NATO Double-Track Decision - The "Double-Track" Decision

The "Double-Track" Decision

The European NATO members saw in the mobile launching platform-mounted SS-20 missiles no less a threat than the strategic intercontinental missiles, and on December 12, 1979, took on the so-called NATO Double-Track Decision. This decision intended the deployment of 572 equally mobile American middle-range missiles (Pershing II and Gryphon BGM-109G Ground Launched Cruise Missile) to rebuild the state of Mutual Assured Destruction. NATO offered immediate negotiations with the goal to ban nuclear armed middle-range missiles from Europe completely, with the provision that the same missiles could be installed four years later should the negotiations fail. The Soviets were critical that the French nor British nuclear weapons weren't considered in this treaty.

The opposition in the peace movement criticized mainly that the nuclear destructive potential was sufficient already to destroy the planet several times over, concluding that any additional armament would be senseless. And it was pointed out that this situation was similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis, since the time between the advance warning and the arrival of the missiles in case of a first strike from Europe was reduced to few minutes for the Soviet Union. The possibility of a "war by mistake" and nuclear holocaust was heightened significantly. One of the many slogans used by the peace movement referred to "Make Love Not War" and the name of the American middle range weapons: "Petting instead of Pershing".

Supporters of the Double-Track Decision pointed out that in case of a Russian SS-20, a counter strike by NATO could only be performed by an American intercontinental ballistic missile, which would lead to an automatic escalation of the conflict. In any case, the Pershing II was unsuitable as a first strike weapon, since it couldn't reach Russian rocket facilities beyond the Ural Mountains and poses no threat to the strategic submarines.

The disarmament negotiations which started on November 30, 1981, remained without conclusion. The German Bundestag agreed to the deployment in 1983, whereupon the Soviet Union aborted the negotiations.

On December 8, 1987, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. It provided for the destruction of all middle range weapons and ended this episode of the Cold War.