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

Bering Sea, while Soviet MiGs took off to intercept the
U-2. Fortunately, it managed to exit Soviet airspace
without shots being fired. 62 In these three widely
separated cases, TNWs came close to unauthorized or
unexpected firing in fast-moving, unanticipated, unplanned,
<strong>and</strong> unrehearsed situations. Their use would
have surprised the other side <strong>and</strong> threatened the tight
central control that both Washington <strong>and</strong> Moscow attempted
to exercise during the Cuba crisis.
British <strong>Tactical</strong> <strong>Nuclear</strong> Out-of-Area Deployments.
Alongside the United States, the UK provided
extended nuclear deterrence in behalf of the Central
Treaty Organization (CENTO) from 1955 to 1979, covering
the Middle East. Canberra <strong>and</strong> later Vulcan aircraft
of the UK Near East Air Force, equipped with Red
Beard <strong>and</strong> later WE177 bombs, based on the sovereign
base areas in Cyprus from about 1961 until 1975, were
tasked with missions primarily in the USSR’s Central
Asian Republics.
Similar arrangements applied in the Far East. Canberras
with Red Beards (later, WE177s) of the UK Far
Eastern Air Force were deployed in Tengah, Singapore,
from the early 1960s until the British withdrawal
from east of Suez in 1970-71. Their task was to provide
support for the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
(SEATO, 1954-77), primarily against possible Chinese
aggression. By October 1963, with the intensification
of the Second Indochina Conflict, the Americans began
asking the British to “take on targets in Burma,
adjacent parts of China <strong>and</strong> in Hainan.” Naval aircraft
from UK carriers in the Indian Ocean would have
been fully integrated into nuclear strike planning. 63
These nuclear deployments were kept secret from the
Cypriot <strong>and</strong> Singaporean government at the time. 64
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