With the recent aggression by Russia in eastern Ukraine, NATO allies, especially those in the Baltic and Eastern Europe, have become increasingly concerned about a Russian occupation. NATO’s ability and will to meet the Russian threat has come under scrutiny from security experts. Former national security advisors Brent Scowcroft, Stephen J. Hadley, and former Defense Department nuclear policy advisor Franklin Miller argue that NATO-based nuclear weapons are essential for deterring a Russian invasion.
NATO members are supposed to find security in the Alliance’s nuclear arsenal. As Scowcroft, Hadley, and Miller point out, one of the main reasons that newer NATO members, such as Estonia, Lithuania, and Albania, joined the Alliance was to take advantage of the protections offered by a nuclear-capable NATO.
The U.S. has yet to modernize its tactical nuclear arsenal. In 2010, at the NATO Summit in Lisbon, the Alliance adopted the NATO Strategic Concept, explicitly stating that deterrence, both conventional and nuclear, is a fundamental element of its strategy. U.S. commitment to NATO as a nuclear-capable alliance is of the utmost importance if it is to effectively meet security threats, especially those posed by Russia.
A key component of NATO’s Strategic Concept is the provision that NATO must develop and maintain a full range of capabilities to meet most any threat. NATO’s Strategic Concept makes it clear that a modern nuclear weapons capability is essential to the Alliance’s defense and deterrence strategy.
Some argue that American NATO-based nuclear weapons are an ineffective tool for counteracting threats. Kingston Reif of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation suggests that nuclear weapons as deterrence are obsolete, because NATO’s overall conventional military forces are superior to Russia’s. While NATO countries do have militarily superior forces, Russia continues to expand and improve its nuclear and military capabilities. Moscow has demonstrated its willingness to alter the post-Cold War security situation in Europe by its recent exploits in Crimea. Russia’s military posturing on Ukraine’s border shows that Russia continues to pose a threat to U.S. allies in Europe.
The main purposes of U.S. nuclear weapons posture are deterrence and assurance. U.S. nuclear forces in Europe provide both. Failure to maintain a nuclear-capable NATO will further damage U.S. credibility, severely weaken the Alliance, and empower Russia at an increasingly dangerous time.
Steve Smolinsky is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please click here.
