NATO's Future Nuclear Dimension: Managing Expectations for the Strategic Concept Debate
Abstract
At NATO's 60th Anniversary Summit in April 2009, the Alliance's Heads of State and Government agreed that work should start on the development of a new Strategic Concept. The momentum for such a decision had been building up for quite some time. Over the past few years, NATO's growing number of operations and missions, and in particular its engagement in Afghanistan, have put strains both on the Allies' military capabilities and their political consensus. In addition, Russia's new assertiveness, and notably the war in Georgia in August 2008, fueled a debate on the proper balance between collective defense at home and expeditionary missions abroad. Finally, the fact that new threats, such as a cyber attack or an energy cut-off, do not affect all Allies in quite the same way, has also led to calls for a re-definition of the meaning of Alliance solidarity. In short, ten years after the publication of the current Strategic Concept, there were found to be a number of good reasons to develop a new document. Initially, nuclear issues did not really feature among these reasons. Despite the long battle of a range of NGOs against NATO's nuclear sharing arrangements and the deployment of U.S. nonstrategic nuclear weapons on the soil of some European Allies, NATO's nuclear "acquis" has long been considered as essentially sound. Neither doubts in expert circles about the military utility of aircraft armed with nuclear gravity bombs, nor occasional anti-nuclear sentiments in the Parliaments of some NATO countries, would trump the logic of Alliance reassurance and risksharing.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA519704
Entities
People
- Michael Rühle
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School