Multilateral Force

The Multilateral Force (MLF ), German: Multilateral nuclear force, was in the reign of John F. Kennedy to produce a fleet of 25 warships of NATO, each equipped with SLBMs of type Polaris an American proposal from 1963, in addition to submarines should be and have a range of 4,500 km. Missiles and warheads should be the common property of the participating NATO countries and are under a common NATO command.

Thus, the possibility should the non-nuclear forces of the Alliance, to which also belonged to Germany, are offered to participate in the ownership, the operator and to the control of a nuclear force. The proposal was discussed at the NATO countries a long time, but failed because other than the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States, no country was willing to take over a substantial part of the financing. However, the Dutch voted on 20 February 1964, a participation in the multilateral nuclear fleet, while Belgium on March 3, 1964 refused participation. On 3 March 1964, the leader of the British Labour Party, Harold Wilson announced during a visit to the U.S., in the case of an election victory in the parliamentary elections, a multilateral nuclear force NATO to disagree.

With the election victory Wilson on October 16, 1964 also failed on the part of Britain this project. In December 1964, the British Prime Minister Wilson the U.S. offered a plan of Atlantic Nuclear Force ( ANF) of NATO, which has not been implemented as well. France, in turn, built in 1964 on independent of treaty obligations Force de frappe, and left in 1966 a large part of NATO's military structures. It thus became clear that the problems resulting from the nuclear hegemony of the U.S. in NATO, could not be solved with the plan of building a MLF. Although the structure failed, however, a committee member of NATO ( excluding France) was on political- military level by the Nuclear Planning Group (NPG ) are established for the role of nuclear weapons in the Alliance from 1967.

Prehistory

After the Cuban missile crisis, British Prime Minister Macmillan and Kennedy had at a meeting in 1962, the agreement signed by Nassau in Nassau in the Bahamas, in order to bind the nuclear defense of Great Britain to the United States. London a waiver of it, build up an independent nuclear force. The U.S. in turn integrated with Great Britain a part of Western Europe in the run of her Atlantic Alliance.

Charles de Gaulle interpreted the agreement as an attempt by the U.S. to prevent an own European world politics. His vision was a strong Europe of nations under French leadership, which should be by an independent nuclear armament able to play a world power. For the Federal Republic a difficult situation created by these tensions. In the era of Adenauer's a close alliance with France had been the rule. Now, however, the question whether the Federal Republic should go the distance to the alliance with France and operate a Franco-German security policy, whether or not the American security guarantees for Germany were irreplaceable. France's nuclear force, the force de frappe was still under construction, so that the Gaullist option in Germany was no majority.