ABSTRACT
The debate over NATO strategy during the last several years has focused in large part on the nuclear threshold. The argument that this threshold needs to be raised has won widespread approval. Differences remain, of course, over the extent to which NATO should decrease its reliance on nuclear weapons. Proponents of 'no first use' regard NATO's reliance on threats of nuclear escalation as dangerous, unnecessary, unethical and lacking in credibility. Other observers, though, believe that such a shift is unnecessary and undesirable: minimising the punitive element in NATO strategy could seriously weaken deterrence. Yet even many of those who reject 'no first use' as a desirable option accept that NATO should move towards 'delayed first use'. Indeed, there is a broad consensus that NATO needs to strengthen its conventional forces, and thereby reduce its reliance on nuclear escalation in response to Soviet conventional aggression. Such action, it is generally accepted, would raise the nuclear threshold.
