War by Other Means; Soviet Power, West German Resistance, and the Battle of the Euromissiles

New York: The Free Press, 1991. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Good. 25 cm. xiii, [1], 369, [1] pages. References. Index. DJ has some wear and soiling and is taped over the boards. Jeffrey C. Herf (born April 24, 1947) is an American historian. He is Distinguished University Professor of modern European, in particular modern German, history at the University of Maryland, College Park. Herf's father escaped from Nazi Germany in 1937 and immigrated to the United States. Herf graduated in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1969 and received his Ph.D. in sociology from Brandeis University in 1981. Before joining the faculty at the University of Maryland, he taught at Harvard University and Ohio University. He has published essays in The American Interest, The Washington Post, Commentary, Partisan Review, The Times of Israel, and The New Republic. In his 1984 book, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich, drawing on critical theory, in particular ideology critique, Herf coined the term "reactionary modernism" to describe the mixture of robust modernity and an affirmative stance toward progress combined with dreams of the past, a highly technological romanticism, which was a current in the thinking of ideologues of Weimar's "conservative revolution" and of currents in the Nazi regime. His subsequent books examine the political culture of West Germany before and during the battle over Euromissiles in the 1980s; memory and politics regarding the Holocaust in East and West Germany; Nazi Germany's antisemitic propaganda; and Nazi propaganda aimed at North Africa and the Middle East. The NATO Double-Track Decision was the decision by NATO from December 12, 1979 to offer the Warsaw Pact a mutual limitation of medium-range ballistic missiles and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. It was combined with a threat by NATO to deploy more medium-range nuclear weapons in Western Europe after the so-called "Euromissile Crisis". The détente between the United States and the Soviet Union culminated in the signing of SALT I (1972) and SALT II (1979). The agreements placed constraints on further developments in nuclear capacities. The SALT agreements were not intended to be considered a form of mutual arms control but merely referred to strategic carrier systems and their warheads, which did not include any tactical nuclear weapons such as nuclear bombs delivered by bombers or midrange missiles (MRBMs and IRBMs). The decision was prompted by the continuing military buildup of Warsaw Pact countries, particularly their growing capability in nuclear systems threatening Western Europe. Of special concern was the growth of long-range theater nuclear forces, with the SS-20 missile and the 'Backfire' bomber being singled out for particular concern. The European NATO members saw in the mobile launching platform-mounted SS-20 missiles no less a threat than the strategic intercontinental missiles. On December 12, 1979, they took on the so-called NATO Double-Track Decision. It intended the deployment of 572 equally mobile American middle-range missiles (Pershing II and Gryphon BGM-109G Ground Launched Cruise Missile) to rebuild the state of Mutual Assured Destruction. NATO offered immediate negotiations with the goal to ban nuclear armed middle-range missiles from Europe completely, with the provision that the missiles could be installed four years later if the negotiations failed. The Soviets were critical of the fact that neither French nor British nuclear weapons had been considered in the treaty. The disarmament negotiations which started on November 30, 1981, remained without conclusion. The German Bundestag agreed to the deployment in 1983, and the Soviet Union aborted the negotiations. On December 8, 1987, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. It provided for the destruction of all middle-range weapons and ended this episode of the Cold War.