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No description available.

The latter part of 1976 witnessed the initial deployment of a new Soviet missile which was codenamed "SS-20" by the United States. The SS-20 was an intermediate-range ballistic missile which could deliver each of its three nuclear warheads to within 400 metres of their designated targets throughout Western Europe from launch sites deep within Soviet territory. In addition the S8-20 was a fully mobile system which reduced significantly the likelihood of its detection and destruction by enemy forces. This, in conjunction with its accuracy and reliability, ensured that the SS-20 added a significant new dimension to Soviet nuclear forces within the European theatre. The Soviet Union's deployment of this new weapon system presaged a new era of uncertainty and tensions in East-West relations. Its initial service history coincided with the beginning of the end of detente and within a few years it had come to hold a position of pre-eminence as a focal point for superpower competition. Along with its Western counterparts - Cruise and Pershing II - the SS-20 became a name familiar to the wider public and served as an effective litmus test of superpower relations. Throughout the Cold War era a host of analytical models were promulgated with the stated aim of rationalising, explaining and, ultimately, predicting the nature of state weaponry procurement policy. Such models displayed a marked diversity of character and were the cause of conjecture and debate among their various proponents. The Action-Reaction model sought to explain weaponry procurement as a response to the activities of a potential adversary. By contrast both the National Leadership and Interest Group models stressed the importance of studying internal political factors in the pursuit of an explanation of such activities. A further alternative - the Military Mission model - contended that weaponry production was predicated upon the operational demands of specific and predetermined defence requirements. A variant which was applied with increasing frequency during the period of the SS-20's deployment was the Military Superiority model. It interpreted the development of the Soviet nuclear arsenal as evidence of her desire to establish political dominance through military power. Given both its undoubted military significance and the political symbolism it came to hold it is surprising that the development and deployment of the SS-20 was never employed as a case study through which to test the veracity and applicability of the hypotheses. New evidence gleaned during the course of this study from interviews with former high-ranking Soviet officers and officials and from restricted-access sources has necessitated a significant revision of the history of the SS-20's development and deployment. Consequently evolving Soviet theatre strategy and the United States' persistent refusal to include Forward Based Systems - medium-range aircraft and missiles capable of carrying nuclear ordnance - within the constraints of the SALT treaties are both reaffirmed as factors which did incline the Soviet Union towards the pursuit of a new missile system for the European theatre of operations. Significantly however neither factor seems to have possessed the overt influence upon the development of the SS-20 that so many past analyses have accorded them. The accepted course of the SS-20's technical development, its institutional origins and its links with other ballistic missile systems are now subject to radical re-evaluation in the light of the evidence which has emerged. Similarly the course and nature of this weaponry system's development is shown to have been subject to the vagaries and complexities of inter-elite relations to an extent previously unsuspected by all but a handful of analysts. The predominance of such bureaucratic interaction was a recurring theme in Soviet weaponry procurement throughout the period of the SS-20's developmental cycle. Analysts face considerable challenges when seeking to model a policy which was so heavily reliant upon the complexities of personal relationships and bureaucratic rivalries.

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Cette thèse vise à améliorer notre compréhension des mécanismes de la coopération bilatérale, par le biais d’une analyse de la mise en œuvre du Traité de Coopération en matière de défense et de sécurité franco-britannique, signé en 2010. La thèse examine trois cas de coopération bilatérale : l’intervention militaire en Libye en 2011, le développement de la force expéditionnaire conjointe interarmées (CJEF) et la coopération en matière d'armement dans le secteur des missiles. La thèse comble ainsi une lacune empirique sur les relations de défense franco-britanniques contemporaines, un sujet d’importance majeure sur les plans académique et politique et sur lequel il n’existe aucune monographie récente. L’étude des interactions entre les différents acteurs collectifs impliqués offre un récit détaillé du fonctionnement et des processus de cette coopération récemment institutionnalisée, dans tous les secteurs de la défense conventionnelle. En l’absence d’une théorie existante satisfaisante, les mécanismes spécifiques à la coopération bilatérale sont étudiés par le biais d’un modèle original. Celui-ci est construit autour de quatre concepts qui représentent les défis de la coopération bilatérale : l’incohérence (incompatibilité des intérêts), l’astructuration (manque de structure, formelle et informelle), le symétrisme (quête de similitude et d’égalité) et l’enchevêtrement (entrelacement avec d'autres relations bilatérales, multilatérales et transnationales). Par une analyse détaillée des études de cas, la thèse montre que ces défis sont en fait inhérents au processus de coopération bilatérale et explique comment ils façonnent l’issue de chaque initiative bilatérale. La thèse montre également que chaque expérience de coopération initie des dynamiques transformatrices par lesquelles la conduite de la coopération dans chaque secteur et plus largement la relation bilatérale de défense sont progressivement modifiées. Ces dynamiques transformatrices sont ambivalentes, en cela que les pratiques coopératives comme compétitives deviennent des éléments constitutifs de la coopération de défense franco-britannique. / This thesis seeks to improve our understanding of the mechanisms of bilateral cooperation, with an analysis of the implementation of the Franco-British Treaty of cooperation in defence and security, signed in 2010. The thesis studies three cases of bilateral cooperation: the military intervention in Libya in 2011, the development of the Combined Joint Expeditionary Force and cooperation on armaments in the missile sector. The thesis fills an empirical gap on contemporary Franco-British defence relations, a topic of critical academic and political importance on which no recent monograph exists. Examining interactions among the variety of collective actors involved, it offers a fine-grained account of the workings and processes of this newly institutionalised cooperation, across sectors of conventional defence. In the absence of a satisfactory existing theory, the mechanisms specific to bilateral cooperation are analysed using an original model. The model is centred on four concepts that represent the challenges of bilateral cooperation: incongruity (incompatibility of interests), astructuration (lack of structure, formal and informal), symmetrism (search for similarity and equality) and entanglement (intertwining with other bilateral, multilateral and transnational relations). Through a detailed analysis of the case studies, the thesis demonstrates that these challenges are in fact inherent to the process of bilateral cooperation and it explains how they shape the outcome of the bilateral enterprises. The thesis also shows that each experience of cooperation initiates transformative dynamics, which progressively alter the conduct of cooperation in each specific sector and the bilateral defence relationship more broadly. These transformative dynamics are ambivalent, as both cooperative and competitive practices become constituents of Franco-British defence cooperation.