A group of experts, including former officials from offices of State, Defence and military services, have sent a letter to NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to offer a series of recommendations for the Alliance's Deterrence and Defence Posture Review.
We concluded the first leg of our series of Hewlett-sponsored seminars with a two-day, high-level meeting in Brussels on May 23-24, 2011, shortly after the deterrence and defence posture review launch in Berlin. The timing was ideal.
BASIC held a roundtable in Rome on June 15, 2011 in cooperation with the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI). The roundtable explored Italian perspectives on the future of NATO\’s nuclear posture and burden sharing. It also looked at Italy\’s position on the current debate about tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) in Europe.
The main points raised at the roundtable were as follows:
Officials have increasingly become concerned that disagreements over U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe could seriously harm Alliance unity, as NATO defense ministers prepare to meet this week. Although not the main issue for discussion at the meeting in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday, tactical nuclear weapons are up for consideration as part of NATO’s ongoing Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR).
Debate in Europe about the role and future of tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) has revealed different positions between allies. NATO considered first, its new Strategic Concept, and now embarks on a review of the deterrence and defense posture.
This BASIC/ACA/IFSH report is the fruit of a year’s informal discussions involving policy makers and diplomats from key NATO member states, at events across Europe before and after the NATO Lisbon summit last November.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has warned that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Department of Defense (DOD) could be in danger of failing to meet B61 Life Extension Program (LEP) goals and leave the United States unable to support its tactical nuclear deployments that are assigned to NATO.
This week has already witnessed a great deal of jubilation around the world for the rooting out and killing of Osama bin Laden, with the usual army of armchair commentators giving divergent opinions as the importance this has to the global threat, the project that used to operate under the name ‘War on Terror’, and ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.