The Last Great Nuclear Debate - by T Halverson (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Fundamental changes in international relations during 1989-90 toppled the pillars of the security policy paradigm which had characterised the Cold War. That convulsion swept aside the last of many nuclear debates to rend NATO. Immediately the nuclear problems which had plagued the 1980s were tossed aside. Yet many important and interesting elements of the decade's nuclear history had not been fully explained. With the nuclear issue's rapid shift to irrelevancy, previously hidden information on the period became at once less secret and more easily available. Thus through extensive interviews with participants and careful analysis of open sources, missing parts of the puzzle emerged. This book is intended to provide a fuller explanation of NATO's last great nuclear debate.

From the Back Cover

Much has been written about NATO's nuclear problems of the 1980s. Yet little attention has been paid to the perspectives of America, Britain and West Germany in the arms control process and nuclear doctrine debates. This book illuminates previously unnoticed developments which emerged from two unstudied Alliance institutions: the High-Level Group and the Special Consultative Group which was created to coordinate arms control policy. National perspectives manifested themselves through these institutions and this book identifies national preferences and explains the decision-making paradigm which dominated NATO until the INF Treaty of 1987, after which West Germany began to break out of the constraints of the old pattern. The book incorporates unpublished information on important doctrinal developments which document how West Germany achieved, and then lost, long-standing nuclear goals. It also analyzes the relationship between civilian and military NATO bureaucracies, investigating the development and refinement of nuclear planning methodology and the effects of institutional and personal animosity on decision-making.