1962-1979 (discharge)
Continuing nuclear arms race, the concentration of control of nuclear forces of the West in the hands of the U.S. and a number of incidents with carrying nuclear weapons have caused the increasing criticism of U.S. nuclear policy. The contradictions in the principles of management of nuclear weapons in NATO's command led to France's withdrawal in 1966 of involvement in the formation of the armed forces of the organization. January 17, 1966 occurred one of the major incidents involving nuclear weapons: after the collision with tanker planes B-52 bomber, U.S. Air Force made an emergency discharge of four thermonuclear bombs over the Spanish village Palomares. After this incident, Spain refused to condemn France's withdrawal from NATO and limit military activities, U.S. Air Force in the country, putting the Spanish-American treaty in 1953 on military cooperation, and negotiations to renew the treaty in 1968 ended in failure.
Regarding competition between the two systems in space, Vladimir Bugrov noted that in 1964 the main opponents of the Queen can not create the illusion of Khrushchev, which can land on the moon before the Americans, according to scientists if the race was then between the major designers.
In Germany, coming to power of the Social Democrats, headed by Willy Brandt saw the new "eastern policy", which resulted in the Moscow Treaty between the USSR and Germany in 1970, as recorded by the inviolability of frontiers, renunciation of territorial claims and declared the possibility of combining the FRG and the GDR.
In 1968, the attempts of democratic reforms in Czechoslovakia (Prague Spring) led the military intervention of the USSR and its allies.
But Brezhnev, unlike Khrushchev, he harbored no inclination to take on risky adventures outside the clearly defined the Soviet sphere of influence, nor extravagant "peaceful" actions, the 1970's were marked by the so-called "detente" that culminated in the meeting for Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki) and the joint Soviet-American space flight (the program "Apollo-Soyuz), at the same time were signed treaties limiting strategic arms. This is largely determined by economic reasons, since the USSR had already begun to feel increasingly depend heavily on purchases of consumer goods and food (for which the required foreign currency loans), the West in the same years of the oil crisis of the Arab-Israeli conflict, was extremely interested in the Soviet oil. Militarily, the base of "detente" was formed by the time the nuclear-missile parity blocks.
August 17, 1973, U.S. Defense Secretary James Schlesinger put forward a doctrine of "blinding" or "decapitation" strike: the defeat of command posts and communications centers of the enemy with the help of intermediate-and shorter-range cruise missiles with lasers, television and infrared guidance systems for . Such an approach would win in the "reach our time" - the defeat of command points to the moment when the enemy will have time to decide on retaliatory counter-strike. The emphasis in the media containing shifted from a strategic triad of the means of medium-and shorter-range missiles. In 1974, this approach was embodied in key documents of U.S. nuclear strategy. On this basis, the U.S. and other NATO countries have started modernization of the forward-based (Forward Base Systems) - U.S. tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Western Europe or from its coast. At the same time the U.S. began a new generation of cruise missiles capable of striking most precisely defined purpose.
These steps have raised fears in the Soviet Union, as U.S. forward-based, as well as "independent" nuclear capabilities of Great Britain and France were able to hit targets in the European part of the Soviet Union. In 1976, the Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov began, which was inclined to a tough response to U.S. actions. Ustinov spoke not so much for the build-up of the land groupings of conventional armed forces, as for the improvement of technical park of the Soviet Army. The Soviet Union began to modernize nuclear weapons delivery of medium and shorter-range missiles in the European theater of operations.
Under the pretext of modernizing legacy systems RSD-4 and RSD-5 (SS-4 and SS-5) Soviet Union began deploying to the western borders of intermediate-range RSD-10 Pioneer »(SS-20). In December 1976, missile systems were deployed, and in February 1977 - put on combat duty in the European part of USSR. All were deployed about 300 missiles of this class, each of which was equipped with three live MIRV guidance. This enabled the Soviet Union in a few minutes to destroy the military infrastructure of NATO in Western Europe - to control centers, command posts and, especially, the ports that in the event of war made it impossible for the landing of American troops in Western Europe. Simultaneously, the Soviet Union has upgraded placed in Central Europe, general-purpose forces - in particular, has upgraded the long-range bomber Tu-22M to a strategic level.
The actions of the Soviet Union provoked a backlash of NATO countries. December 12, 1979 was adopted dual-track decision of NATO - the deployment of American intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles in Western Europe and the beginning of negotiations with the USSR on euromissiles. However, negotiations have stalled.