On the southern flank, Italy (twelve months’ service for 120,000 conscripts in an army of 218,000) disposed of twelve divisions (three armoured) with a mixed inventory of tanks. Though Greece’s membership of the integrated military organization had been somewhat conditional since 1974, she continued to have some military links and had modernized most of her mainly conscript army (28–30 months’ service) of twelve divisions (one armoured), largely with French equipment, and, it must be admitted, with an eye on Turkey rather than the forces of the Warsaw Pact. Turkey (twenty months’ service) could field twenty-two divisions (one armoured and two mechanized) in an army of 375,000. Differences between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus, sharpened by competition for Aegean oil, had by the beginning of the eighties grown somewhat less than in the years before. The curtailment of military aid from the US to which this had given rise (it was resumed in 1982) had inevitably reduced the war- fighting capability of both countries, though this had latterly begun once more to improve. Turkish equipment was generally somewhat elderly and in an indifferent state; mobility was limited and it had not been possible to reach a high level of training.
To this brief account of NATO ground forces must of course be added something of how the tactical air forces stood, since in any battle their operations would be indivisible. Here not only the aircraft stationed alongside the ground forces have to be reckoned with, but also those that could operate in a given sector from immediately outside it, as, for example, from the United Kingdom or the western Soviet Union, or from aircraft carriers that might be in the vicinity, or — though this applied more to Soviet forces — medium bombers that could be flown from relatively distant airfields.
An accurate tally of air strength is therefore not easy, because of its inherent flexibility, but, taking ground- based fighter aircraft as the main yardstick, NATO deployed for operations in the critical central sector — excluding French forces — some 2,800 aircraft, compared with approximately 4,500 deployed by the Warsaw Pact. This numerical disparity had long presented a problem and still did. It was a problem compounded by the relative ease of reinforcement enjoyed by the Warsaw Pact, by an insufficiency of forward airfields on the Allied side, and by some difficulties in inter-operability, caused by the variety of different aircraft in use in NATO air forces.
There had, however, been a marked all-round improvement in NATO tactical air strength in the previous few years. Several first-class new aircraft had been introduced, embodying the most up-to-date technology. For the air superiority role the American F-15 was better than any other fighter, both in its performance and in its armament. It was admirably complemented by the lighter F-16. Both were greatly assisted in their task by the ability of AWACS (airborne warning and control system), belatedly introduced in the 1970s, to detect intruding aircraft and control the operation of our own. For strike missions the
The quality of the new aircraft was more than matched by the weapon systems they carried, tailored to what were seen to be the essential tasks of stopping the Soviet tanks and cutting off the flow of immediate reinforcements to the battle area. Precision-guided weapons, cluster munitions and the all-important electronic aids were given great emphasis.
The decision by the United Kingdom to provide once more a proper defence of its own airspace, described in detail in Chapter 19, helped the tactical air forces to solve two of the problems mentioned above: first, it provided protected airfields that enabled aircraft to be diverted to as well as based in the United Kingdom, thus easing the operational difficulties posed by an insufficiency of airfields; second, it enabled reinforcement by fighter squadrons from the United States to be carried out more safely, taking advantage of the steps that the United States had put in train to make her large reserves of aircraft rapidly available.
The Soviet Air Force had, of course, been increasing its own ground-attack and deep strike and interdiction capability for some years, which posed severe air defence problems for the NATO forces, ground and air. Furthermore, the Soviet Union’s own dense air defence made the task of NATO aircraft much more difficult. Despite this, NATO air commanders had some confidence that the quality and versatility of their aircraft, the edge that their weapon systems and electronic warfare capability gave them, and the higher training standards of NATO airmen, would all go a long way to redress the numerical imbalance with which they had to contend.
A very important change in the command structure of NATO air forces had been the setting up, under the Central Region, of a Commander Allied Air Force Central Europe (COMAAFCE) in 1976. This greatly increased the flexibility of the Allied air forces and enormously enhanced their effectiveness.
It was technology, however, that was the principal key to the marked improvements made to NATO forces in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Weapons systems were now more effective and more versatile than they had ever been and tactical concepts and organizations had been improved to make the best use of them.
When the new NATO strategy of ‘flexible response’, introduced in the middle to late 1960s, was first discussed, it signalled the wish by the United States, in the face of her own increased strategic nuclear vulnerability, to have more defence options in Europe than an early recourse to the use of nuclear weapons. Her European allies were initially reluctant to downgrade the nuclear element in deterrence — seeing this as the important link between the United States and the European battlefield — and unwilling to improve their conventional forces to the level that the new strategy demanded. This reluctance persisted generally until nearly a decade later, when concern at the steady and continuous increase in Soviet military capacity slowly began to make itself felt, first among conservatives, then almost right across the whole spectrum of public opinion. The steady erosion of the military balance in Europe, coupled with an assertive and opportunistic Soviet foreign policy, notably in Africa, led by the late 1970s to the growth in almost every Allied country of a political climate more receptive to the claims of defence spending.
This new mood of caution towards the Soviet Union (following as it did one of rather euphoric expectations about
The debate over strategy — and with it over the allocation of resources — continued to a varying extent for some years, and in a sense a compromise was gradually adopted: the strategy of flexible response was retained and new technology was used to enhance the strength of the conventional forces, but the theatre nuclear armoury was modernized as well, on the theory that if the new nuclear weapons were known to be more effective and thus more usable the Soviet Union would be less likely to provoke their use. So both aspects of deterrence, conventional and nuclear, were strengthened.
The maintenance or restoration of the Western technological edge was accepted by all Allied governments as the primary means of stopping the military balance from deteriorating further. The ability of the NATO defences to hold against attack from massive Soviet tank forces, possibly able to attack with warning measured in hours rather than days (sometimes termed a ‘standing start’, to denote an attack that could be made without the need for reinforcement), was also seen to be reliant on the use of technology, but to require improvements in readiness as well. With this increased readiness should go an increase in the number of reinforcements available, largely through making better use of reserves.
With the assistance of a judicious push from the new Carter Administration in 1977, the NATO Allies began to stir themselves. Some weapons, such as ATGW and SAM, had proved so effective in the October War of 1973 in the Middle East that the need for them was self-evident. They began to come out of factories in Europe and the United States in increasing numbers and to be bought by every Allied country. More advanced weapons, such as PGM
