The NATO Allies

Abstract

The most recent U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), completed in December 2001, has received little sustained attention in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries outside expert circles in governments, research institutes, and nongovernmental organizations. Popular and, to some extent, governmental and expert impressions of the NPR remain marked by critical news coverage in early 2002. Views of the NPR are influenced by aspects of U.S. policy that have rightly or wrongly become closely associated with it, including President George W. Bush’s description of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an “axis of evil” in January 2002; the administration’s elevation of the option of preemptive military action to the status of a doctrine; and the administration’s comparatively explicit language concerning the possibility of nuclear retaliation for the use of chemical or biological weapons against U.S. interests.