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

ombs in Europe as strategic weapons—which is why
Moscow often favors this definitional approach.
In view of the lack of consensus on what constitutes
TNWs, I propose the following working definition
as derived from the military functions expected of
their deployment by <strong>NATO</strong>, the United States, Britain,
France, <strong>and</strong> the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR)/Russia since the 1950s. TNWs are defined as:
nuclear devices <strong>and</strong> delivery systems with relatively
short range <strong>and</strong> low yield by contemporary st<strong>and</strong>ards,
which are intended for employment against conventional,
or nuclear, ground, naval, air targets or transport
assets, on the battlefield, or across the theater, to
contribute to total conventional <strong>and</strong> nuclear campaign
capability, yet which are not expected to inflict strategically
decisive damage to enemy military, economic,
or regime targets, but whose use would nevertheless
be an unmistakable signal that the stakes in a crisis
were regarded as serious enough to transform it into,
or continue it, as a nuclear conflict, <strong>and</strong> so, unavoidably,
to risk possible escalation to a strategic level. 2
CONCLUSIONS AND SCOPE
The main proposition of this chapter is that nuclear
weapons experience significant change in their strategic
purpose <strong>and</strong> their political <strong>and</strong> cultural meanings,
depending on time <strong>and</strong> historical context. This has
been true even with little change in the design, production,
deployment, maintenance, storage, training
routines, <strong>and</strong> targeting of the weapons themselves.
Their purposes, strategic implications, <strong>and</strong> political
meanings have steadily evolved over the decades.
TNWs have been subject to changes of international
thinking <strong>and</strong> national feeling about nuclear weapons,
<strong>and</strong> tidal fluctuations in the acceptability <strong>and</strong> avoidability
of early nuclear use.
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