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CRS-6
This definition will not, however, prove sufficient when discussing current and
future issues associated with these weapons. Since the early 1990s, the United States
and Russia have withdrawn from deployment most of their nonstrategic nuclear
weapons and eliminated many of the shorter and medium-range launchers for these
weapons (these changes are discussed in more detail below). Nevertheless, both
nations maintain roles for these weapons in their national security strategies. Russia
has enunciated a national security strategy that allows for the possible use of nuclear
weapons in regional contingencies and conflicts near the periphery of Russia. The
Bush Administration, has also stated that the United States will maintain those
capabilities in its nuclear arsenal that it might need counter the capabilities of
potential adversaries. The Administration does not, however, identify whether those
capabilities will be resident on strategic or nonstrategic nuclear weapons. That
distinction will reflect the nature of the target, not the yield or delivery vehicle of the
attacking warhead.
U.S. and Soviet Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons
U.S. Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons During the Cold War
Throughout the Cold War, the United States deployed thousands of shorter-
range nuclear weapons with U.S. forces based in Europe, Japan, and South Korea and
on ships around the world. The United States maintained these deployments to
extend deterrence and to defend its allies in Europe and Asia. Not only did the
presence of these weapons (and the presence of U.S. forces, in general) increase the
likelihood that the United States would come to the defense of its allies if they were
attacked, the weapons also could have been used on the battlefield to slow or stop the
advance of the adversaries' conventional forces. The weapons in Asia also
contributed to U.S. efforts to defend its allies there from potential threats from China
and North Korea.
Strategy and Doctrine. In most cases, these weapons were deployed to
defend U.S. allies against aggression by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies,
but it did not rule out their possible use in contingencies with other adversaries. In
Europe, these weapons were a part of NATO's strategy of "flexible response." Under
this strategy, NATO did not insist that it would respond to any type of attack withnuclear weapons, but it maintained the capability to do so and to control escalation
if nuclear weapons were used. This approach was intended to convince the Soviet
Union and Warsaw Pact that any conflict, even one that began with conventional
weapons, could result in nuclear retaliation.2 As the Cold War drew to a close,
NATO acknowledged that it would no longer maintain nuclear weapons to deter or
defeat a conventional attack from the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact because "the
threat of a simultaneous, full-scale attack on all of NATO's European fronts has
2 "The United States retains substantial nuclear capabilities in Europe to counter Warsaw
Pact conventional superiority and to serve as a link to U.S. strategic nuclear forces."
National Security Strategy of the United States, White House, January 1988, p. 16.
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Woolf, Amy F. Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons, report, September 9, 2004; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs6104/m1/9/: accessed May 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.