Domestic Consensus, Security and the Western Alliance

Abstract

In an article entitled ‘Nato Myths’ (Foreign Policy, Winter 1981/82) Lawrence Freedman observes: ‘Whether a strategic doctrine is acceptable to the people for whom it has been developed is as important in an alliance of democratic societies as the doctrine’s ability to impress the enemy’. Democracy, in Freedman’s view, is crucial to defence ‘because in a real crisis public pressure will affect the implementation and success of any doctrine’.