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

to nuclear threats emerging from the Middle East or
South or East Asia must be open to serious doubt. For
such a scenario, the U.S. strategic arsenal will continue
to look like a much more obvious option.
As has been said elsewhere, the use of TNWs as
arms control bargaining chips would also be a challenge,
<strong>and</strong> not just because there is such an asymmetry
in numbers now between <strong>NATO</strong>’s stockpile <strong>and</strong>
that of Russia. It is hardly a happy starting point for
a negotiation when different <strong>NATO</strong> member states
see different rationales for retaining these weapons,
including some that have nothing to do with Russia,
<strong>and</strong> others see no enduring military rationale for them
at all.
And what kind of party in any potential negotiations
would Russia be? Not one, perhaps, inclined to
help <strong>NATO</strong> out of its own difficulties on the matter.
From any arms control perspective, there may be significant
challenges to pursuing isolated negotiations
purely on TNWs. In fact, this could simply produce
increased friction <strong>and</strong> acrimony within <strong>NATO</strong>, particularly
among its European members. But, equally,
a more comprehensive, multi-track approach—with
tactical nuclear weapons merely part of a gr<strong>and</strong>er
bargain—may also be unachievable given the current
preoccupation of <strong>NATO</strong> members with other issues.
These are among the many challenges for the Alliance
on this issue, simply when viewed from the st<strong>and</strong>point
of presenting the subject for public consideration.
But for the fact that the actual weapons themselves,
<strong>and</strong> the aircraft that would deliver them, are getting
old <strong>and</strong> wearing out, the debate surrounding the Alliance’s
remaining forward-deployed nuclear weapons
may in some ways be characterized as an accidental
one. It could be said to have stemmed from a misread-
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