To neither use them nor lose them: NATO and nuclear weapons since the cold war

Abstract

After having been at the forefront of NATO strategy, policy and controversy during most of the Cold War period, nuclear weapons appeared to have faded almost completely from the scene by the end of the 1990s. Notwithstanding this perception, it is argued in this article that, despite being greatly reduced in numbers, they have continued to fulfil a number of key roles for NATO member states. The main factors identified and discussed in this context are: the role of nuclear weapons in underpinning the ‘transatlantic community’; residual concerns about Russia; and the alleged role played by NATO nuclear deployments in discouraging nuclear proliferation in Europe and on its periphery. Although not certain to survive future changes in policy by NATO's leading members, taken together these roles add up to a more complex and significant rationale for maintaining a residual NATO nuclear dimension in Europe than is often realized.

Notes

Martin A. Smith, ‘“In a Box in the Corner”? NATO's Theatre Nuclear Weapons, 1989–99’, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol.25, No.1 (2002), pp.1–20.

On the PoCs see Shaun Gregory, Nuclear Command and Control in NATO (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996), pp.20–21.

The nature of the Athens Guidelines was explained to the author in a background interview with a member of the NATO Nuclear Planning Directorate in April 1991. Insightful published accounts exist in Paul Buteux, The Politics of Nuclear Consultation in NATO 1965–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp.102–104 and Michael Legge, Theater Nuclear Weapons and the NATO Strategy of Flexible Response (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1983), pp.22–3.

This phrase is borrowed from David Schwartz, NATO's Nuclear Dilemmas (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1983). Schwartz's core argument is that NATO's central – irresolvable – ‘nuclear dilemma’ during the Cold War arose from the tensions caused by the member states wanting on the one hand to make the use of nuclear weapons appear as credible as possible in order to deter the Soviet Union, whilst on the other wishing to avoid creating a situation in which the use of nuclear weapons became, effectively, automatic or inevitable.

Thomas Wiegele, ‘Nuclear Consultation Processes in NATO’, Orbis, Vol.16, No.2 (1972), p.472.

Lawrence Freedman, ‘The Wilderness Years’, in Jeffrey Boutwell et al. (eds), The Nuclear Confrontation in Europe (Beckenham: Croom Helm, 1985), p.45.

Buteux, The Politics of Nuclear Consultation in NATO, p.140. See also Gregory, Nuclear Command and Control in NATO, p.38.

INF missiles in the Cold War context were those with ranges of between 500 km and 5,500 km.

David Schwartz has written that ‘if there ever has been an important NATO decision that was a product of true intergovernmental consensus, it was the December 1979 decision’. See Schwartz, NATO's Nuclear Dilemmas, p.243. See also Gregory Treverton, ‘Managing NATO's Nuclear Dilemma’, International Security, Vol.7, No.4 (1983), p.427; Strobe Talbott, Deadly Gambits (London: Pan, 1985), p.32; Raymond Garthoff, ‘The NATO Decision on Theatre Nuclear Forces’, Political Science Quarterly, Vol.98, No.2 (1983), p.202; James Thomson, ‘The LRTNF Decision: Evolution of US Theatre Nuclear Policy, 1975–9’, International Affairs, Vol.60, No.4 (1984), pp.601–14.

See Thomas Risse-Kappen, The Zero Option: INF, West Germany and Arms Control (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1988), pp.68–9; Talbott, Deadly Gambits, p.115, 156 and 180–81; William Vogele, ‘Tough Bargaining and Arms Control: Lessons from the INF Treaty’, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol.12, No.3 (1989), p.268; Lewis Dunn, ‘Considerations after the INF Treaty’, Survival, Vol.30, No.3 (1988), p.206.

This period is analysed in detail in Martin A. Smith, NATO in the First Decade after the Cold War (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2000), pp.41–52.

Christopher Bellamy, ‘NATO's Megadeath Gets a Slimmer Look’, The Independent, 14 December 1996.

The State of Affairs in Disarmament (Document 1590), at < http://www.weu.int/assembly/weu/newwebsite/docu/e-1590-1.htm >.

Robert Manning, ‘The Ultimate Weapon Redux? US Nuclear Policy in a New Era’, in Burkard Schmitt (ed.), Nuclear Weapons: A New Great Debate, Chaillot Paper 48, at < http://www.iss-eu.org/chaillot/chai48e.pdf >; Paolo Cotta-Ramusino, ‘NATO's Midlife Crisis: The Unasked Question’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol.55, No.4 (1999), at < http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1999/ja99/ja99cotta-ramusino.html >; Andrew Butfoy, ‘Perpetuating US Nuclear ‘First-Use’ Into The Indefinite Future: Reckless Inertia or Pillar of World Order?’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol.23, No.2 (2002), pp.149–50 and 161.

1994: Jack Mendelsohn, ‘NATO's Nuclear Weapons: The Rationale for ‘No First Use’’, Arms Control Today, Vol.29, No.5 (1999), at < http://www.armscontrol.org/act/1999_07-08/jmja99.asp?print >; 1999: Martin Butcher, NATO Nuclear Policy: Between Disarmament and Pre-Emptive Nuclear Use, at < http://www.basicint.org/nuclear/NATO/1999_mbutcher.htm >; ‘No Nukes, Not Yet’, PENN Newsletter, No.9 (1999), at < http://www.bits.de/public/pennnews/pennews9.htm >.

Lawrence Freedman, ‘Great Powers, Vital Interests and Nuclear Weapons’, Survival, Vol.36, No.4 (1994–95), p.44.

The Alliance's New Strategic Concept, November 1991, par.55, at < http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c911107a.htm >.

The Alliance's Strategic Concept, April 1999, par.63, at < http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99-065e.htm >.

On this aspect of Russian opposition to NATO enlargement see David Yost, The US and Nuclear Deterrence in Europe, Adelphi Paper 326 (London: IISS, 1999), pp.20–23.

Press Communiqué M-NAC-2(96)165 par.5, at < http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1996/p96-165e.htm >.

In the officially-approved Study on NATO Enlargement in 1995, it was stated that ‘the coverage provided by Article 5 [of the NATO Treaty], including its nuclear component, will apply to new members … New members will, as do current members, contribute to the development and implementation of NATO's strategy, including its nuclear components’. Study on NATO Enlargement, Brussels, NATO, 1995, p.20.

Sverre Lodgaard, ‘Good News for Non-Proliferation? The Changing Relationship Between Russia, NATO and the NPT’, Disarmament Diplomacy, No.69 (2003), at < http://www.acronym.org.uk/textonly/dd/dd69/69op02.htm >.

Official secrecy has ensured that authoritative calculations regarding the size of the remaining Russian TNF stockpile have been difficult to produce. For a recent estimate from a generally well-regarded source see ‘Russian Nuclear Forces, 2002’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol.58, No.4 (2002), at < http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/nukenotes/ja02nukenote.pdf >.

For an example of one of these relatively rare voices being raised see the testimony of Admiral William Owens, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in May 2002. Reprinted in Examining the Nuclear Posture Review, 107th Congress, Second Session, Washington DC, US Government Printing Office, 2002, pp.13–14.

Jane Sharp, ‘Europe's Nuclear Dominos’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (1993), at < http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1993/j93/j93Sharp.html >.

David Yost, ‘Europe and Nuclear Deterrence’, Survival, Vol.35, No.3 (1993), p.113.

Robert Spulak, ‘The Case in Favor of US Nuclear Weapons’, Parameters, Vol.27, No.1 (1997), p.113.

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, at < http://disarmament.un.org:8080/wmd/npt/npttext.html >.

This case has been developed most cogently in two reports from the British American Security Information Council. See Martin Butcher et al. Nuclear Futures: Western European Options for Nuclear Risk Reduction, BASIC/BITS Research Report 98.6, at < http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Research/1998nuclearfutures1.htm >and Martin Butcher et al., Questions of Command and Control: NATO, Nuclear Sharing and the NPT, PENN Research Report 2000.1, at < http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Research/2000nuclearsharing1.htm >.

See Karel Koster, ‘An Uneasy Alliance: NATO Nuclear Doctrine & The NPT’, Disarmament Diplomacy, No.49 (2000), at < http://www.acronym.org.uk/textonly/dd/dd49/49npt.htm >.

Koster, ‘An Uneasy Alliance’.

Olivier Debouzy, Anglo-French Nuclear Cooperation: Perspectives and Problems, Whitehall Paper 7 (London: RUSI, 1991), p.57.

See Schwartz, NATO's Nuclear Dilemmas.

McGeorge Bundy, ‘To Cap The Volcano’, Foreign Affairs, Vol.48, No.1 (1969), p.10.

McGeorge Bundy, ‘America in the 1980s: Reframing Relations with our Friends and Among our Allies’, Survival, Vol.24, No.1 (1982), p.26.

Kenneth Waltz, ‘Nuclear Myths and Political Realities’, American Political Science Review, Vol.84, No.3 (1990), p.737.

See, inter alia, Patrick Garrity, ‘The Depreciation of Nuclear Weapons in International Politics: Possibilities, Limits, Uncertainties’, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol.14, No.4 (1991), p.489; Bruno Tertrais, Nuclear Policies in Europe, Adelphi Paper 327 (London: IISS, 1999), pp.21–22.

McGeorge Bundy, ‘The Future of Strategic Deterrence’, Survival, Vol.21, No.6 (1979), p.21.

McGeorge Bundy, ‘The Unimpressive Record of Atomic Diplomacy’, in Gwyn Prins (ed.), The Choice: Nuclear Weapons Versus Security (London: Chatto & Windus, 1984), p.43.

McGeorge Bundy et al., ‘Nuclear Weapons and the Atlantic Alliance’, Foreign Affairs, Vol.60, No.4 (1982), pp.753–68; Karl Kaiser et al., ‘Nuclear Weapons and the Preservation of Peace’, Foreign Affairs, Vol.60, No.5 (1982), pp.1157–70.

McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Vintage, 1990), pp.598–602.

See ‘Nuclear Weapons removed from Araxos?’, PENN Newsletter, No.13 (2001), at < http://www.bits.de/public/pennnews/pennews13.htm >; ‘US nuclear forces, 2003’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 59, No.3 (2003), at < http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/nukenotes/mj03nukenote.html >.

See Karel Koster, NATO Nuclear Doctrine and the NPT, at < http://www.basicint.org/pubs/20040629NATO-nuclear-Koster.htm >; Matthew Wald, ‘US to Make Deep Cuts in Stockpile of A-Arms’, New York Times, 4 June 2004.

On developments in US strategy and official attitudes see Scott Sagan, ‘The Commitment Trap’, International Security, Vol.24, No.4 (2000), pp.85–115; Joachim Krause, ‘Proliferation Risks and their Strategic Relevance: What Role for NATO?’, Survival, Vol.37, No.2 (1995), pp.135–48; Richard Sokolsky, ‘Demystifying the US Nuclear Posture Review’, Survival, Vol.44, No.3 (2002), p.136.

See, inter alia, McGeorge Bundy et al., ‘Reducing Nuclear Danger’, Foreign Affairs, Vol.72, No.2 (1993), pp.140–55.

Butcher et al., Nuclear Futures; Butcher et al., Questions of Command and Control; Thomas Graham and Leonor Tomero, ‘“Obligations For Us All”: NATO & Negative Security Assurances’, Disarmament Diplomacy, No.49 (2000), at < http://www.acronym.org.uk/textonly/dd/dd49/49nato.htm >.

Press Communiqué M-NAC-1(96)63 par.11, at < http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1996/ p96-063e.htm >. Emphasis added.

The Alliance's Strategic Concept, April 1999, para 41, emphasis added.

NSAs are defined in the NATO Report on Options for Confidence and Security Building Measures, Verification, Non-Proliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament (M-NAC-2(2000)121) para 89, at http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2000/p00-121e/050101.htm.

Sagan, ‘The Commitment Trap’, p.103.

For a comprehensive elaboration of these concerns see Mark Bromley et al., Bunker Busters: Washington's Drive for New Nuclear Weapons (BASIC Research Report 2002.2), at http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Research/2002BB.pdf.

Press Communiqué M-NAC-1(2000)52 paras 54 and 57, at http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2000/p00-052e.htm.

Prague Summit Declaration (Press Release (2002)127) para 4, at http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2002/p02-127e.htm.

Press Release (2003)059 para 14, at http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2003/p03-059e.htm.

See Istanbul Summit Communiqué, at http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2004/p04-096e.htm.

‘Is NATO Coming under Pressure to Amend its Nuclear Policy?’, BASIC Notes (2003), at http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Notes/2003NATOnukes.htm.

Dan Plesch and Martin Butcher, ‘NATO, Nuclear Weapons and the Prague Summit’, RUSI Journal, Vol.47, No.5 (2002), p.64.

For one such see Dan Smith, Pressure: How America Runs NATO (London: Bloomsbury, 1989).