Euromissile Crisis

Background

The crisis began when the Soviet Union started deploying the new RSD-10 'Pioneer' (NATO reporting name SS-20) intermediate-range ballistic missile in 1976. Solid-fueled, road-mobile, and carrying three MIRV warheads, the SS-20 was far more accurate and survivable than the older SS-4 and SS-5 it replaced. Its ~5,500 km range placed all of Western Europe within striking distance while falling just below the SALT threshold for strategic weapons (5,500+ km), leaving it unconstrained.

West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt sounded the public alarm in his landmark October 1977 address to the IISS in London, warning that the SS-20 fundamentally disrupted Europe's strategic balance. The speech crystallized fears of 'decoupling': that in a limited nuclear war confined to Europe, Washington might hesitate to retaliate with strategic forces, effectively leaving European allies exposed.

The Double-Track Decision and Deployments

On 12 December 1979, NATO foreign and defense ministers unanimously adopted the Double-Track Decision in Brussels. Track One: pursue negotiations with the USSR toward a total ban on intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe. Track Two: if negotiations failed by fall 1983, deploy 108 Pershing II missiles in West Germany and 464 Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles (GLCMs) across Britain, Italy, West Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

Preliminary INF talks opened in Geneva in October 1980. In November 1981, President Reagan proposed the 'Zero Option': the US would forgo all Pershing II and GLCM deployments if the USSR dismantled every SS-20, SS-4, and SS-5. Moscow rejected this as one-sided, citing British and French independent nuclear forces, and continued deploying roughly one SS-20 per week, surpassing 300 by 1983.

Anti-Nuclear Protests

Between 1981 and 1983, Western Europe saw its largest peace mobilizations. An estimated 250,000 demonstrators marched in Bonn in October 1981, West Germany's biggest protest to date. The Krefeld Appeal of 1980 gathered five million signatures opposing Pershing II deployment. In Britain, the women's peace camp at RAF Greenham Common became a lasting symbol of resistance to GLCMs. The Six Nation Initiative, launched in May 1984 by Greece, India, Argentina, Mexico, Tanzania, and Sweden, sought to broker renewed dialogue between the blocs from a non-aligned position.

The INF Treaty and Legacy

Negotiations collapsed in November 1983 when the first Pershing IIs arrived in West Germany, but the ascension of Mikhail Gorbachev transformed the dynamic. Signed on 8 December 1987 in Washington, the INF Treaty mandated elimination of all ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500–5,500 km. By June 1991, the US had destroyed 846 missile systems and the USSR 1,846. It was the first arms-control treaty to abolish an entire class of nuclear weapons, and is widely credited as a catalyst for the end of the Cold War. The INF regime ended in August 2019 when both the United States and Russia withdrew from the treaty.