GERMANY OPENS PANDORA’S BOX By Franklin Miller, George Robertson and Kori Schake The agreement that brought Germany’s ruling parties into coalition in November 2009 committed Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to “the withdrawal of all US nuclear weapons from Germany”. Senior Americans close to President Barack Obama are said to be similarly advocating the elimination of nuclear weapons stationed in NATO countries. We believe these steps would be damaging, both to Germany and the alliance as a whole. Since the 1950s, NATO countries have shared responsibility for the stationing and potential use of nuclear weapons. As NATO’s 1999 strategic concept states, the alliance believes that “the presence of US nuclear forces based in Europe and committed to NATO provides an essential political and military link between the European and North American members of the alliance, demonstrates alliance solidarity [and] the common commitment of its member countries to maintaining their security.” This formula has worked well over the decades, even as the threats facing NATO have changed, as has the alliance’s nuclear posture. Solidarity among NATO countries rests on the principle that all allies share the burden of defending NATO, and that defence still requires nuclear weapons. For Germany to want to remain under the nuclear umbrella while exporting to others the obligation of maintaining it is irresponsible.1 Moreover, the pressure some indication that the German created by Germany’s unilateral announcement will be unhelpful to other government may be moderating its countries, especially Turkey and the new member-states. Denied the protection position. of NATO’s nuclear weapons in Europe, Turkey would have additional reasons to worry about Iran’s nuclear programme – and perhaps to develop nuclear weapons of its own. Newer NATO members in Central Europe, who see in the nuclear weapons a symbol of US commitment to defend them, would be left feeling vulnerable. They are likely to respond by demanding that NATO move its forces and bases, now heavily concentrated in Germany, closer to Russian borders.
1 As this note is published there is
However, we believe that the proposal could be turned to advantage if NATO collectively negotiated with Moscow asymmetric but multilateral reductions to Russian and allied tactical nuclear arsenals. Such an approach would reaffirm NATO solidarity and the value of nuclear deterrence in preventing aggression, and thus advance the allies’ security. It would also set a positive example of western commitment to disarmament in advance of the 2010 review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Nuclear posture According to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), the US possesses about 1,200 tactical nuclear weapons, of which 500 are operational warheads (the rest are in storage or in the process of being dismantled). The FAS indicates that 200 of the operational weapons are 2 Federation of American Scientists, deployed in Europe, stationed with US and allied air crews in Germany, http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/03/ Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Turkey.2 They are all bombs, to be russia-2.php. delivered by aircraft. These 200-odd weapons are the residual force left after NATO cut 85 per cent of its tactical nuclear arsenal in the early 1990s and made additional cuts thereafter. Russia did not make corresponding cuts. NATO also reduced the readiness of its aircraft and crews involved in nuclear missions from response times measured
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