Chevaline

Abstract

In the decade following Nassau the strategic environment changed. The Soviet Union caught up, at least quantitatively, in strategic arms with the United States. Defensive technology failed to live up to its early promise but offensive technology advanced on all fronts, leading to missiles of greater range, multiplying the warhead each could carry, allowing for targets to be reached through subtle in-flight manoeuvres and attacked with high accuracy. Moreover, the political environment had changed. The United States lost self-confidence and esteem in Vietnam. Britain’s relative decline, already evident in 1962, proceeded apace. While its relationship with the United States retained a number of distinctive features unlikely to be copied by others, it was patently no longer the leading European power. Furthermore by 1972 it was preparing at last to join the European Community, thus accepting that relations with its neighbours were in the future to be more ‘special’ than those with its old ally across the Atlantic.