Callaghan,the British Government and the N-Bomb Controversy |
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Authors: | Mauro Elli |
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Institution: | 1. Centre for Foreign Policy and Public Opinion Studies, State University of Milan, Milan, Italy;2. Department of Political Science, Law, and International Studies, University of Padua, Italy |
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Abstract: | The essay focuses on the ERW controversy in the context of NATO modernisation of tactical nuclear weapons and Soviet deployment of SS-20s. The rationale of a low-yield warhead supposedly tailor-made for the European theatre enabled the Americans to ask their allies for a prior commitment on deployment, while the Europeans retorted that the process of decision making should be triggered by a US previous determination of whether to produce the neutron bomb. Consultations were essentially a FRG-US-UK affair. Against this background British inability to properly assess the genuine German position was a very important factor, resulting in a persistent climate of uncertainty. Bonn's decision not to inform the British that on 20 January 1978 they agreed to give the Americans a qualified green light to deploy ERWs on German soil represents a blunder in this sense. It kept the UK government wary, instead of possibly precipitating a solution of the controversy by hammering out the terms of an arms control offer to the Soviets according to a ‘dual track’ approach. |
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