Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons Updated July 15, 2021 Congressional Research Service
Download 1.22 Mb. View original pdf
|
CRS RL32572 Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons-2020
| Force Structure Throughout the Cold War, the United States often altered the size and structure of its nonstrategic nuclear forces in response to changing capabilities and changing threat assessments. It deployed these weapons at US. bases in Asia, and at bases on the territories of several of the NATO allies, contributing to NATO’s sense of shared responsibility for the weapons. The United States began to reduce these forces in the late s, with the numbers of operational nonstrategic nuclear warheads declining from more than 7,000 in the mid-1970s to below 6,000 in the s, to fewer than 1,000 by the middle of the s These reductions occurred, for the most part, because US. and NATO officials believed they could maintain deterrence with fewer, but more modern, weapons. For example, when the NATO allies agreed in 1970 that the United States should 31 “ The United States retains substantial nuclear capabilities in Europe to counter Warsaw Pact conventional superiority and to serve as a link to US. strategic nuclear forces National Security Strategy of the United States, White House, January 1988, p. 16. 32 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, The Alliance’s Strategic Concept NATO Office of Information and Press, Brussels, Belgium, 1991, para. 8. 33 Ibid, para. 55. 34 Toward a Nuclear Peace The Future of Nuclear Weapons in US. Foreign and Defense Policy, Report of the CSIS Nuclear Strategy Study Group, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1993. p. 27. Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons Congressional Research Service 12 deploy new intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe, they decided to remove 1,000 older nuclear weapons from Europe. And in 1983, in the Montebello Decision, when the NATO defense ministers approved additional weapons modernization plans, they also called fora further reduction of 1,400 nonstrategic nuclear weapons. 35 These modernization programs continued through the s. In his 1988 Annual Report to Congress, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger noted that the United States was completing the deployment of Pershing II intermediate-range ballistic missiles and ground-launched cruise missiles in Europe modernizing two types of nuclear artillery shells upgrading the Lance short- range ballistic missile continuing production of the nuclear-armed version of the Tomahawk sea- launched cruise missile and developing anew nuclear depth/strike bomb for US. naval forces. 36 However, by the end of that decade, as the Warsaw Pact dissolved, the United States had canceled or scaled back all planned modernization programs. In 1987, it also signed the Intermediate- Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which eliminated all US. and Soviet ground-launched shorter and intermediate-range ballistic and cruise missiles. 37 Download 1.22 Mb. Share with your friends:
|