The Ghost of Missiles Past

The deployment of the Soviet SS-20 missile method in the 1970s and 1980s, and U.S. ideas to deploy the Pershing II and Floor Introduced Cruise Missile in response, spurred a disaster inside of NATO above U.S. nuclear deterrence in Europe. Susan Colbourn, affiliate director of the Triangle Institute for Safety Studies at Duke University’s Sanford School of General public Policy, tells the tale of this time period in her new book, Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons that Just about Wrecked NATO.  In this week’s episode of Horns of a Problem, Colbourn describes how issues around intermediate assortment nuclear missiles in Europe concerned substantially far more than just inquiries of deterrence and superpower opposition. As she relates the difficult give-and-consider between superpowers and among the allies, she highlights the way in which domestic politics, the global anti-nuclear motion, alliance burden sharing, and the composition of political, economic, and armed service electricity in Europe all performed pivotal roles. This story is an intriguing chapter in NATO’s historical past that is not commonly understood and presents significant context as Europe commences to re-arm reaction to Russian aggression in Ukraine. This event was held at the Clements Center at the College of Texas, Austin.

Picture:Leonidl, CC BY-SA 3., by way of Wikimedia Commons