NATO's Nuclear Posture

As part of its military doctrine, NATO relies on nuclear weapons, including the strategic nuclear arsenals of the United States and the United Kingdom, and U.S. B61 tactical gravity bombs based in five other member states as part of NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements. Leaders and constituencies from NATO member states hold different views on how much emphasis the Alliance should place on the nuclear component of its military doctrine, and what the composition of the nuclear forces should look like.

BASIC has been running a series of regular roundtables and consultations with officials from NATO states to discuss Alliance nuclear doctrine and deployments since 2008. In 2010 we started a joint project with the Arms Control Association (ACA) and the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH), funded mainly by the Hewlett Foundation, involving roundtables across Europe and in Washington, to engage member states in a positive and open discussion in the context of the new Strategic Concept.

Below are recent and selected resources pertinent to these debates.

BASIC Executive Director Paul Ingram on NATO Nuclear Sharing
Click here to watch interview with NPT TV on Vimeo 
Also see related interview on The NATO Strategic Concept Review

• Nuclear Dilemmas Remaining After Chicago, Ted Seay, May 2012, ACA/BASIC/IFSH Nuclear Policy Paper No. 10.
   
• A Visit to Moscow: Disarmament, Arms Control, the Role of Nuclear Weapons, and NATO-Russia Strategic Dialogue, Paul Ingram reports on his visit to Moscow from November 28-29, 2011.

• Improving transparency on TNW: Building blocks for a NATO-Russia dialogue, report available on the website of IFSH.
  Roundtable event organized by ACA/BASIC/IFSH, held on November 17-18, 2011 in Berlin.
   
• The Future of NATO’s Nuclear Weapons, Amb. Rolf Nikel, November 2011, ACA/BASIC/IFSH Nuclear Policy Paper No. 9.

• Revising NATO’s Nuclear Posture: The way forward, Oliver Meier, August 2011, ACA/BASIC/IFSH Nuclear Policy Paper No. 8.

• Experts Urge NATO to Reduce Role of Nuclear Weapons and Open the Door for the Removal of U.S. Tactical Warheads, July 18, 2011
  -Letter to Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen
  -Joint Arms Control Association-BASIC press release
   
• NATO’s Nuclear Posture and Burden Sharing Agreements: an Italian Perspective, Laura Spagnuolo, June 15, 2011.

• Italy’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons, Laura Spagnuolo, May 20, 2011 (Italian translation)

• Nuclear Policy Papers from BASIC, IFSH and ACA Reducing the Role of Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Europe: Perspectives and Proposals on the NATO Policy Debate, Paul Ingram and Oliver Meier, Editors, May 12, 2011

• NATO’s Defense and Deterrence Posture Review: A French Perspective on Nuclear Issues, Paul Zajac, April 2011, ACA/BASIC/IFSH Nuclear Policy Paper No. 7.

• The United States, NATO’s Strategic Concept, and Nuclear Issues, Steven Pifer, April 2011, Nuclear Policy Paper No. 6. 

• Turkey, NATO & and Nuclear Sharing: Prospects after NATO’s Lisbon Summit, Mustafa Kibaroglu, April 2011, Nuclear Policy Paper No. 5.
   
• NATO’s new Strategic Concept and the future of tactical nuclear weapons, Oliver Meier, November 2010, ACA/BASIC/IFSH Nuclear Policy Paper No. 4.

• Current NATO Nuclear Policy, Rt Hon the Lord Browne of Ladyton (Des Browne), November 2010, ACA/BASIC/IFSH, Nuclear Policy Paper No. 3.

• Polish and Central European Priorities on NATO’s Future Nuclear Policy, Lukasz Kulesa, November 2010, ACA/BASIC/IFSH Nuclear Policy Paper No. 2.

• Options for arms control to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in NATO, Ambassador Peter Gottwald, November 2010, ACA/BASIC/IFSH Nuclear Policy Paper No. 1. 

NATO Shadow Summits

Numerous policy experts and officials attended these events organized around the two NATO summits in 2009 and 2010. They were organized by NATO Watch, BASIC, Bertelsmann Stiftung and ISIS-Europe, and supported by the Marmot Charitable Trust.

The Shadow NATO Summit II: Civil Society Perspectives on the Lisbon Summit and NATO’s New Strategic Concept
November 15 - 16, 2010

• Final Programme

The Shadow NATO Summit: Options for NATO - pressing the reset button on the strategic concept
March 31 - April 1, 2009

• Executive Summary
• Full Report

BASIC, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Elliott School of International Affairs, NATO Watch, and Strategy International have organized a two-day civil society Shadow NATO Summit for May 2012 with the support of the Marmot Trust, NATO Public Diplomacy Division, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. **Visit the link below to register.**

The Shadow NATO Summit III: Commitments, Capabilities and Connectivity: Implementing NATO’s new Strategic Concept
May 14-15, 2012

• Overview and Objectives
• Draft Agenda
  

Additional recent resources:

• NATO’s DDPR: What to expect and what needs to be done after Chicago, Paul Ingram and Oliver Meier, May 3, 2012

• The NATO Summit: Recasting the Debate over U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe, Arms Control Today article by Paul Ingram and Oliver Meier, May 2, 2012

• Guest Blog: Paul Ingram on NATO Nuclear Policy, Response to Christopher Ford’s blog post on “NATO, Nuclear Sharing and the INF Analogy,” New Paradigms Forum, April 25, 2011.
   
• NATO’s Nuclear Deterrence Posture and Baltic Security, Personal report based upon a roundtable held on March 15, 2011 at the International Centre for Defence Studies, Tallinn, Estonia, Paul Ingram, March 31, 2011.
  
  
• Experts Call NATO Strategic Concept ‘Missed Opportunity to Reduce Role of Obsolete Tactical Nukes from Europe’, joint BASIC and Arms Control Association press release, November 19, 2010.

• NATO ‘Experts Group’ misses an opportunity for leadership on nuclear posture, joint BASIC and Arms Control Association press release, May 17, 2010.

• Shifting NATO’s Nuclear Posture in 2010, event on Day Six of the NPT Review Conference, BASIC panel discussion at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York, May 10, 2010.

• Nuclear Options for NATO, Paul Ingram, BASIC Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference 2010 Papers —4 (PDF), April 2010. 

• Considering NATO’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons after the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, Chris Lindborg, BASIC Backgrounder (PDF), April 7, 2010.

• Mind the Gap: healing the NATO rift over U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe (PDF), BASIC, January 2010.  

Further Reading:

• Changing the narrative on U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, Anne Penketh, BASIC This Week, April 16, 2012

• Norway’s Approach to NATO’s Deterrence and Defence Posture Review, Julie Ronbeck, BASIC, April 2012

• A Nuclear Posture Review for NATO, Oliver Meier and Paul Ingram, Arms Control Today, October 2010.

• Non-Governmental Organization statement: Now is the time for action on “tactical” nuclear weapons
  May 14, 2010.

• NATO nuclear burden sharing and NPT obligations
  Laura Spagnuolo, BASIC Getting to Zero Paper (PDF), April 23, 2009. 

• Politics around U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in European host states
  Claudine Lamond and Paul Ingram, BASIC Getting to Zero Paper (PDF), January 15, 2009.

External Resources:

• Exit Strategies: The case for redefining NATO consensus on U.S. TNW, Wilbert van der Zeijden, Susi Snyder and Peter Paul Ekker, IKV Pax Christi, April 2012

• Looking Beyond the Chicago Summit: Nuclear Weaons in Europe and the Future of NATO, George Perkovich, Malcolm Chalmers, Steven Pifer, Paul Schulte, and Jaclyn Tandler, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 2012

• Withdrawal Issues: What NATO countries say about the future of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, Susi Snyder and Wilbert van de Zeijden, IKV Pax Christi, March 2011
   
• NATO Nuclear Weapons Policy
  Includes letter signed by 36 members of the European Leadership Network in support of reviewing and changing NATO’s nuclear posture, September 27, 2010.

• NATO and nuclear weapons: is a new consensus possible? Steven Andreasen, Malcolm Chalmers and Isabelle Williams,  RUSI Occasional Paper (PDF), August 2010.
   
• NATO’s Tactical Nuclear Dilemma, Malcolm Chalmers and Simon Lunn, RUSI Occasional Paper (PDF), March 2010.
   
• Nuclear Weapons in Germany: Broaden and Deepen the Debate, George Perkovich, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Policy Outlook (PDF), February 2010.
   
• NATO’s Strategic Concept (revised version released in November 2010)