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

By the same logic, preventing a potential arms race
in space <strong>and</strong> maintaining strategic stability are not the
only reasons for Russia to link the issues of TNWs <strong>and</strong>
space. There is concern in Russia that the United States
might have in mind the same “trick” it pulled with the
Strategic Defense Initiative of the 1980s—exhausting
the Russian economy (as happened with the Soviets in
the 1980s) by pushing it to spend huge sums of money
on expensive space countermeasures.
On the western side, many experts argue that while
American nuclear weapons in Europe have essentially
only a symbolic military role, they do possess a significant
political role—to demonstrate Euro-Atlantic
solidarity <strong>and</strong> to preserve the U.S. commitment to
European security. 14 Those who support maintaining
the U.S. TNW presence in Europe suspect that Russia’s
dem<strong>and</strong>s that the remaining American bombs in
Europe be withdrawn, constitute a covert attempt to
deepen American isolationism <strong>and</strong> undermine Euro-
Atlantic solidarity.
But are U.S. TNWs the only viable symbol of the
solidarity of <strong>NATO</strong> nations? Would the withdrawal
of the remaining U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe
truly have a damaging effect? Are there any alternative
(perhaps non-nuclear) symbols that could potentially
substitute for this symbolic role of U.S. TNWs?
The logic of the Cold War, which is probably still
driving Russia’s linkage between the withdrawal of
U.S. bombs <strong>and</strong> the start of negotiations, is evident
in Russia’s stated position. What is not clear yet is
whether the United States <strong>and</strong> its <strong>NATO</strong> partners will
find a way to delink this issue <strong>and</strong> how Russia would
react if the bombs were withdrawn.
At the moment, Russians offer a token nod to the
western fear that the threat of nuclear terrorism is real,
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