Ahead of an important Oct. 14 meeting of NATO defense and foreign ministers to discuss the alliance’s draft “Strategic Concept,” two nuclear arms control and security experts are calling for the alliance to initiate a comprehensive review of outdated NATO nuclear policy at their Lisbon summit in November. The aim of the effort, they argue, should be to reduce the role and salience of nuclear weapons and support reductions of U.S. and Russian tactical nuclear bombs.

Volume 1, Number 24

In the run-up to the Nov. 19-20 NATO Summit in Lisbon, today a group of over 30 senior European leaders, including former Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers and Defense Ministers from Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the Slovac Republic, and the United Kingdom, released a joint statement declaring that "NATO should make disarmament a core element of its approach to providing security."

Some habits, even dangerous ones, are hard to break. The Cold War is long over, but there are nearly 200 U.S. tactical nuclear bombs on NATO military bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey. Russia, which has an even larger stockpile of tactical nuclear bombs, refuses to enter into talks to limit them, citing the U.S. deployments in Europe.

NATO is revising its Strategic Concept; the alliance is due to complete work on the document in November. A key issue in the revision is the deployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe as part of the alliance’s policy of extended nuclear deterrence. Although Turkey has long been in agreement with its allies on the value of these forward deployments, it may soon find itself in a delicate position on the question of how to continue the policy effectively.

With other NATO countries such as Luxembourg and Norway supporting them, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands have indicated a desire to reassess the case for continued deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons on their territories. Should these countries advocate withdrawal of U.S. weapons from Europe, Turkish decision-makers might conclude that two fundamental principles of the alliance, namely solidarity and burden sharing, have been seriously weakened. Those principles have been the basis for Turkey’s agreement, since the early 1960s, to the deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons on its soil.

A comment by NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on the importance of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe has put a spotlight on disagreements among member states on the alliance’s nuclear posture.

On the first day of an informal April 22-23 meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Tallinn, Estonia, Rasmussen said at a press conference, “I do believe that the presence of American nuclear weapons in Europe is an essential part of a credible deterrent.”

The foreign ministers of five NATO countries last month called for a discussion of what the alliance can do to advance nuclear arms control and said “the inclusion of sub-strategic nuclear weapons in subsequent steps towards nuclear disarmament” should be part of the discussion.