BRITAIN IN NATO - THE FIRST SIX DECADES
acknowledged NATO's need to modernise its nuclear forces and confirmed that West Germany would accept deployment on its territory provided others did the same. Lord Carrington, the British Foreign Secretary, contended that a comprehensive approach on arms control was as an integral part of the modernisation programme (No. 25).
14. Special session of the North Atlantic Council in celebration of NATO s thirtieth anniversary.
December 1979: the double-track decision NATO Foreign and Defence Ministers met on 12 December 1979 and agreed to the deployment, beginning in 1983, of 108 Pershing nand 464 ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCM), all with ingle warheads. This constituted the Alliance's mos~ important decision of the 1970s. In parallel, and ~ order not to leave the moral high ground of the dIsarmament debate to the Russians , 1,000 US nuclear warheads would be withdrawn from Europe a oon a possible. In sanctioning the decision, ATO minister asserted that the modernisation programme was an appropriate response to uperiority on the part of the Warsaw Pact forces. In conjunction with the LRTNF deployment, NATO al 0 offered immediate talks with Mo cow on limiting theatre nuclear systems on the condition that any reductions would be based on equal numbers and capabilities and that implementation was adequately verifiable ( o. 26). For Britain, the outcome was ' thoroughly satisfactory' and more positive than had been expected. 3 Other issue were addressed, with ATO official expressing concern over events in Iran. A major worry was that the Islamic Republic of Ayatollah Khomeini would be replaced by a Marxi t regime thus providing Moscow with access 3 The TIme • 13 December 1979. 12
to the warm water ports of the Persian Gulf. The US Defence Secretary, Harold Brown cautioned that a Soviet dominated state controlling Iran's oil and threatening the Gulf was against Western interests and that all possible steps should be taken to prevent this outcome. Of more immediate concern was the storming of the US embassy in November by Iranian revolutionary students. The resultant crisis, in which 52 American diplomats were held hostage, came to dominate the US political agenda and was a major test of Alliance cohesion. Meeting on 13 and 14 December in a six-hour marathon, the North Atlantic Council expressed concern over the direct or indirect actions of the Soviet Union and some of its allies and noted the deterioration in human rights and fundamental freedoms in certain countries. 4 In a speech to the Foreign Policy Association in New York on 18 December, Thatcher expressed her views in unequivocal terms: 'The time has come when the West must begin to substitute action for introspection. ' 5
Afghanistan: NATO's response On 24-25 December, 75,000 Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in support of the Marxist government which had come to power in a bloody coup the previous year. Their action brought the world to 'one of those genuine watersheds, which are so often predicted, which so rarely occur - and which take almost everyone by surprise when they do'.6 NATO's response to the Soviet invasion was far from unanimous. All members were in agreement that Moscow had violated international law and flouted the indivisibility of detente and self-determination. But there were difference of opinion on how best to respond. The Americans favoured a firm respon e with President Carter withdrawing the SALT II Treaty from the Senate. De cribing the invasion as 'the most erious threat to the peace since World War II' , he asked for an increa e in military spending, the strengthening of military presence in the region and enhancement of the Alliance's defence capabilities in general. 7 e also impo ed embargoe on grain and technology shipments to the Soviet Union and announced that America would boycott the 1980 Mo cow Olympic . The US position was welcomed by Britain and We t Germany who argued that the We tern re pon e 4 orth Atlantic ouncil, Final ommunique, 13-14 December 1979. 5 The Times, 19 December 1979. 6 Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Yea~ (HarperoHins, 1993), p. 87. 7 Public Papers of the Pre idents of the United State .' Jimmy Carter, 1980 (U GPO, 1981), p. 40.