Abstract
This article attempts to examine the cooperation and friction among the Western allies with the focus on the Skybolt Crisis and the Nassau Agreement. The Skybolt Crisis arose from the inability to supply Skybolt missile by the United States (U. S.) to the United Kingdom (U. K.) in 1962. And the Nassau Agreement was signed for the solution of this crisis.
The Skybolt crisis was an affair that caused intense friction between the U. S. and the U. K. following the Suez War. There was the unique British nuclear policy behind the crisis. The policy was based on the logic, so-called ‘dependence for independence.’ This means that the U. K. kept its autonomy in using missiles in order to maintain the independent status as a great power while accepting their supply from the U. S. The problem the Macmillan administration faced over the Skybolt affair was how the U. K. should coordinate independence with dependence on the U. S. That is to say, the Skybolt crisis was the crisis on the logic of ‘dependence for independence’ in British nuclear policy, thus the status of the U. K. as a great power was threatened.
The restoration of the Skybolt crisis was made at the Nassau Conference. The Macmillan administration could obtain Polaris missiles instead of Skybolt missiles based on the Agreement signed at the Nassau Conference. However, for the British government, the Nassau Conference was not the symbol of ‘Pax Anglo-Saxonica’ among the Western allies, but the place to realize that ‘Pax Russo-Americana’ in the Cold War world had been strengthening. At the same time, the Kennedy administration started to force the Western allies to comply with the multilateral nuclear force (MLF) concept of NATO after the Nassau Agreement. The U. S. government sought the integration of the independent British and French nuclear forces under the U. S. ruling, while also curbing the feared nuclear ambitions of West Germany.
In addition, the Nassau Agreement gave the impression of ‘Pax Anglo-Saxonica’ on the other allies, especially France. As a result, French President de Gaulle finally decided to deny the first application for EEC membership by the U. K.
At the beginning of the 1960s, in the midst of U. S. -Soviet ‘collaboration’ toward ‘Pax Russo-Americana, ’ the friction among the Western allies had been developed in the complex form over the MLF concept and the British EEC application problem. That is the friction in Anglo-American relations, Anglo-French relations and French-American relations.
