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

VI. 1991- 2012. THE RUSSIAN PREPONDERANCE
IN TNWS: POLITICAL STASIS
In 1991 <strong>and</strong> 1992, Presidents George H. W. Bush
<strong>and</strong> Boris Yeltsin both announced unilateral though
unverified TNW reductions. These parallel reductions,
which came to be known as the Presidential
<strong>Nuclear</strong> Initiatives, were seen as preludes to negotiations
aimed at elimination of TNWs after the Cold
War ended. Those negotiations never occurred, <strong>and</strong>
would have posed enormous verification problems
even if they had. Soon after Soviet forces withdrew
to Russia with all their nuclear weapons, <strong>NATO</strong> removed
most of its remaining TNWs, leaving only
“several hundred” B-61 gravity bombs. The United
States proceeded to eliminate nuclear artillery <strong>and</strong>
short-range surface-to-surface nuclear missiles from
its global stockpile. (It has removed all TNWs from
the ROK). The 2010 <strong>Nuclear</strong> Posture Review explicitly
sought to reduce the salience of U.S. nuclear weapons,
<strong>and</strong> President Barack Obama is a vigorous supporter
of Global Zero.
For various reasons the Russian Federation has not
found it expedient to make comparable TNW reductions.
113 The resultant TNW asymmetry in Moscow’s
favor is now long established <strong>and</strong> probably impossible
to eliminate in the near term, particularly because,
in view of its shrunken military capabilities, the Russian
Federation has ab<strong>and</strong>oned the Soviet Union’s
NOFUN posture. Its military doctrine seems to rely
significantly upon the deterrent provided, especially
at sea, by its remaining TNWs, which may number in
the low thous<strong>and</strong>s. In its 1991 Strategic Concept, <strong>NATO</strong>
gave up forward defense as a defining principle <strong>and</strong>
flexible response as a nuclear strategy. Alliance lead-
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