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

judged to generate (but which may now disappear
from Europe because the costs of making
minor aircraft modifications to make them
nuclear-capable will be financially vetoed by
parliaments).
• Bargaining chips for future comprehensive
arms control talks, which <strong>NATO</strong> has repeatedly
sought (but which the Russians have repeatedly
insisted could include TNWs only if all
U.S. TNWs were first withdrawn from Europe).
• A strategically high-visibility, but politically
high-maintenance weapons category that is
internationally <strong>and</strong>—in many countries domestically—controversial
(<strong>and</strong> which might
therefore detract from the urgency of <strong>NATO</strong>
improvements in more usable conventional capabilities).
TNWs will not be indefinitely sustainable
without governmental willingness to
modernize DCAs in the face of parliamentary
opposition. The ab<strong>and</strong>onment of these weapons
might seem to some a tempting reassurance
strategy to improve Alliance or bilateral
national relationships with Russia.
• Important emblems of reassurance for new
East European members of <strong>NATO</strong>, which probably
fear, but do not publicly speak of, ab<strong>and</strong>onment
in crisis from European allies <strong>and</strong>
resent any move which might appear to reduce
U.S. defense commitments (yet the history of
<strong>NATO</strong> expansion means that neither American
nor U.S.-supplied Alliance TNWs are located
in these countries, <strong>and</strong> could not be moved
there without provoking a major dispute with
Russia).
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