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Specifically, the plan reinforces NATO's defenses with 108 new Pershing II missiles and 464 ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) starting in 1983. Both are extremely accurate. The Pershing II, to be placed in West Germany alone, is a mobile missile with a range of about 1,000 miles (vs. 450 miles for the Pershing 1 A, which the new weapons will replace). The GLCM (or "glickum," in Pentagon jargon), to be deployed in Britain, West Germany and Italy, and later, perhaps, in Belgium and The Netherlands, is a dry-land version of the U.S. Navy's Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missile. It is designed to be a subsonic weapon with a range of about 1,500 miles and a lot of maneuverability; it will be able to fly at treetop level and follow a serpentine course, and can be recalled at any time before it reaches its target.
In a broader sense, the new missiles are designed to fill a political as well as a strategic gap in the Western deterrent by warning Moscow that it could not escape unscathed from nuclear threats aimed at dominating Western Europe. In 1977, both Britain and West Germany called Washington's attention to the fact that the alliance, if it should suddenly become the target of a Soviet attack in Europe, could easily find itself in a nuclear dilemma: its response might be either too modest (perhaps with the use of battlefield nuclear artillery) or too devastating (an intercontinental ballistic missile strike at the Soviet Union from the U.S.). Furthermore, the Europeans are also fearful that in such an emergency, the U.S. might not respond at all. What was needed, they felt, was a nuclear capability that would permit NATO to react directly to a Soviet strike without having to resort to what strategists flippantly call the ultimate "big bang."
Last fall the Soviet Union launched a ferocious propaganda campaign against the NATO missile proposals. Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev declared that the Soviet Union would not "watch indifferently the efforts of the NATO militarists," but would be ready to "take the necessary extra steps to strengthen our security." In a loudly proclaimed peace ges-ture—a carrot to accompany the stick —the Soviets last month announced the withdrawal of some obsolescent tank divisions from East Germany.
The Soviet campaign only tended to strengthen the resolve of the British, West German and Italian governments. But it also contributed to the uncertainty of some of the smaller members of NATO, notably The Netherlands and Belgium. The opposition socialist parties in The Netherlands managed to collect enough support to put the Dutch Parliament on record as opposing the missile plan. Caught in a domestic political dilemma, Premier Andreas van Agt dashed off to Washington, Rome, London and Bonn in search of a compromise.