Multilateral force

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The Multilateral Force (MLF) , in German: Multilateral Nuclear Force , was an American proposal from 1963 during the reign of John F. Kennedy to produce not only submarines but also a fleet of around 25 NATO warships , each equipped with SLBMs of the Polaris type should be and have a range of 4,500 km. Missiles and warheads should be the common property of the participating NATO countries and be under a common NATO command. This was intended to give the non-nuclear powers of the alliance, to which the Federal Republic of Germany belonged, the opportunity to participate in the ownership, operating personnel and control of a nuclear force .

Discussions in NATO

The proposal was discussed for a long time among the NATO countries, but failed because, apart from the Federal Republic of Germany and the USA, no country was willing to take on a substantial part of the financing. However, on February 20, 1964 , the Netherlands agreed to participate in the multilateral nuclear fleet, while Belgium refused to participate on March 3, 1964. On March 3, 1964, the leader of the British Labor Party, Harold Wilson, announced during a visit to the USA that if he won the general election, he would not agree to a multilateral NATO nuclear force.

With Wilson's election victory on October 16, 1964, this project also failed on the part of Great Britain . In December 1964, the British Prime Minister Wilson offered the US a plan for an Atlantic Nuclear Force (ANF) of NATO, which was also not implemented. France, in turn, built up its Force de frappe, which was independent of alliance obligations, in 1964 and left a large part of NATO's military structures in 1966. This made it clear that the problems resulting from the US nuclear hegemony in NATO could not be solved with the plan to build an MLF. Although the construction failed, the Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) was able to establish a membership committee of NATO (excluding France) for the role of nuclear weapons in the alliance at the political and military level .

Prehistory and political background

After the Cuban missile crisis the British Prime Minister had Harold Macmillan and Kennedy at a meeting in 1962 in Nassau in the Bahamas , the Nassau Agreement signed to preserve the atomic defense of Great Britain to the United States to tie. In doing so, London refrained from building an independent nuclear force. For its part, the USA and Great Britain integrated part of Western Europe into the Atlantic Alliance it led.

Charles de Gaulle interpreted this agreement as an attempt by the USA to prevent its own European world politics. His vision was a strong Europe of nations under French leadership, which should be able to play a world power role through an independent nuclear armament. These tensions created a difficult situation for the Federal Republic. In the Adenauer era , close ties with France had been the rule. But now the question arose whether the Federal Republic should distance itself from the alliance and pursue a Franco-German security policy with France, or whether the American security guarantees were irreplaceable for Germany. France's nuclear armed force, the Force de frappe, was still being built up, so that the Gaullist option did not find a majority in Germany.

An important reason for the failure of the MLF, however, was that the British government under Macmillan was actually opposed to the project. His successor in office, Wilson, told de Gaulle in 1967 that his government had willfully and more or less single-handedly prevented the MLF. Both British governments feared that the MLF could reduce the UK's status as one of only three nuclear powers in NATO or be the first step towards independent nuclear armament for the Federal Republic of Germany.

Practical demonstration

The destroyers of the United States Navy USS Biddle (DGG-5) was operated from June 1964 until the end of 1965 for 18 months with a mixed crew. This “mixed manning demonstration” was intended to test the practicability of ships manned by members of the armed forces of different countries in a mixed-national crew. One third of the crew of the ship, renamed USS Claude V. Ricketts during the experiment , was provided by the US Navy, two thirds by the navies of the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy , Greece , the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Turkey . Although the mixed manning demonstration was considered a great success, after the failure of the MLF it remained a unique phenomenon for the time being.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Article Barken Noah , in: Der Spiegel , No. 45/1964, pp. 47–59, here p. 47, available online at spiegel.de (last accessed April 12, 2019).
  2. See Matthew Jones, The Official History of the UK Strategic Nuclear Deterrent. Vol 2: The Labor Government and the Polaris Program, 1964–1970, London, New York 2017, p. 40.
  3. See Matthew Jones, The Official History of the UK Strategic Nuclear Deterrent. Vol 2: The Labor Government and the Polaris Program, 1964–1970, London, New York 2017, p. 148.
  4. ^ Edward Lundquist, Mixed Manning Demonstration Was a Success. Guided-Missile Destroyer Sailed with Multinational Crew, in: Sea Classics, September 2006, available online at questia.com (last accessed April 12, 2019).
  5. Cruise Book for the period of the mixed manning demonstration, available online at navysite.de (last accessed April 12, 2019).
  6. Article Barken Noah , in: Der Spiegel , No. 45/1964, pp. 47–59, available online at spiegel.de (last accessed: April 12, 2019).