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

Ws should be multilateral, with the participation of
at least all de jure nuclear states, namely, the Russian
Federation, the United States, the United Kingdom
(UK), France, <strong>and</strong> China.
There is one more interesting aspect of the possible
negotiations on reductions of TNWs. Back in 2000, the
United States introduced the concept of “operationally
deployed warheads” 28 into the strategic offensive
weapons-reduction negotiations, thus changing the
whole context of the NSNW problem. According to
the provisions of the New START Treaty, operationally
deployed warheads are those deployed on ICBMs
<strong>and</strong> SLBMs. Air launched cruise missiles (ALCMs)
<strong>and</strong> bombs in heavy bombers are not counted, since
in peacetime they are kept in storage. Driven by the
same logic, all tactical nuclear warheads (at least Russian)
are not operationally deployed since they are
also kept in storage. In this connection, it is rather difficult
to imagine how the idea—discussed by Steven
Pifer in Chapter 19 of this book—of a single limit covering
all U.S. <strong>and</strong> Russian nuclear warheads (strategic
<strong>and</strong> non-strategic, where each side is free to choose
its own mix of strategic <strong>and</strong> non-strategic nuclear
warheads) may be realized. The main problem for the
United States with such an approach is that, if all nondeployed
strategic warheads are counted, the overall
disparity between Russia <strong>and</strong> the United States in
nuclear weapons may disappear.
As to reductions of nondeployed strategic nuclear
weapons (warheads <strong>and</strong> means of delivery), they will
be carried out in a natural way within the framework
of implementing the New START Treaty. Since the
Treaty limits the number of means of delivery, there
is no practical sense in storing an excessive number of
nuclear warheads. They would be militarily neutralized
<strong>and</strong> too expensive to maintain.
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