Theater-Nuclear Force Modernization and NATO's Flexible Response Strategy

Abstract

In October 1979 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization adopted a resolution that recommended modernization of NATO's long-range theater-nuclear forces. Based upon the deployment in Western Europe of 108 Pershing II missile and 464 ground-launched cruise missile launchers, the NATO decision was widely regraded as an essential step in redressing the deteriorating military balance in Europe. The perceived erosion of the European balance is rooted in the momentum of programs undertaken by the Soviet Union both in nuclear and nonnuclear forces. From a European perspective, however, the most worrisome aspect of Soviet modernization programs relates to improvements in theater-nuclear systems which, when juxtaposed with the development of a potential counterforce capability (against U.S. ICBMs), have reinforced doubts about the ability of the Alliance to ensure deterrence by means of the agreed strategy of Flexible Response, with its attendant concepts of defensive planning and graduated response providing for conventional and nuclear options. To enhance the deterrence posture of NATO and to provide for a contingency in which the actual use of NATO's nuclear-capable systems might become necestheater-nuclear forces and, at the same time, revitalize its tactical planning options.