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ABSTRACT
This article argues that the perceived need by NATO to nurture political cohesion within the Alliance during the 1950s resulted in the adoption of strategic concepts that were out-of-step with the military environment in which it was operating. It maintains that the Alliance acquiesced to American leadership on nuclear issues which led to the development of tactical nuclear capabilities at the expense of conventional war-fighting capabilities for the defence of the European Central Front. This resulted in a strategic concept that enhanced political cohesion but was militarily unviable.
Notes
1 Nora Bensahel, ‘International Alliances and Military Effectiveness: Fighting Alongside Allies and Partners’, in Risa A. Brooks and Elizabeth A. Stanley (eds.), Creating Military Power: The Sources of Military Effectiveness (Stanford UP 2007), 190.
2 Douglas L. Bland, The Military Committee of the North Atlantic Alliance: A Study of Structure and Strategy (Westport, CT: Praeger 1991), 216.
3 NATO Archives, Brussels [hereafter NATO], DC 6/1, The Strategic Concept for the Defence of the North Atlantic Area, 1 Dec. 1949, 4. [declassified from the original].
4 Ibid., 5.
5 Ibid., 6.
6 NATO, MC 14, Strategic Guidance for North Atlantic Regional Planning, 28 March 1950, 9.
7 NATO, DC 13, NATO Medium Term Plan, 1 April 1950, 43.
8 The National Archives, Kew [hereafter TNA], WO 216/261, Oral Statement by the CIGS to the Chiefs of Staff Committee, 1 June 1948.
9 TNA, PREM 8/1380, Minister of Defence to Prime Minister, 12 May 1948.
10 TNA, PREM 8/1380, Minister of Defence to Prime Minister, 4 June 1948.
11 TNA, AIR 20/10513, Joint British Army of the Rhine/British Air Forces of Occupation Appreciation for Exercise ‘Congreave’, June 1948.
12 TNA, WO 216/688, CIGS/BM/31/2524, The Situation in Western Europe and the British Army Problem Arising Therefrom, 27 July 1948.
13 TNA, DEFE 5/9, COS(48)209, Combined Planning, report by the Chiefs of Staff, 16 Dec. 1948.
14 TNA, DEFE 5/9, COS(48)210, Digest of Plan ‘Speedway’, memorandum by the Chiefs of Staff, 16 Dec. 1948.
15 Kevin Soutor, ‘To Stem the Red Tide: The German Report Series and Its Effect on American Defense Doctrine, 1948–1954’, Journal of Military History 57/ 5 (1993), 661–2.
16 Ibid.
17 TNA, CAB 21/3503, JP(49)172(Final), Allied Defence Policy and Strategy, 3 March 1950. See, in addition, Spencer W. Mawby, ‘Détente Deferred: The Attlee Government, German Rearmament and Anglo-Soviet Rapprochement 1950–51’, Contemporary British History 12/ 2 (Summer 1998), 3 and Saki Dockrill, Britain’s Policy for West German Rearmament 1950–1955 (Cambridge: CUP 1991), 13.
18 TNA, DEFE 32/1, WE/M/93, Western European Defence, 30 March 1950.
19 TNA, CAB 21/3503, DO(50)58, Ability of the Armed Forces to Meet an Emergency, 21 July 1950.
20 TNA, PREM 8/1154, FM/33, Field Marshal Montgomery to Minister of Defence, 10 Oct. 1950.
21 TNA, PREM 8/1154, FM/31, Western Europe Defence – some matters that give cause for alarm, Memorandum by Field Marshal Montgomery, 19 Sept. 1950.
22 TNA, PREM 8/1201, Address by Field Marshal Montgomery to the Senior Officers of the Brussels Treaty Powers, 5 May 1950.
23 WE/M/93.
24 TNA, DEFE 5/31, COS(51)322, Defence of Europe in the Short Term, 31 May 1951.
25 TNA, AIR 20/10138, COS(50)111, Preparation of Short Term Plan in Western Region, 17 July 1950.
26 Robert Evans, ‘The British Army of the Rhine and Defense Plans for Germany, 1945–1955’, in Jan Hoffenaar and Dieter Krüger (eds.), Blueprints for Battle: Planning for War in Central Europe, 1948–1968 (Lexington,: UP of Kentucky 2012), 207.
27 TNA, DEFE 6/19, JP(51)217(Final), SHAPE Emergency Defence Plan – Report by the Joint Planning Staff, 4 Jan. 1952.
28 William Z. Slany (ed.), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954: National Security Affairs, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Washington DC: United States Government Printing Office 1979), 585–6, 593.
29 See the report of the Temporary Council Committee of the North Atlantic Council in TNA, CAB 129/49, C (52) 49, 19 Feb.1952.
30 The Royal Air Force acquired the free-fall bomb Blue Danube in Nov. 1953, making Britain a bona fide nuclear power.
31 NATO, SHAPE History: The New Approach, 1953–1956, vii–viii.
32 Michael O. Wheeler, ‘NATO Nuclear Strategy, 1949–90’, in Gustav Schmidt (ed.), A History of NATO: The First Fifty Years, Vol. 3 (Basingstoke: Palgrave 2001), 126.
33 NATO, C-R(53)55, Meeting of the North Atlantic Council, 15 Dec. 1953, 2.
34 Ibid., 5.
35 The New Approach, 61.
36 William Z. Slany (ed.), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954: Western European Security, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Washington DC: United States Government Printing Office 1986), 512.
37 NATO, C-M(54)100 Part II, Report on the 1954 Annual Review, 26 Nov. 1954, 1.
38 NATO, C-R(54)42, Meeting of the North Atlantic Council, 12 Nov. 1954, 4.
39 Cited in Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson (eds.), Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Volume II: Since 1914, 7th ed. (Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning 2010), 281.
40 Ibid., 282.
41 TNA, DEFE 7/2340, Telegram no. 588, Washington to Foreign Office, 16 March 1955.
42 TNA, DEFE 7/2340, Dean to Brownjohn, 30 March 1955.
43 TNA, DEFE 7/2340, COS(55)23, Confidential Annex to the 23rd Meeting of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, 1 April 1955.
44 TNA, CAB 129/74, C(55)95, Distinction between Large and Tactical Nuclear Weapons, 5 April 1955
45 Ibid.
46 Slany, Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. 2, No. 1, 609.
47 TNA, FO 371/123118, ZE 112/56, Larger and Smaller Nuclear Weapons, 7 Jan. 1956.
48 TNA, DEFE 5/63, COS(55)341, The Effectiveness of Nuclear Deterrence, 16 Dec. 1955.
49 NATO, MC 48 (Final), The Most Effective Pattern of NATO Military Strength for the Next Few Years, 22 Nov. 1954, 3.
50 Ibid., 7.
51 Ibid., 11.
52 NATO, MC 48/1 (Final), The Most Effective Pattern of NATO Military Strength for the Next Few Years – Report No. 2, 9 Dec. 1955, 3–4.
53 Ibid., 6.
54 NATO, C-R(55)43, Meeting of the North Atlantic Council, 11 Oct. 1955, 12.
55 NATO, CR(54)35, Meeting of the North Atlantic Council, 24 Sept. 1954.
56 TNA, WO 231/97, Exercise Battle Royal – Planning and Narrative, 24 May 1954.
57 Christoph Bluth, Britain, Germany, and Western Nuclear Strategy (Oxford: OUP 1995), 32.
58 Anon, ‘Exercise Carte Blanche’, Flight 68/ 2423 (1 July 1955), 32.
59 Anon, ‘Atomic Exercise Carte Blanche: The Practical Assessment of Future War’, Flight, 68/. 2424 (8 July 1955), 67.
60 Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 3rd ed. (London: Palgrave Macmillan 2003), 104–5. See, in addition, S.T. Cohen and W.C. Lyons, ‘A Comparison of US-Allied and Soviet Tactical Nuclear Force Capabilities and Policies’, Orbis19 (1975), 73.
61 William W. Kaufmann (ed.), Military Policy and National Security (Princeton UP1956), 222.
62 Beatrice Heuser, NATO, Britain, France and the FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces for Europe, 1949–2000 (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1997), 127.
63 Ibid., 127.
64 The Inspector-General Bundeswehr, ‘Prerequisites for Effective Defence’, Survival 2/ 6 (1960), 256.
65 The New Approach, 368.
66 Franz Josef Strauss, ‘The Debate in Germany: The Government View’, Survival 3/ 4 (1961), 176.
67 James A. Quinlan, ‘Viability of a Tactical Nuclear Defense for NATO’, student paper, US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks (Oct. 1975), 7. See, in addition, Charles N. Davidson, ‘Tactical Nuclear Defense – The West German View’, Parameters 4 (1974), 47.
68 Henry Kissinger, ‘NATO Defence and the Soviet Threat’, Survival 21/ 6 (1979), 266.
69 Carl H. Amme, NATO Strategy and Nuclear Defense (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 1988), 20–1.
70 Richard L. Kugler, Commitment to Purpose: How Alliance Partnership Won the Cold War (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 1993), 82–3.
71 Cmnd. 124, Defence: Outline of Future Policy (London: HMSO 1957), 1.
72 Ibid., 4.
73 Duffield, Power Rules, 138–9.
74 TNA, ADM 205/114, CC(57)26, Statement on Defence 1957, 28 March 1957.
75 NATO, CR(57)11, Meeting of the North Atlantic Council, 26 Feb. 1957.
76 NATO, CR(57)14, Meeting of the North Atlantic Council, 6 March 1957.
77 NATO, CR(57)16, Meeting of the North Atlantic Council, 15 March 1957.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Simon J. Moody
Simon J. Moody is a Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department of King’s College London. He completed his AHRC-funded PhD at King’s College London in 2014 and holds an MA with Distinction in Modern History from the University of Leeds and a BA (Hons) First Class in Contemporary Military and International History from the University of Salford. Dr Moody is an Assistant Editor for The Journal of Military Operations. His research interests can be broadly defined as the history of strategic thought, theories of war, nuclear strategy, and British defence policy after 1945.
