Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="uk 75" data-source="post: 482620" data-attributes="member: 234">A bit off the thread topic but the big issue which could have destroyed NATO was the Soviet deployment of new generation mobile SS20s from the 70s on.NATO had replaced US Thor and Jupiter land-based IRBMs with SSBNs allocated to NATO by UK and US.German Chancellor Schmidt posed the question whether the US would sacrifice Pittsburgh or Chicago for Munich or Frankfurt.The US offered Tomahawk GLCMs and Pershing 2 deployments. Despite a vocal Peace Movement in Europe these got the first significant verifiable arms agreement of the 80s with both US and Soviet weapons being scrapped.Schmidt had a low opinion of Carter and it is possible that the UK and US could have stuck to the view that Poseidon and Polaris missiles were a more than adequate counterweight to SS20s. UK PM Callaghan got on well with Carter.A more left wing German Chamcellor might have succeeded Schmidt in the 80s rather than the conservative Kohl.  The West German armed forces were a crucial part of NATO's developing Air Land battle approach which fitted in with Germany's need to defend its territory as far forward as possible using mobility (Beweglichkeit) instead of static defence in depth like the BAOR.  If the Germans had succumbed to Soviet offers to have a nuclear free zone in Europe with massive cuts in conventional forces, the US would have more to lose.You get into a very different 1980s from our own. Even in our reality there was widespread hostility in Europe to Reagan and Thatcher. But if instead of Andropov and Chernenko they are faced by a more subtle and younger leader, a Vladmir Putin even.</blockquote>

Verification