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

CHAPTER 2
TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN <strong>NATO</strong>
AND BEYOND:
A HISTORICAL AND THEMATIC
EXAMINATION
INTRODUCTION
Paul Schulte
<strong>Tactical</strong> <strong>Nuclear</strong> <strong>Weapons</strong> (TNWs) are a U.S. invention
deriving from research <strong>and</strong> development
decisions taken around 1947-49, <strong>and</strong> accelerated by
ominous adversarial moves such as the Soviet nuclear
test in 1949 <strong>and</strong> the Korean War in 1950. They became
the characteristic, <strong>and</strong> eventually cheaply mass-produced
instrument of U.S. deterrence in Europe <strong>and</strong>
the Korean Peninsula. The Soviet Union also came
to deploy large numbers of TNWs with quite different
operational concepts. From their peak numbers in
the late 1960s to early 1970s, <strong>NATO</strong> TNWs declined
due to doctrinal reevaluation of their utility, the appearance
of conventional alternatives, <strong>and</strong>, in Europe,
anti-nuclear political feeling which prevented their
modernization or replacement <strong>and</strong> portrayed them as
an obstacle to political change. They remain an important
part of the Russian nuclear arsenal.
DEFINITIONS
TNWs pose serious definitional problems. The
most cited criteria involve a short range (under the
500 kilometer [km] lower limit established by the Intermediate
<strong>Nuclear</strong> Forces [INF] Treaty of 1987) <strong>and</strong> a
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