Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO.pdf - Program on Strategic ...

conventional strength. 14 In the Pacific, however, the
United States enjoyed the conventional upper h<strong>and</strong>. 15
This advantage stemmed from the combination of its
substantial superiority over its Communist rivals in
naval <strong>and</strong> air power with the geographical situation of
U.S. allies, which were mostly isl<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> peninsular
nations. As a consequence, throughout the Cold War
<strong>and</strong> after, U.S. naval forces could operate with near
impunity throughout the Pacific Basin. Thus, even
as U.S. Communist opponents in China, Vietnam,
<strong>and</strong> the Soviet Union generally held the advantage in
ground forces in Asia, these forces were of no import
against U.S. allies in Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines,
<strong>and</strong> Singapore absent some method of projecting force
across large bodies of water, a capability the Communists
effectively lacked through most of the Cold War.
The failures of U.S. l<strong>and</strong> forces in successfully projecting
sustained power deep into the Eurasian l<strong>and</strong>mass—as
with the fate of U.S. aid to the Kuomintang
before 1949, the repulsion of United Nations (UN)
forces from the Yalu in 1950-51, <strong>and</strong> the outcome of
the war in Vietnam—thus had a limited impact on the
security of insular <strong>and</strong> peninsular U.S. allies because
within its main defense perimeter encompassing maritime
East Asia, the United States was able to minimize
reliance on ground forces. The only significant
exception to this rule was the U.S. ground presence in
South Korea. Moreover, U.S. air <strong>and</strong> maritime conventional
superiority in Asia became even more secure
when China left the Soviet camp just as Soviet naval
forces appeared to begin to pose a serious threat to
U.S. power in the Pacific. This superiority meant that,
once the United States began to seek ways to reduce
its reliance on nuclear weapons, conventional military
power could responsibly assume a greater role in the
Pacific than it could in Europe. 16
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