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

ghanistan will also help to determine—along with the
lessons from Libya—what appetite there will be for
any kind of future entanglements, or “wars of choice,”
<strong>and</strong> therefore ultimately for what sort of requirements
there might be for future nuclear weapons capabilities
as a possible defense or deterrent. The trauma of
economic upheaval will affect the appetite <strong>and</strong> ability
to make defense provisions in Europe, <strong>and</strong> possibly
what has been described as a “race to the bottom”
among European defense budgets, especially with the
spectacle of the U.S. Government also joining in the
process. 8 It is also going to have an impact on perceptions
of where the real threats to stability in Europe
will lie in the medium term, <strong>and</strong> what role—if any—
<strong>NATO</strong> should play in tackling them. Thus <strong>NATO</strong>, at
Chicago or after, may have to adjust again if it wants
to remain relevant to most Europeans. Having spent a
decade trying to make <strong>NATO</strong> forces more deployable
<strong>and</strong> better able to tackle the tasks of nation-building,
the Alliance partners are likely to shift the focus again.
In the context of evermore-squeezed budgets, the priority
concerns may become more to do with internal
stability <strong>and</strong> cohesion <strong>and</strong> less with military threats
even from the near neighborhood, let alone further
afield. That eventuality could also see a recalibration
of the arguments over nuclear weapons, especially
if austerity becomes increasingly prolonged <strong>and</strong> the
question of the need to reinvest in the infrastructure
to support the forward-based weapons starts to intrude
more urgently. The fallout from austerity also
impinges on the issue of reassuring <strong>NATO</strong>’s eastern
European members. Reduced European conventional
capabilities, plus the specter of further U.S. conventional
drawdowns in Europe, reduce Alliance willingness
to address additional non-nuclear contingencies.
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