Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Their Purpose and Placement

This study answers the question -- Why does America have tactical nuclear weapons TNWs in Europe today treating America and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO as unitary actors and using a comparative history of three time periods. In the 1950s, the United States, in conjunction with NATO, placed atomic weapons in several European locations. As the Soviet empire began to falter in the 1990s, NATO and the United States reexamined the role of TNWs in their respective strategies. By the 2000s, various aspects of the weapons in Europe needed to be refurbished for them to remain viable. The need for a life extension program drove the latest reappraisal of TNWs in NATO and the United States security strategies. Answering questions on threats, value, emplacement, and employment is facilitated through an examination of the evolution of TNWs as a character in these strategies. An intricate cycle of interaction between diplomatic, economic, and military concerns was uncovered. As the threats to states interests diminish and reappear the value of TNWs in countering these dangers fluctuates, but the presence of these nuclear weapons always induces uncertainty in an adversary with extremely high consequences for making the wrong decision. The value of TNWs lies in their ambiguity. In the 1950s NATO and American security strategies relied heavily on their destructive power to deter the USSR and defeat an attack should deterrence fail. The dissolution of the Soviet Bloc in the 1990s changed the value of TNWs. In light of the uncertainty and threat of regional disputes expanding into global conflicts, TNWs were maintained in Europe to stabilize NATO and ensure the Alliance had the means to enforce its security strategy.