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

as just another kind of military option for warfighting.
But despite much talk of “massive retaliation” in the
1950s, practical policy reflected a much more flexible
attitude. Meanwhile, Henry Kissinger, Herman Kahn,
<strong>and</strong> other strategists developed elaborate scenarios
for nuclear use short of mutual assured destruction.
Forward-based ground TNWs were seen as enhancing
deterrence through their “use-it-or-lose-it” quality.
But for the most part, TNWs became a substitute
for strategy since their low cost made it easy to simply
acquire more of them.
During the 1960s, this house of cards began to fold.
Government officials <strong>and</strong> civilian strategists increasingly
questioned the credibility of using TNWs <strong>and</strong>
of the entire doctrine of limited nuclear war. By 1957,
after exercises like Sagebrush, the U.S. Army had concluded
that TNWs did not favor the defense. In addition,
<strong>NATO</strong> exercises made clear that Germany would
be devastated through the effects of blast <strong>and</strong> fallout
following even the limited employment of nuclear
weapons. <strong>NATO</strong> governments, experiencing different
strategic anxieties from their different geostrategic
circumstances, disputed when <strong>and</strong> how to use—or
threaten to use—these TNWs. U.S. officials generally
wanted options, firebreaks, <strong>and</strong> bargaining time; Germany
sought to avoid any increase in the possibility
of any war occurring on German territory by insisting
that <strong>NATO</strong> threaten the early use of nuclear weapons.
TNWs, designed as instruments of reassurance to governments,
became symbols of anxiety to large sections
of their publics.
By 1960, Kissinger <strong>and</strong> other analysts had noted the
failure of the services to develop a coherent doctrine
for TNWs, fundamental disagreements within <strong>NATO</strong>
over them, <strong>and</strong> the problems for <strong>NATO</strong> strategy that
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