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

widely heralded move to flexible response may have
been less of a change in practice than is commonly assumed.
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National Attitudes to TNWs.
Quite unlike strategic nuclear forces, TNWs, by
their forward-based physical presence <strong>and</strong> likely use
in defensive combat on or over Allied territory, confront
members of alliances like <strong>NATO</strong> with very concrete
choices over potential use. Europeans responded
in different ways to the deployment of TNWs <strong>and</strong> the
dilemmas posed by timing <strong>and</strong> conditions of their
employment. For most <strong>NATO</strong> allies, the inescapable
choice was between the binary risks of entanglement 27
(being caught up, if deterrence failed, in a nuclear
war, perhaps starting far from Europe <strong>and</strong> escalating
faster than they would have chosen) or ab<strong>and</strong>onment
(being left exposed through “decoupling” to the prospect
of Soviet intimidation, conquest, or conventionally
irreversible seize-<strong>and</strong>-hold occupation should
the Americans fall short on their nuclear guarantees).
The recurrent disputes on Alliance nuclear posture involved
cycling between these poles of anxiety. For the
United States, the concomitant problem of extended
nuclear deterrence was, <strong>and</strong> remains, “simply the
international political problem of credibility of retaliation
with potentially suicidal consequences against
serious, but not inevitably fatal, threats.” 28 Reaching
agreement on the timing <strong>and</strong> circumstances of the Alliance’s
response with TNWs inevitably focused attention
on this dilemma, which was logically insoluble,
yet had to be—<strong>and</strong> has been—politically managed,
very largely by creating a common deterrence culture
within which joint planning for nuclear contingencies
could be conducted <strong>and</strong> normalized.
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