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

ence as the chief factor that limited conflict <strong>and</strong> prevented
a general war. The nuclear arsenals of the two
superpowers had what he calls a “civilizing effect” because
they strengthened the h<strong>and</strong>s of pragmatists set
on avoiding nuclear war <strong>and</strong> who guarded cautiously
against allowing local wars to turn into major conflicts
with their risks of escalation. He doubts that the new
nuclear powers will be willing to give up their arsenals
without a fundamental shift in what he refers to
as the “moral environment,” a shift he sees as forthcoming.
But in looking at the decades since the end of
the Cold War, Karaganov sees a dangerous transition
in <strong>NATO</strong> from a defensive alliance into an instrument
for out-of-area intervention. In the context of Russian
weakness, <strong>NATO</strong> intervened against Yugoslavia in
1999 over Kosovo. But with Russia’s recovery, such
a course of action is now unlikely: “Now that Russia
has restored its capability such a move would be unthinkable.”
39 Instead, <strong>NATO</strong> is now involved in more
distant out-of-area operations, which carry their own
risks of escalation.
Against what Karaganov labels as “antinuclear
mythology,” he posits a hard-headed realism. He rejects
the idea that nuclear arms reductions by the major
powers would entice lesser nuclear powers to give
up their nuclear arms or convince other states threatened
by outside powers or internal instability to forgo
nuclear weapons. Such arrangements might be in the
interests of the two powers, but some supposed moral
transcendence cannot justify them. States must act in
their own interests in the absence of an international
regime preventing the intervention of other powers.
That Libya gave up nuclear weapons after the U.S.-
led coalition’s campaign against Iraq did not protect
Libya from external intervention in what had become
135