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

CHAPTER 15
THE ROLE OF NON-STRATEGIC NUCLEAR
WEAPONS:
AN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE
INTRODUCTION
Jeffrey A. Larsen
The ultimate purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons
today remains the same as it has been since the late
1940s: to deter an armed attack against the U.S. homel<strong>and</strong>,
its forces <strong>and</strong> interests abroad, <strong>and</strong> its friends
<strong>and</strong> allies. For more than 60 years, this mission has
been associated in the public mind with deterrence of
an adversary’s use of its own atomic weapons, <strong>and</strong>,
more recently, of any weapon of mass destruction
(WMD). <strong>Nuclear</strong> weapons have been thought of primarily
as a tool—one of many available to a nationstate,
including political, diplomatic, <strong>and</strong> economic
efforts, conventional forces, <strong>and</strong> active <strong>and</strong> passive
defenses—to prevent aggression of any kind against
America’s vital national interests.
This chapter argues that the denomination of certain
U.S. nuclear weapons as “non-strategic” is not
likely to continue much longer. The small number of
weapons of this type will remain in the U.S. inventory,
of course, but the name of the category itself will fall
into disuse as a relic of the Cold War. Instead, today’s
non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNWs) will be absorbed
into the manned bomber leg of the Triad comprising
what are now referred to as strategic weapons.
This is due to the growing recognition that any
nuclear use would have strategic consequences, <strong>and</strong>
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