On 2 June 1980, as the Euromissiles crisis unfolds, the Assembly of Western European Union (WEU) adopts Recommendation 345 on new weapons and defence strategy — modernisation of theatre nuclear forces. The Assembly deplores the increased nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union’s deployment of new nuclear weapons systems, including the SS-20 missile and Backfire bomber, and recommends that the WEU Council should call on the North Atlantic Council to seek to redress the balance between the forces of the Warsaw Pact and those of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). To counter the Soviet threat, the North Atlantic Council should rely on the whole range of existing weapons systems based in Europe, at sea and in the United States. But the Assembly also advises that efforts should be pursued to reach agreement on the limitation and the mutual and balanced reduction of nuclear weapons.