No issue in the area of European military security is more important or more vexed than that of nonstrategic (or tactical) nuclear weapons.

It figures centrally as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) weighs a new nuclear deterrence and defence posture. It complicates the issue of conventional arms control and impinges on the next phases of strategic nuclear arms negotiations between the United States and Russia. But Russia and the United States remain not only at loggerheads in their views of the issue, the issue itself has yet to be engaged in active official dialogue or negotiations. The Working Group on Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons, rather than pretending to offer a single “right” approach to resolving the issue, instead lays out the many, complex aspects of the problem, and suggests alternative ways that many of these might be addressed were the United States/NATO and Russia to tackle them.

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The opinions articulated above represent the views of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the position of the European Leadership Network or any of its members. The ELN’s aim is to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security challenges of our time.