ABSTRACT
This chapter examines what effect, if any, Thatcherism had in the realm of security and arms control policy. In particular it demonstrated Mrs Thatcher's conviction that the presence of US troops and nuclear weapons were central to maintaining European security. For the next four years, two issues dominated the UK debate on defence, security, and arms control policy: SDI and the Trident modernization program, and the INF deployment. It concluded that the uncertainty of Gorbachev's domestic reform process presented opportunities for significant arms control initiatives. In short, Mrs Thatcher's security and arms control policies themselves had become a challenge to the developing post-Cold War European security framework and were limiting the UK's ability to play a leading role in meeting the new opportunities and challenges of the 1990s. The real impact of Thatcherism, however, was the unique twist it provided as a style of politics to the broad postwar policy outlines.
