US Nuclear Weapons in Europe - Natural Resources Defense Council

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U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe • Hans M. Kristensen/Natural Resources Defense Council, 2005 If President Bush ever considered the nuclear option, his decision not to use nuclear weapons may have been influenced by recommendations from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell. Prior to the war, Powell ordered, at the request of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, a handful of Pentagon officials to work out nuclear strike options against Iraq. "The results unnerved me," Powell later confessed in My American Journey. "To do serious damage to just one armored division dispersed in the desert would require a considerable number of small tactical nuclear weapons…. If I had had any doubts before about the practicality of nukes in the field of battle, this report clinched them," Powell concluded. 66 Defense Secretary Dick Cheney seemed less discouraged. In January 1991, as U.S. forces massed to liberate Kuwait, he issued a top-secret Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy (NUWEP), which reportedly tasked the military to plan for nuclear operations against nations developing or capable of delivering WMD. 67 Despite General Powell’s belief, the Joint Military Net Assessment, published by his office in March 1991, concluded that no-strategic nuclear forces in particular "could assume a broader role globally in response to the proliferation of nuclear capability among Third World nations." 68 New Cuts Lead to New Reaffirmation of Nuclear Role On September 27, 1991, President George H.W. Bush announced that the United States would withdraw all tactical ground-launched and naval nuclear weapons worldwide. The initiative removed roughly 2,400 nuclear warheads from Europe but left behind about 1,400 air-delivered bombs in seven European countries. 69 NATO’s public endorsement of the U.S. decision occurred in Taormina, Italy, where the NPG met on October 17 and 18 with the “principle objective” of agreeing to the new sub-strategic force posture and stockpile levels. 70 With former targets in eastern Europe gone and the Soviet Union disintegrating, even 1,400 nuclear bombs seemed in excess of any real military need. The NPG therefore decided that in addition to the elimination of ground-launched systems, the number of airdelivered weapons in NATO’s European stockpile would be cut by approximately 50 percent to about 700 bombs. 71 Altogether, the NPG declared, the total reduction in NATO’s stockpile of sub-strategic weapons in Europe would be “roughly 80 percent.” 72 Later, in 1999, NATO declared that the reduction in non-strategic nuclear weapons was “over 85 percent,” 73 and was completed in 1993. 74 As for the role of the remaining bombs, the 1991 NPG communiqué explained: “Nuclear weapons will continue for the foreseeable future to fulfill their essential role in the Alliance's overall strategy, since conventional forces alone cannot ensure war prevention. We will therefore continue to base effective and up-to-date sub-strategic nuclear forces in Europe, but they will consist solely of dual-capable aircraft, with continued widespread participation in nuclear roles and peacetime basing by Allies.” 75 32
U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe • Hans M. Kristensen/Natural Resources Defense Council, 2005 This policy became embedded into the new Strategic Concept approved by the North Atlantic Council meeting in Rome in October 1991, which reiterated that "the presence of…U.S. nuclear forces in Europe remain vital to the security of Europe." 76 An article in NATO’s Sixteen Nations further explained the thinking at the Rome Summit: "Nuclear forces, no longer even defined as 'weapons of last resort', are not considered relevant to immediate crisis management, but will be kept, much reduced, as the ultimate insurance against existing and possible new nuclear arsenals of other countries. Similar to conventional forces, the emphasis there is also on common involvement, by maintaining common allied planning and an allied potential, mainly in the form of dual-capable aircraft, with a strategic backup from three allied nuclear powers (United States, Britain, and France).” 77 Neither the Strategic Concept nor the article in NATO’s Sixteen Nations explained why this required maintaining U.S. nuclear weapons forward-deployed in Europe or why the thousands of other U.S., British, and French nuclear weapons couldn’t have the same effect. A secret document approved by NATO in late 1991, the 30-page MC-400, provided more details on NATO’s strategy for nuclear and conventional forces in the post–Cold War era and provided military guidance for implementing the new strategy. Russia remained a main concern but weapons of mass destruction proliferation the Middle East received increased attention. NATO’s nuclear arsenal was mainly a political weapon, MC-400 reiterated, but added that they could be used selectively to end a conflict by confronting an attacker with overwhelming costs if continuing the war. Nuclear weapons would be used especially on an initial strike, in a way that is "constrained, discriminate, and measured," the document said. Targets would include high-priority military targets, especially on an enemy's home territory, using either air-delivered nuclear bombs or missiles launched from ships and/or submarines. 78 In response to the U.S. decision to remove ground-launched and naval nuclear weapons from Europe, the Soviet Union proposed that the remaining U.S. and Soviet nuclear bombs in Europe should be removed from all tactical air bases and stored at central locations away from the planes that would carry them. U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney initially told reporters that he found “some merits” in the proposal, and a senior defense official told the Washington Post that NATO would study where the storage sites might be located and how much it would cost. But the proposal would require giving up the new Weapons Storage and Security System (WS3) NATO was building inside aircraft shelters at bases in Europe, and Cheney was concerned that storing the bombs in only one or a few sites would single out individual countries and make them vulnerable to criticism. 79 Unfortunately, nothing came of the Soviet proposal. Instead, the NATO weapons were transferred from Weapons Storage Areas (WSA) to the new dispersed WS3 sites as these became operational during the 1990s. Once again, NATO used an opportunity for 33
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US Nuclear Weapons in Europe - Natural Resources Defense Council

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