Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [146]
But from its foundation in May 1955 the Warsaw Pact was always an instrument of Soviet power. In 1956 in Hungary and 1968 in Czechoslovakia the Soviets had shown that any movement in eastern Europe which might threaten their own military interests would be crushed without mercy or apology. The experts might and did argue about the precise details of Soviet military doctrine. But what was clear to me and to anyone prepared to reflect on past events and present circumstances was that the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact ‘allies’ could not be trusted to refrain from adventurism in Europe any more than in the Third World.
Moreover, by the time we took office the Soviets were ruthlessly pressing ahead to gain military advantage. Soviet military spending, which was believed to be some five times the published figures, took between 12 and 14 per cent of the Soviet Union’s GNP.* The Warsaw Pact outnumbered NATO by three-to-one in main battle tanks and artillery and by more than two-to-one in tactical aircraft. Moreover, the Soviets were rapidly improving the quality of their equipment — tanks, submarines, surface ships and aircraft. The build-up of the Soviet Navy enabled them to project their power across the world. Improvements in Soviet anti-ballistic missile defences threatened the credibility of the alliance’s nuclear deterrent — not least the British independent deterrent — at the same time as the Soviets were approaching parity in strategic missiles with the United States.
INTERMEDIATE-RANGE NUCLEAR WEAPONS (INF)
It was, however, in what in the jargon are known as ‘long-range theatre nuclear forces’ (LRTNF) — usually called intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) — that the most pressing and difficult decisions were required. The so-called ‘dual-track’ agreement to modernize NATO’s medium-range nuclear weapons, while engaging in talks with the Soviet Union on arms control, had been taken in principle by the previous Labour Government; whether they would have seen the decision through to deployment I somewhat doubt.
This agreement was needed to deal with the threat from new Soviet nuclear weapons. The Soviet SS-20 mobile ballistic missiles and their new supersonic Backfire bomber could strike western European targets from the territory of the Soviet Union. But the Americans had no equivalent weapons stationed on European soil. The only NATO weapons able to strike the USSR from Europe were those carried by the ageing UK Vulcan bombers and the F1–11s stationed in Britain. Both forces could be vulnerable to a Soviet first strike. Of course, the United States could be expected by an attacking Soviet army at some point to have recourse to its own strategic nuclear weapons. But the essence of deterrence is its credibility. Now that the Soviet Union had achieved a broad parity in strategic nuclear weapons, some thought that this reduced the likelihood of the United States taking such action. In any case, there were many in Europe who suggested that the United States would not risk its own cities in defence of Europe.
Why would the Soviets wish to acquire this new capability to win nuclear war in Europe? The answer was that they hoped ultimately to split the alliance.
For NATO, however, the possession of effective medium-range nuclear forces in Europe had a very different purpose. NATO’s strategy was based on having a range of conventional and nuclear weapons so that the USSR could never be confident of overcoming NATO at one level of weaponry without triggering a response at a higher level leading ultimately to full-scale nuclear war. This strategy of ‘flexible response’ would not be effective if there were no Europe-based nuclear weapons as a link between the conventional and strategic nuclear response. NATO knew that the Warsaw Pact forces would never be held for more than a short time if they attacked with all the strength at their disposal in central Europe. That is why NATO repeatedly pledged that although it would never