Managing NATO’s Nuclear Business: The Lessons of INF

Abstract

This chapter rests on three premises that are sharply different from the assumptions that underlie most of the other chapters in this book. The first is that dramatic resolutions of the nuclear dilemma in Europe will not happen. Those resolutions are, for the foreseeable future, either unwise or impossible, or both. The solutions would be worse than the problem. It is not a case of ‘NATO ain’t broke, so why fix it?’ Rather, the questions are ‘how broke?’ and ‘how fixable?’ if fixable means susceptible to bold departures that would resolve the dilemma. My answer to both those questions is ‘not very’. My second premise, then, is that the dilemma can only be managed, for better or worse. And the third is that if the dilemma can only be managed, it can be managed.