ABSTRACT

Nuclear proliferation is not what it used to be. In the 1960s, proliferation issues were integrally related to alliance management, causing divisions in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that were perhaps most obvious when Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, in a famous speech at Ann Arbor, Michigan, characterized independent nuclear deterrent forces as “dangerous, expensive, prone to obsolescence and lacking in credibility.” 1 Directed primarily at France and Britain, this speech – and the sentiment it embodied – created tensions in Atlantic relations that were not fully resolved until the end of the Cold War.