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

• For what political purposes might nuclear
weapons be used, <strong>and</strong> what would determine
“victory” in a nuclear exchange? 18
The incorporation of massive retaliation in <strong>NATO</strong>
doctrine <strong>and</strong> stockpiling was nevertheless immediate
<strong>and</strong> encountered little resistance. The North Atlantic
Council (NAC) agreed in the autumn of 1953 that
“special attention should be given to the continuing
provision of modern weapons of the latest type [i.e.,
TNWs].” 19 The following year, Field Marshal Bernard
Montgomery, Deputy SACEUR, declared, “We at
SHAPE are basing all our planning on using atomic
or thermo nuclear weapons in our defence. . . . It is
no longer ‘they may possibly be used,’ it is very definitely:
they will be used if we are attacked.” 20 There
were deliberate attempts to construct a public underst<strong>and</strong>ing
of nuclear weapons as just another kind of
military option for warfighting. Official references
to nuclear response, without differentiating between
strategic <strong>and</strong> battlefield use, were designed to increase
nuclear deterrence by blurring distinctions. The first
U.S. nuclear artillery pieces arrived in Kaiserslautern,
Germany, in 1954. The buildup of TNWs accelerated
after 1956, so that “before long <strong>NATO</strong> was looking like
a nuclear porcupine, 21 having by 1960 amassed some
3,000 nuclear weapons.” 22 Forward-based ground
TNWs, despite their short ranges <strong>and</strong> low yields, were
seen as particularly enhancing deterrence through
their “use-it-or-lose-it” quality, <strong>and</strong> because, with the
introduction of nuclear shells (“battlefield nuclears”),
all dual-capable artillery, especially of the widely
available 155-mm class, would have to be regarded as
nuclear assets.
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