Abstract
NATO’s nuclear dilemma is nearly as old as the Alliance itself.1 It is rooted in the fundamental paradox of geography: most of NATO’s ultimate deterrent, American strategic nuclear forces, resides an ocean away from the likely point of attack or political pressure. The dilemma is also an anomaly: it crystallized the exceptional situation of the 1950s and with it the military dependence of Europe on the United States. Western Europe has become a confederation, its nations past the point of fighting with each other. In the decades after World War II the Western European states came to possess all the attributes of sovereignty save one: responsibility for their own defense.
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Notes
On “keys”, Alex Gliksman’s proposal is innovative but will not do the job. See his “Three Keys for Europe’s Bombs,” Foreign Polic, 39 (Summer 1980) 40–57. More generally, see Pierre Lellouche’s argument for a broadening of the role of British and French nuclear forces, in “Europe and Her Defense,” Foreign Affair, 54,4 (Spring 1981) 813–34; Hedley Bull’s explicit call for more European cooperation, including nuclear, in “European Self-Reliance and the Reform of NATO,” Atlantic Quarterl, 1, 1 (Spring 1983) 25–43; and a similar though more tentative argument from German Social Democrats, in Wilhelm Bruns and Christian Krause, “Reflections on a European Peace Order,” Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, December 1982.
W. S. Bennett, R. R. Sandoval and R. G. Shreffler have done the most work on such proposals. See their “A Credible Nuclear-Emphasis Defense for NATO,” Orbi, 17,2 (Summer 1973).
Kent F. Wisner, “Military Aspects of Enhanced Radiation Weapons,” Surviva, 23, 6 (November/December 1981).
For a strong argument about the difficulty of controlling nuclear war, see Desmond Ball, Can Nuclear War Be Controlled Adelphi Paper No. 169 (London: IISS, 1981).
See, for example, Senator Sam Nunn’s report, NATO: Can the Alliance be Saved Report to the Senate Committee on Armed Serivces, 97 Cong., 2 sess. (13 May 1982); and Report of the European Security Study. Strengthening Conventional Deterrence in Europe: Proposals for the 1980 (1983).
There is only beginning to be good history of NATO TNF. For a summary history, see The Modernization of NAT’s Long-Range Theater Nuclear Force, Report for the Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 96 Cong., 2 sess. (31 December 1980). See also David N. Schwartz, NAT’s Nuclear Dilemm (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1983); and chapters by Timothy Ireland and Lawrence Freedman in Jeffrey Boutwell, Paul M. Doty and Gregory F. Treverton, eds., The Nuclear Confrontation in Europ, forthcoming from Croom Helm, London. For a nice history and summary of the issues, see J. Michael Legge, Theater Nuclear Weapons and the NATO Strategy ofFlexible Respons, R-2964-FF (Santa Monica, Cal: The Rand Corporation, 1983).
For a strong argument on this score, see Uwe Nerlich, “Theater Nuclear Forces in Europe: Is NATO Running Out of Options?,” The Washington Quarterl, 3, I (Winter 1980).
The now classic discussion is Albert Wolhstetter, “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” Foreign Affair (January 1959).
Jeffery Record, “Theatre Nuclear Weapons: Begging the Soviet Union to Pre-empt”, Surviva, 19, 5 (September/October 1977) 208–11.
The American Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) divides Soviet nuclear targets into four categories: opposing nuclear forces and other “hard targets”; economic and recovery targets; political control mechanisms; and other military targets (OMT). OMT is the largest of the four categories, some 20 000 comprising half the SIOP targets. See Desmond Ball, “Soviet ICBM Deployment”, Surviva, 22, 4 July/August 1980, pp. 176–70. On the uses of submarine-launched missiles against OMT, see Desmond J. Ball, “The Counterforce Potential of American SLBM systems,” Journal of Peace Researc, 1 (1977) 23–40.
See his “NATO Myths,” Foreign Polic, 45 (Winter 1981–82) 55. This section owes much to Freedman.
See Robert Kennedy, “Soviet Theater-Nuclear Forces: Implications for NATO Defense,” Orbi (Summer 1981).
Alton Frye, “Nuclear Weapons in Europe: No Exit from Ambivalence,” Surviva, 22,3 (May/June 1980) 98–106.
For a summary version of the INF episode, see my “NATO Alliance Politics,” ch 13 of Richard K. Betts., ed., Cruise Missiles: Technology, Strategy, Politic (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1981). See also the House report cited above, note 11; and David C. Elliot, Decision at Brussels: the Politics of Nuclear Force, California Seminar Discussion Paper No. 97 (Santa Monica, Cal, 1981).
Stephen R. Hanmer, Jr, “NATO’s Long Range Theatre Nuclear Forces: Modernization in Parallel with Arms Control,” NATO Revie, 28 (February 1980) 1–6. For more detail on the deliberations leading to the December 1979 decision, see Elliot, cited above, note 22.
Richard Neustadt’s conclusion about the Skybolt affair is even more apt with regard to the MLF: … Macmillan … made what seems to me a classic error in high policy or politics: he pursued objectives, diplomatic and political, designed as something else, a military posture, which was suspect in its own terms, liable to attack or ridicule or both” Alliance Politic (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970) p. 147.
See Hans Rattinger’s chapter on the Federal Republic in Hans Rattinger and Gregory Flynn, eds, The Public and Atlantic Defens, forthcoming from the Atlantic Institute for International Affairs, Paris.
See McGeorge Bundy, George F. Kennan, Robert S. McNamara and Gerard Smith, “Nuclear Weapons and the Atlantic Alliance,” Foreign Affair, 60,4 (Spring 1982) 753–68.
West German Foreign Minister Dietrich Genscher joined his American counterpart Alexander Haig, in criticizing the proposal by Bundy et a, in the latter’s case before the proposal had even been published. For the German counter-argument, see Karl Kaiser, Georg Leber, Alois Mertes and Franz-Josef Schulze, “Nuclear Weapons and the Preservation of Peace,” Foreign Affair, 60,5 (Summer 1982) 1157–70. For background and analysis of the NFU issue, see John D. Steinbruner and Leon V. Sigal, eds, Alliance Security: NATO and the No-First Use Questio (Washington, The Brookings Institution, 1983).
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© 1985 Gregory F. Treverton
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Treverton, G.F. (1985). The Nuclear Dilemma. In: Making the Alliance Work. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07399-3_2
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