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

near Central Europe <strong>and</strong> therefore were focused on the peril of a
Warsaw Pact l<strong>and</strong> invasion along the Central Front. This gave a
coherence <strong>and</strong> collective quality to the concerns of the European
<strong>NATO</strong> nations.
35. The fact that the U.S. Navy was the only military force
among the allies that could range across this vast expanse of territory
also added to U.S. autonomy <strong>and</strong> leverage. In the nuclear
weapons arena, these dynamics strengthened U.S. proclivities towards
discretionary <strong>and</strong> opaque decisionmaking, dynamics that
were compounded by the U.S. ability to store <strong>and</strong> operate these
weapons from U.S. naval vessels <strong>and</strong> sovereign U.S. territory. U.S.
sovereign territory included Pacific isl<strong>and</strong>s such as Guam but also
included territorial concessions granted after World War II on the
historical territory of allies, such as Subic Bay in the Philippines
<strong>and</strong> Okinawa in Japan.
36. See Cha, pp. 163,168. For a similar point of view, see Jeremy
Pressman, Warring Friends: Alliance Restraint in International
Politics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008, pp. 29-36.
37. See George R. Packard, “The United States-Japan Security
Treaty at 50: Still a Gr<strong>and</strong> Bargain?” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 89,
No. 2, March/April 2010, pp. 92-103. This reliance was explicitly
nuclear. For instance, after the shock of China’s first nuclear test
in October 1964, a substantial number of powerful Liberal Democratic
Party (LDP) leaders approached Prime Minister Sato Eisaku
of Japan with a proposal that Japan should create its own nuclear
arsenal. Sato let this be known to Ambassador Reischauer who
immediately told Secretary of State Dean Rusk, <strong>and</strong> when Sato
arrived for a summit meeting with President Johnson in Washington
in January of 1965, he received assurances that the United
States would extend its “nuclear umbrella” over Japan, thus obviating
Japan’s going nuclear itself. This situation continues to this
day. The author thanks George Packard for this insight.
38. For the Japanese government’s revelation of the existence
of so-called “secret agreements” between Tokyo <strong>and</strong> Washington
permitting US transit of nuclear weapons through Japanese
ports <strong>and</strong> waters <strong>and</strong> the reintroduction of nuclear weapons
to Okinawa after the isl<strong>and</strong>’s reversion to Japanese control,
see Jeffrey Lewis, “More on U.S.-Japan ‘Secret Agreements,’”
Armscontrolwonk.com, March 11, 2010, available from
103