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

“consider steps to ensure the transparency <strong>and</strong> irreversibility
of nuclear weapons.” In 1997, President Bill
Clinton <strong>and</strong> Russia´s President Boris Yeltsin signed
a “Framework Agreement” at the Helsinki, Finl<strong>and</strong>,
summit that included the obligation to address measures
related to “non-strategic nuclear weapons” in a
possible Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) III.
U.S. <strong>and</strong> Russian experts were expected to explore, as
a separate issue, possible measures relating to “tactical
nuclear systems, to include confidence-building
<strong>and</strong> transparency measures.” Unfortunately, the previous
treaty version, START II, was never activated
due to the controversy over the U.S. withdrawal from
the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2002, <strong>and</strong>
subsequently START III itself was never negotiated.
When the New START treaty was signed on April
8, 2010, <strong>and</strong> entered into force on February 5, 2011,
it became clear that the definition of TNWs vis-à-vis
strategic weapons would be an important issue for
the follow-on agreement which is intended to include
TNWs. As will be discussed below, today it is estimated
that about 150-200 U.S. B-61 nuclear gravity bombs
are still deployed in five European North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (<strong>NATO</strong>) countries: Germany,
Belgium, the Netherl<strong>and</strong>s, Italy, <strong>and</strong> Turkey. Russian
numbers of active TNWs are much higher, about 2,000
or more, but they are not deployed. Also, Russia has
produced <strong>and</strong> retained many different types of TNWs.
Most of them are likely stored in the European part of
Russia with warheads separated from their delivery
systems.
The 2009 Final Report of the Commission on the Strategic
Posture of the United States makes it clear that introducing
TNWs in the arms control process might
become a complicated matter. 2
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