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

the capability to employ such weapons, <strong>and</strong> continued
storing them aboard naval vessels <strong>and</strong> with air
wings <strong>and</strong> ground formations, the weapons’ salience
declined significantly in these decades. Even in South
Korea, where U.S. strategy dictated continuing reliance
on tactical nuclear weapons in the face of the still
formidable North Korean threat, the numbers of such
weapons declined by approximately 80 percent from
their peak in the late 1960s to their mid-1980s level. 19
Combined with the steady advances in technology
that enabled U.S. nuclear weapons <strong>and</strong> their delivery
platforms to operate at considerably greater ranges—
<strong>and</strong> thus from U.S. territory—these reductions also
enabled the United States to withdraw the great bulk
of its nuclear forces from allied territory, with significant
implications for the complexion of the U.S. forward
military presence in Asia. Thus, from a posture
in which nuclear weapons had been stored at bases
throughout Asia in the 1950s <strong>and</strong> 1960s for a great variety
of contingencies, by the 1970s these weapons had
been withdrawn from storage at bases in the Philippines,
Taiwan, <strong>and</strong> Japan <strong>and</strong>, with the exception of
South Korea, consolidated on U.S. territory. 20
Thus, by the latter stages of the Cold War, while
U.S. forces in Asia retained a substantial nuclear
weapons capability, their salience had receded considerably
from the peak of their importance in the 1950s.
U.S. nuclear weapons had evolved from an integral
<strong>and</strong> invaluable component of U.S. warfighting plans
in the 1950s to a means by the late 1980s which the
United States could normally use to deter adversaries
from exploiting any seams in deterrence created by
the unwillingness of the United States to resort to general
nuclear war. While U.S. strategic nuclear forces
deterred escalation to general war, U.S. forward-de-
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