NATO and the Nuclear Revolution: A Crisis of Credibility, 1966-1967 (Nuclear History Program) - Hardcover

Haftendorn, Helga

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198280033 ISBN 13: 9780198280033

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 1996

Synopsis

This book deals with the crucially imprtant NATO crises of 1966-67--a period when a number of issues which had been developing for some time within NATO came to a head. It concentrates on the intensive reorientation of NATO strategy from the departure of France from the integrated military command to the adoption of Flexible Response and the Hermel report on the Future Tasks of the Alliance.

The author sets out the diplomacy of this period in a broader historical and theoretical context and provides four detailed, and related, case studies. The first case deals with problems of doctrine stemming from American determination to reduce NATO's dependence on what it believed to be incredible nuclear threats and the European resistance to any diminution of the US nuclear guarantee. The second case considers the attempt to ease European concerns about dependence on American nuclear policy. The third examines the programmatic consequences of the strategic shift. Finally, there is an analysis of the process by which the Harmel Report was set up to establish political guidance for the Alliance in the context of the French withdrawal and the move to detente.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Using French President de Gaulle's March 1966 threat to leave NATO as a starting point, this book tells a three-fold story. First, it gives a penetrating analysis how the North Atlantic Alliance has coped with the nuclear revolution and has overcome the crisis of credibility in European-American relations when the strategy of massive retaliation had lost its usefulness. Second, it reports how the disagreements in NATO were finally resolved and a new strategic concept (MC 14/3) was adopted, agreement on force planning, troop stationing and offset achieved, a formula for nuclear consultation found, and the Harmel Report on the management of East-West detente accepted. Third, it challenges some of the dominant theoretical explanations by structural realists and liberal institutionalists relating to alliance cohesion against the empirical findings of the case studies.

About the Author

Helga Haftendorn is Professor of International Relations at the Free University of Berlin and Director of its Center on Transatlantic Foreign and Security Policy Studies.

Edition details

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0198280033
• ISBN 13: 9780198280033
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 460