The Evolution and Destruction of Doctrinal Consensus, 1980–87

Abstract

While the public gaze focused on the diplomacy of the INF negotiations, deployment controversies and superpower relations from 1980 to 1987, NATO’s High Level Group and the staff group of the Nuclear Planning Group slowly analysed the mundane matters of nuclear requirements and doctrine of which the 1979 INF double-track decision was only one element. The venue for conducting the nuclear ‘roles and missions’ study commissioned by NATO in December 1979 was the High Level Group. Consisting of high-ranking assistants to NATO defence ministers, the HLG was designed to assure difficult nuclear decisions received appropriate political attention before becoming troublesome. It began as part of the Long Term Defence Plan in 1977 and was used to build consensus and avoid repeating the 1977 neutron bomb disaster, which caused allied political leaders, particularly the West Germans, to shy away from the difficult task of building alliance consensus for nuclear decisions.¹ Like the SCG, the United States held the chair, with each participating member nation of the Nuclear Planning Group represented, usually by a defence ministry official. American influence was of ‘enormous importance and significance’, and formed the core of the group together with Britain and West Germany.²