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

that means. Today, this seems to be more a description
of a situation rather than a strategic concept, denoting
only that the United States maintains a small stock of
tactical nuclear weapons in Europe <strong>and</strong> continues to
declare a tie between European <strong>NATO</strong>’s security <strong>and</strong>
the U.S. strategic arsenal.
During the Cold War, this was enough. But does
the continuation of a “nuclear alliance” now mean that
America’s extended deterrent in Europe is operative
against threats from any source, <strong>and</strong> not just Russia?
Indeed, does the presence of tactical nuclear weapons
on the Continent represent an underlying belief
that Russia is still <strong>NATO</strong>’s chief adversary? If not, is
<strong>NATO</strong> even an “alliance” anymore, or is it now a collective
security arrangement meant to keep the peace
in Europe <strong>and</strong>—as in the case of Libya—other theaters
as well? If the Atlantic Alliance is going to find a new
future as a collective security or peacekeeping organization,
this in turn raises the question of whether it
needs nuclear weapons at all.
What remains on the agenda in the wake of this
report? Specifically, three issues need to be addressed
in the near future.
1. Do TNWs or NSNWs have a role in U.S. defense
planning at all? This is the logically prior question to
determining <strong>NATO</strong>’s future as a nuclear alliance.
Since the advent of nuclear parity with the Soviet
Union in the 1960s, American nuclear doctrine has
continually, <strong>and</strong> sometimes intentionally, wavered on
what the United States sees as the essential purpose
of nuclear weapons. Specifically, Cold War deterrence
conflated (again, sometimes intentionally, but also at
times from confusion) two seemingly contradictory
propositions, namely, that nuclear weapons exist only
to deter the use of similar weapons against the United
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