii Friends and colleagues at the University of Toronto made this process an enjoyable one, especially Jennifer Bonder, Cathleen Clark, Caroline Cormier, Katie Davis, Laurie Drake, Ross Huyskamp, Maris Rowe-McCulloch, and Erica Toffoli. Thanks also to many historian friends made along the way, including Andrea Chiampan, Markian Dobczansky, Mathias Haeussler, Asa McKercher, Ryan Musto, Graeme Thompson, and Anna Whittington. Lastly, thanks to my family. To Charles Colbourn, Karen Colbourn, Sarah Colbourn, and Violet Syrotiuk, thanks for always reminding me that this was possible. To Simon Miles, your love was a constant source of encouragement, your company brightened many of my research trips, and your brainstorming and editing made this a far better dissertation. Glad we could do this whole dissertation thing together—it wouldn’t have been the same without you. !iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments iii Acronyms vii Introduction 1 Crises, East and West 5 Chapter Breakdown 14 Chapter 1: Arm to Parley 18 Future Tasks 22 Making Détente Multilateral 34 Ostpolitik and Détente 49 Conclusion 56 Chapter 2: Falling Behind? 58 Transatlantic Troubles 60 Détente and its Discontents 69 Meeting the Soviet Challenge 83 Conclusion 93 Chapter 3: It Takes Two 94 Killer Warheads 97 A Modernizing Mission 109 Parallel Paths 116 Conclusion 129 Chapter 4: Carrots and Sticks 131 The Greatest Threat to Peace 133 “Solidarity Does Not Mean Uniformity” 143 Enter Reagan 155 The Sky is Falling 172 Conclusion 185 Chapter 5: Revisiting Harmel 187 Out of Step 190 !v Eureka 199 The Eye of the Storm 205 Even More Problems 210 The Specter of 1983 214 Conclusion 224 Chapter 6: “No Euroshimas” 228 The Nuclear Nightmare 230 An “Existential Stress-Test” 246 Staying the Course 251 Back to the Future 259 Conclusion 272 Conclusion: The Irony of the Harmel Report 275 Accidents and Ambiguities 277 Chronic Problems 280 Bibliography 282 Archival Collections 282 Document Publications 286 Media 288 Memoirs and Diaries 289 Articles and Books 290 Unpublished Manuscripts 302 !vi Acronyms AFL-CIO American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations APAG Atlantic Policy Advisory Group CDE Conference on Disarmament in Europe CDU Christlich Demokratische Union (Christian Democratic Union) CFE conventional forces in Europe CIA Central Intelligence Agency CND Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament CSCE Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe DPC Defence Planning Committee END European Nuclear Disarmament ERW enhanced-radiation warhead FCO Foreign and Commonwealth Office FDP Freie Demokratische Partei (Free Democratic Party) ICBMs intercontinental ballistic missiles INF intermediate-range nuclear forces LRTNF long-range theater nuclear forces LTDP Long-Term Defense Program MBFR mutual and balanced force reduction MIRVs multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles NAC North Atlantic Council !vii NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NPG Nuclear Planning Group NSC National Security Council SACEUR Supreme Allied Commander Europe SALT Strategic Arms Limitation Talks SCC Special Coordination Committee SCG Special Consultative Group SHAPE Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe SLBMs submarine-launched ballistic missiles SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany) USICA United States Information Communication Agency !viii Introduction “What is détente? What is the meaning of this mysterious French word which has no equivalent in either the English or, more significantly, the Russian language?”1 — Joseph Luns, 1976 “That’s détente, comrade. You don’t have it, I don’t have it!”2 — James Bond, 1981 Détente had no universal definition. Translated from French, the word described a relaxation or loosening of tensions. In the context of the Cold War struggle, such a relaxation encompassed a wide range of issues. David Owen, the British foreign secretary in the late 1970s, once described it as “an immensely complex process, comprising innumerable strands on different levels.” Détente, at least as Owen defined it, encompassed East-West dialogue, economic relations, cultural connections, an ongoing ideological competition between capitalism and communism, and “military vigilance.”3 Some historians have characterized détente as nothing more than a perpetuation of the Cold War. “The ‘peace’ created by détente,” Jeremi Suri argues, “entrenched the social and political status quo.”4 John Lewis Gaddis takes this argument even further, 1 Joseph M.A.H. Luns, “The Present State of East-West Relations,” NATO Review, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Apr. 1976): 3. 2 For Your Eyes Only, directed by John Glen (1981). 3 Owen remarks, Annual Banquet of the Diplomatic and Commonwealth Writers Association, March 3, 1977, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), RG 59, Office of the Deputy Secretary, Records of Warren Christopher, Box 26, “CSCE – Allies” folder. 4 Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 216. 1 !2 contending that the Cold War’s end was directly linked to the death of détente; “because détente perpetuated—and had been meant to perpetuate—the Cold War,” Gaddis concluded, “only killing détente could end the Cold War.”5 But did Ronald Reagan actually kill détente? To be sure, he moved away from détente as it had been envisioned by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Reagan, as he so often made clear, was not interested in an accommodation with the Soviet Union designed to manage US decline. Did that mean Reagan ‘killed’ détente? Or simply that he envisioned it in a different form, adapted to the circumstances of the 1980s and to the shortcomings and domestic backlash engendered by Nixon and Kissinger’s earlier efforts? More importantly, would Reagan’s policies have mattered much if Mikhail Gorbachev had not appeared on the scene? European historians have, by and large, rejected Gaddis’s characterization