ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out the nature of that security order and traces the reactions of the Thatcher government to the mounting challenges it faced. In its 1980 constitution Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) set out its aims as 'the unilateral abandonment by Britain of nuclear weapons, nuclear bases and nuclear alliances as a prerequisite for a British foreign policy which has the world-wide abolition of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as its prime objective. Government ministers made numerous speeches on the merits of the deployment yet refused to share a platform with speakers from CND in an attempt to deny them legitimacy. In an attempt to facilitate the deployment of a system of strategic defences President Reagan proposed the elimination of all ballistic missiles within ten years. More fundamental than the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty's impact on intra-Alliance relations or on flexible response, however, was the trend it illustrated in Soviet thinking on security matters.
