8. NATO AND ITS FRIENDS
The Soviet Union was not the only superpower to experience trouble
with its allies. America had constant difficulty inside the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), formed in 1949, which offered
protection to Western Europe and Canada. The Americans also
gave military guarantees to Japan, South Korea, Australia and New
Zealand. All these countries had market economies and most of them
practised democratic politics. The result was a continual internal flux
that contrasted with the calcified systems of power in communist
states. Despite America’s continued primacy as a world economic
power and its indispensable provision of military guarantees to
its allies, Washington had to exercise sinewy skill to secure assent to its
goals in foreign and security policy. No part of the globe was harder to
handle than Western Europe with its communist parties, peace move-
ments, proud nationalisms and recurrent doubts about American
purposes. A British Foreign and Commonwealth Office memo put
it starkly at the start of the 1980s: ‘In the interests of solidarity with
the Americans, which all recognize as an overriding interest, the
Europeans have adopted policies in which they do not believe. The
multiplication of “consultations” has hardly helped.’^1
On 12 December 1979 the NATO Council had resolved to coun-
teract the Soviet deployment of SS-20 missiles in Eastern Europe. This
decision was taken even before Soviet forces swarmed into Kabul on
Christmas Day. As usual, the NATO plan was formulated in Washing-
ton. President Carter proposed to send 108 Pershing-2 missiles and
464 Tomahawk land-based cruise missiles to member countries in
Europe. Every Pershing-2 would have the capacity to strike Moscow
within ten minutes of being fired, and the Tomahawks with their
superior accuracy would be able to hit anything over a range of 1,500
miles.^2 The Politburo felt deeply alarmed even though it was its own
reckless SS-20 initiative that had created the problem. The arms race
was quickening, and the strains on the Soviet economy were bound to