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

this incredible amount of destruction is, on its face, a
step no sane national leader would take. But it is here
that tactical weapons were meant to play their dangerous
role, for they would be the arms that provided the
indispensable bridge from peace to nuclear war. Thus,
the structures of Cold War nuclear doctrines on both
sides remain in place, only on a smaller scale.
How did we get here?
As Major General William Burns notes in his introduction
to this volume, the history of the Cold War is a
nuclear history, centered around each side’s efforts to
convince the other of a readiness for a war that neither
wanted. <strong>Tactical</strong> nuclear weapons were crucial to this
effort, because they were the link between conventional
war in Europe <strong>and</strong> a central nuclear exchange
between the superpowers. The Soviets were unlikely
to believe that the President would risk New York <strong>and</strong>
Chicago for the people of Europe, which was the central
premise of the short-lived <strong>and</strong> poorly conceived
strategy of “Massive Retaliation.” A threat to leap to
Armageddon because of a scuffle between the Soviets
<strong>and</strong> the West Germans was on its face incredible, to
Moscow as much as to us.
<strong>Tactical</strong> nuclear weapons provided the solution,
such as it was. The West ab<strong>and</strong>oned any hope of matching
Warsaw Pact conventional forces man for man or
tank for tank, <strong>and</strong> instead placed nuclear weapons in
Europe, many of them directly in front of the assumed
axes of Soviet advance where they would assuredly
be overrun or employed. This warned the Soviets, in
effect, that if Europe were invaded, the choice to use
nuclear arms would be forced upon <strong>NATO</strong> by the successes
of the Red Army. Western comm<strong>and</strong>ers, faced
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