Reducing Short-Range Nuclear Systems in Europe: An Opportunity for Stability in the Eighties

Assumptions about European security that have sustained the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance since the 1950s are coming apart. Although steady Soviet force improvements continue, many European observers no longer see the Warsaw Pact as an overwhelming conventional force. Some think new conventional weapons technologies could hold the line; others just worry less about the danger of invasion. Strategic parity among superpowers has called NATO's flexible-response strategy into question, just as growing minorities have begun to ask whether nuclear weapons have become more menace than deterrent, thereby inhibiting nuclear weapon modernization plans. Arms control has lost credibility as a solution because there has been so little in contrast to the pace of weapons development and deployment. Some new, orderly pattern that restores support for NATO defense and credibility to the arms control process is badly needed. One way to begin is to draw down tactical nuclear arsenals on both sides, which could reduce the risk of nuclear war in Europe, enhance conventional strength, and support the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks and intermediate-range nuclear forces negotiations.