ABSTRACT
Alarmed with the build-up of the Soviet nuclear arsenal and growing Soviet intervention in developing countries, the new US Regan administration in the US from 1981 took an extremely hawkish stance. Détente was effectively dead. Wilton Park paid particular attention to concerns about the accelerating arms race, in particular the deployment of Intermediate Nuclear Missiles in Europe and the growing public opposition to it. The arms race put extreme economic pressure on the Soviet Union and its East European allies. High military spending and poor Communist economic performance were matched by political paralysis, which set the stage for considerable political and economic change in the Eastern Bloc. The coming to power of reformist Soviet President Gorbachev transformed East-West relations. Important nuclear weapons agreements became possible, but then Soviet control over central and Eastern Europe collapsed. Suddenly Wilton Park’s basic security agenda had to consider the consequences of the arrival of a raft of newly independent European states. This chapter also examines challenges for Alliance cohesion, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)’s Northern and Southern flanks, the neutrals, and growing Alliance tensions on operating ‘out of area’.
